The Philippine Basketball Association, also known as PBA, is a Philippine professional basketball league. The rules and regulations followed in the said league are a combination of rules from the National Basketball Association widely known as NBA and the International Basketball Federation or the FIBA. Founded in 1975, It is the first and oldest professional basketball league in the Asia.

Founded as a rebellion of teams from the Manila Industrial and Commercial Athletic Association, the Philippine Basketball Association had its first season that opened in April 9, 1975. In its first season, 9 teams from the MICAA participated. These teams were the Mariwasa-Noritake, Crispa, Toyota, Concepcion Carrier, Royal Tru-Orange, CFC, 7-Up, Tanduay and U-Tex.

During the league's first ten years, many great rivalries were born. Considered the greatest rivalry, the Crispa Redmanizers and the Toyota Tamaraws had big names playing for them. Some of these great players are Robert Jaworski, Ramon Fernandez, Francis Arnaiz, Atoy Co, Bogs Adornado, and Philip Cezar.

Since 1990, the Philippine Basketball Association started to send its all-pro squads to the Asian Games.

The national team, headed by Chot Reyes, began to be active in the year 2005. The national team is composed of selected players from the Philippine Basketball Association and is called the Philippine National Basketball Team or "Team Pilipinas".

During 1975-2003, every season was composed of three conferences or tournaments. These were called All Filipino, Commissioner's and Governors Cups that usually had a format of best-of-7. The winner takes the Conference Cup. Regarding these tournaments, if a team wins all of the conferences, they are said to be the Grand Slam champion.

In 2004, Noli Eala, the sixth commissioner of the Philippine Basketball Association from 2003 to 2007, made drastic changes to the time the season was held. This change was due to the schedule of the international tournaments. They moved the season calendar as to accomodate the said international tournaments, usually held from June to September. The number of conferences was reduced from three to two and are held from February to October.

These new tournaments are the Philippine Cup and the Fiesta Conference. The former is held from October to February. In this Cup, only locals are allowed to play. The latter is held from March to June. In this conference, teams are allowed one foreign player called an "import". The Rookie Draft is held every August.

Every team is owned by a company and is not geographically based. The team's name often has three parts which are the company name, the product and a nickname. This team name changes only if the franchise is sold to another subsidiary.

The current teams are as follows:

TEAM JOINED TITLES
Air21 Express 2002 0
Alaska Aces 1986 12
Barangay Ginebra Kings 1979 7
Coca-Cola Tigers 2002 2
Magnolia Beverage Masters 1975 17
Purefoods Tender Juicy Giants 1988 7
Red Bull Barako 2000 3
Sta. Lucia Realtors 1993 2
Talk 'N Text Phone Pals 1990 1
Welcoat Dragons 2006-07 0


Sonny Barrios is the seventh and current commissioner of the Philippine Basketball Association.