The two contenders in Thursday night’s NBA London Game at the 02 Arena, the Boston Celtics and the Philadelphia 76ers, are amongst the two oldest teams in the NBA. Indeed, they were there from day one. Essentially, the NBA was formed in 1946, in a form back then known as the Basketball Association of America. There were eight teams, one of which was the Celtics as we still know them today, and another of which were the Syracuse Nationals, the forerunner of what we now call the Philadelphia 76ers after a relocation in 1963. Both teams played in what was then the Eastern Division – with only eight teams in the league in total at the time of its foundation, there were no conferences, and only two divisions. And with so few teams in the league in its early days, these two teams played each other extremely regularly.