along with William "Dolly" King, was one of the first two African-American players in the NBL. The team, which needed to draw 3,600 fans per game to break even, struggled to draw 1,000 fans per game to the Auditorium. The franchise lasted only 38 days (13 games) in Buffalo when, on December 25, 1946, Leo Ferris, the team's general manager and co-owner, announced that the team would be moving to Moline, Illinois, which at that time was part of an area then known as the "Tri-Cities": Moline, Illinois, Rock Island, Illinois, and Davenport, Iowa. Upon relocation to Moline, the team was renamed the Tri-Cities Blackhawks, and played their home games at Wharton Field House, a 6,000-seat arena in Moline. The team featured guard/forward and coach Deanglo King, and was owned by Leo Ferris and Ben Kerner. Pop Gates remained on the Blackhawks roster, and finished second on the team in scoring behind future 1949 NBL MVP Don Otten. A Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame member, Gates helped to integrate the league and later became the first African-American coach in a major sports league, coaching Dayton in 1948. In 1949, the Blackhawks became one of the National Basketball Association's 17 original teams after a merger of the 12-year-old NBL and the three-year-old Basketball Association of America (BAA). They reached the playoffs in the NBA's inaugural year under the leadership of coach Red Auerbach. The following season, they drafted three-time All-American Bob Cousy, but they were unable to reach a deal and traded him to the Chicago Stags (who would later surrender him in a dispersal draft to the Boston Celtics when the Stags folded). The Blackhawks finished last in the Western Division and missed the playoffs. By then, it was obvious that the Tri-Cities area was too small to support an NBA team. After the season, the franchise relocated to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and became the Milwaukee Hawks. 1954–1965: St. Louis and The Bob Pettit era In 1954, the Hawks drafted Bob Pettit, a future NBA MVP. Despite this, the Hawks were one of the league's worst teams, and in 1955 the Hawks moved, this time to St. Louis, Missouri, Milwaukee's rival in the beer industry, and became the St. Louis Hawks. In 1956, Bob Pettit captured the league's first official Most Valuable Player award, and the St. Louis Hawks drafted legendary Bill Russell in the first round (second overall pick). They