Editing Washington Capitols (section)

==History==
{{Expand section|date=June 2008}}
The team was founded in 1946 as a charter BAA team; it became a charter NBA team in 1949. It folded on January 9, 1951 (with a 10–25 record).

The Capitols were one of seven teams that quickly left the NBA: The NBA contracted after the 1949–1950 season, losing six teams: The [[Anderson Packers]], [[Sheboygan Red Skins]] and [[Waterloo Hawks]] jumped to the [[National Professional Basketball League (1950–1951)|NPBL]], while the [[Chicago Stags]], [[Denver Nuggets (1948–1950)|Denver Nuggets]] and [[St. Louis Bombers (NBA)|St. Louis Bombers]] folded.  The league went from 17 teams to 11 before the 1950–1951 season started. Midway through the 1950–1951 season, the Washington Capitols folded as well, bringing the number of teams in the league down to ten.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_1950.html|title=1949-50 NBA Season Summary|website=Basketball-Reference.com}}</ref>

[[Earl Lloyd]], the first African American athlete to play for an NBA team, debuted for the Capitols in Rochester, New York on October 31, 1950.<ref name="Hsu">{{cite news| title=History Buffs Fight to Save Uline Arena; Coliseum Hosted Dylan, Beatles and Malcolm X|author=Spencer S. Hsu|newspaper=The Washington Post |date=June 12, 2003|id = {{ProQuest|409539211}}}}</ref>

The franchise played the 1951–52 season in the [[American Basketball League (1925–55)|American Basketball League]], but the team folded again in January, 1952.<ref>https://www.statscrew.com/basketball/roster/t-ABLWAC/y-1951</ref> The main reason why the team folded for the second time was related to them and the ABL being sued by the NBA if the new Capitols tried to take the NBA team name's history from them as well.<ref>https://nbahoopsonline.com/teams/Xdefunct/WashingtonCapitols/index.html</ref>

The teams wore green and white.  The NBA returned to the Washington, D.C. area in [[1973–74 NBA season|1973]], when the [[Baltimore Bullets (1963–73)|Baltimore Bullets]] became the Capital Bullets, now known as the [[Washington Wizards]].

The Capitols' 81.7 win percentage in the BAA's inaugural season was the highest in the NBA until surpassed by the Philadelphia 76ers in 1966–67. The Capitols captured two Divisional Championships: ([[1946–47 BAA season|1946–47]] and [[1948–49 BAA season|1948–49]]) and made the playoffs in ([[1946–47 BAA season|1947]], [[1947–48 BAA season|1948]] tie-breaker, [[1948–49 BAA season|1949]] and [[1949–50 NBA season|1950]]).