1946 World Professional Basketball Tournament

The 1946 World Professional Basketball Tournament was the eighth edition of the World Professional Basketball Tournament. It was held in Chicago, Illinois, during the days of 25 March - 8 April 1946 and featured 14 teams, with the teams mostly comprising a mixture of independently ran teams and teams from the National Basketball League, alongside the addition of the American Basketball League's champion team that year, the Baltimore Bullets. This year's tournament would also be the only WPBT event where the championship match and the third place match would be in a best of three format instead of a winner takes all format. The event had a home town team for local fans to cheer on during the tournament with the Chicago American Gears of the NBL, but they would be knocked out by the semifinal round against the NBL's Oshkosh All-Stars due to Oshkosh fouling out star center George Mikan and stealing the match away from them afterward. The tournament was won by the Fort Wayne Zollner Pistons, who won their third straight championship in the event (and final championship in the WPBT's history), though wouldn't also win the NBL's championship alongside it due to the Rochester Royals winning that league's championship that year, after defeating the Oshkosh All-Stars (under what later became their final year competing for the championship in that event) 2–1 in the championship series. The Chicago American Gears came in third after beating the Baltimore Bullets 2–0 in the third-place best-of-three series. Despite his team not even participating in the championship series, George Mikan of the American Gears was named the tournament's Most Valuable Player after finishing as its top scorer with 100 points in five games.