It is the second league to use the ABL name. The ABL was the first basketball league to have a three-point field goal for shots scored far away from the goal. Other rules that set the league apart were a 30-second shooting clock and a wider free throw lane of 18 feet instead of the standard 12. The league was formed when Harlem Globetrotters owner Abe Saperstein was not awarded the Los Angeles National Basketball Association (NBA) franchise he felt he had been promised in return for his years of supporting the NBA with doubleheader games featuring his highly popular Trotters. When Minneapolis Lakers owner Bob Short was permitted to move the Lakers to Los Angeles, Saperstein reacted by convincing National Alliance of Basketball Leagues (NABL) team owner Paul Cohen (Tuck Tapers) and Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) National Champion Cleveland Pipers owner George Steinbrenner to take the top NABL and AAU teams and players and form a rival league. Saperstein was secretly planning the new league since 1959 but it is unclear whether he would have abandoned these plans were he granted the NBA franchise.[1] In reality, Saperstein and Cohen each secretly made arrangements with local promoters in the other cities to finance those teams so there would be an eight-team league.