1938–39 Sheboygan Red Skins season

The 1938–39 Sheboygan Red Skins season was the Red Skins' first year in the United States' National Basketball League (NBL), which would also be the second year the NBL itself existed after previously existing as either an amateur or semipro-based league called the Midwest Basketball Conference in its first two seasons of existence.^[1] However, if one were to include their few seasons they played as an independent team under a few various team names involving local businesses like the The Ballhorns (being sponsored by a local florist and funeral parlor), the Art Imigs (being sponsored by a local dry cleaning shop owned and operated by a man named Art Imig with team jerseys saying Art Imig's), and the Enzo Jels (being sponsored by a local gelatin manufacturer known as Enzo-Pac) at various points starting back in 1933 before becoming the Sheboygan Red Skins due to their promotion up into the NBL, this would officially be their sixth overall season of play as well. Unlike the first (and previous) season that the NBL officially existed under the name it would use for the rest of its existence as a professional basketball league where either three or four new teams would join the NBL following its rebranding from the MBC (depending on whether you count the rebranding of the Richmond King Clothiers to the Cincinnati Comellos as two new teams or not), the Sheboygan Red Skins would be the only new team to join the NBL in its second season of existence under that name after five other teams (including two of the newer NBL teams in the Cincinnati Comellos and Kankakee Gallagher Trojans) would drop out of the league entirely, though Sheboygan's introduction into the NBL would be a rather late one, as similar to their stateside rivals in the Oshkosh All-Stars, the Red Skins franchise would enter the NBL by December 1938 after the NBL's season began back in November, with Sheboygan entering the league on New Year's Eve of 1938.^[2] Despite the awkward timing of Sheboygan's inclusion into the NBL, the entire league would end up adjusting their schedules (including retroactively making some of the games prior NBL teams had played against the Red Skins official NBL games entering 1939) to allow for a relatively equal-looking number of games played for the rest of the league, including the Red Skins, with Sheboygan joining the now-eight team league going forward and the Red Skins entering the now-four team Western Division alongside the previously established four team Eastern Division.^[3]

When the NBL retroactively added the Sheboygan Red Skins into the NBL by the end of 1938, they would already end up having an above-average 7–5 record after playing with nearly every single team in games that were originally considered exhibition games with NBL teams at the time before they later got upgraded into official NBL scheduled games for this season. When the Red Skins played their first officially scheduled game by the NBL's own terms properly on January 2, 1939, on the road against the Indianapolis Kautskys, they would end up losing to the Kautskys with a 52–38 defeat, with their first home match two days later (which was held at the Eagles Auditorium.^[4]) ending with a 42–37 win over the Hammond Ciesar All-Americans. Sheboygan would later not win again in the NBL until near the end of the month on January 29 against Hammond, with them only winning two more times throughout the rest of the year in February (as well as hosting the last game played by the Warren Penns under that name alongside the penultimate game for the Cleveland White Horses under that name before they moved to Detroit the following season to become the Detroit Eagles for the rest of their existence) to end their first NBL season with a below-average 11–17 record. This record would result in them not qualifying for the NBL Playoffs for their first season in the league. Of course, even if they had finished in second place instead of automatically failed to qualify for the NBL Playoffs by finishing in third place this season, this season had the unique mold of having the NBL Playoffs only being the championship round involving the best teams of each division (which were the cityside rivaling Oshkosh All-Stars in the Western Division and the eventual champions in the Akron Firestone Non-Skids in the Eastern Division) competing against each other in a best-of-five series instead of a proper playoff formatting like other NBL seasons would have.

In addition to joining the NBL this season, the Sheboygan Red Skins would also join their cityside rivals in the Oshkosh All-Stars as the only two NBL teams to participate in the inaugural 1939 World Professional Basketball Tournament. Due to the odd number of teams participating in this particular version of the WPBT, there would not only be three different byes in the first round of the tournament, but also a bonus bye given out to one team in the quarterfinal round for just this specific event as well. With that being said, Sheboygan would not get those byes this time around (with the Oshkosh All-Stars actually being the team given the quarterfinal round bye out of all possible teams), meaning they would have to compete like most other teams participating in this event. While they would defeat the Illinois Grads replacement team that took over for the ABL's Philadelphia Sphas and the rivaling American Basketball League's Troy Celtics in the first two rounds of the event, the Red Skins could not get past the Oshkosh All-Stars in the semifinal round, with their third place consolation prize round loss to the world famous (all-black) Harlem Globetrotters ultimately showcasing what would become their best showcasing throughout their history in the WPBT throughout the ten years the World Professional Basketball Tournament existed. They would also see Ed Dancker get named into the inaugural All-Tournament Team after previously not having awards or honors being given out by the NBL whatsoever this season.