It will be hard to find Jews on the court in the National Basketball Association playoffs. But toss a basketball into an NBA owners’ meeting, and you’ll probably hit one. There are only three Jewish players in the NBA, and no Jewish head coaches. Yet nearly half the principal owners of NBA teams are Jewish, as are the league’s current commissioner and its immediate past commissioner. No other major pro league in the United States has such a high proportion of Jewish owners. The NFL comes closest: Roughly a third of that league’s owners are Jewish. Just a handful of pro baseball and hockey owners are Jews. So why do Jews own so many NBA teams? The answer has to do with the prehistory of pro basketball, the sport’s urban roots and the economics of the modern NBA. http://forward.com/articles/197643/why-are-so-many-pro-basketball-owners-jewish-like/