1951-52 NBA Season Standings

The Tri-Cities Blackhawks relocated to Milwaukee this season, becoming the Milwaukee Hawks (the franchise that would eventually become the modern Atlanta Hawks after further stops in St. Louis), continuing the era's rapid franchise instability just one year after the league's sharp post-merger contraction. Syracuse, led by Dolph Schayes, topped the Eastern Division, while Rochester edged Minneapolis for the Western Division crown, but it was George Mikan's Minneapolis Lakers who again prevailed in the postseason, beating the New York Knicks 4 games to 3 to capture their third NBA title in a row (fourth overall counting the 1948 BAA-legacy championship), cementing the Lakers as the league's first dynasty. Paul Arizin of the Philadelphia Warriors led the league in scoring with 1,674 points, part of a career that would later be interrupted by military service during the Korean War. The league had now stabilized at ten teams split evenly, five per division, following the prior season's sharp contraction and the Washington Capitols' mid-season folding — a level of stability that, after several turbulent post-merger years, would largely hold for the rest of the decade. Bob Cousy, still early in his Hall of Fame Celtics career, was beginning to establish himself as the league's most dazzling ball-handler.