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New York
Maryland
Texas
California
Illinois (mainly Chicago)
New jersey (though only Bergen/Essex/Hudson counties. Think St. Patrick's/St. Anthony's).
All bring in a lot of talent.
The Maryland area gets overlooked. Guess where the prohibitive favorite for NBA MVP came from?? That's right, a Maryland suberb of DC.
Don't know why Pennsylvania is not mentioned more. According to Basketball-Reference.com PA has the fourth most NBA/ABA players from it behind California, New York, and Illinois. Hall of Famers from PA include Wilt Chamberlain, Pete Marivich, Earl Monroe, Paul Arizon, Jack Twyman, Maurice Stokes, Bob Davies, Tom Gola, Buddy Jeannette among others and that doesn't even include guys that were born in other places but grew up in PA. Current NBA players include Kobe Bryant (future hall of famer), Tyreke Evans, Rip Hamilton, Kyle Lowry, Jameer Nelson, and Rasheed Wallace among plenty others. There are about 25 guys in the NBA right now from PA or about 7% of league.
PA also is huge in college basketball. Philadelphia has the big 5 (Temple, St. Joe's, Drexel, La Salle, and Penn) and the city 6 (all those schools plus Villanova). I don't know another city that has that many good college teams. Then throw Pitt and Duquesne in there from Pittsburgh. You can also throw in small schools like Bucknell, Saint Francis, and Lehigh (who has one of the nations best players in CJ McCollum) who make NCAA tournaments every once in a while and you have about 11 schools (or 12 if you include Penn State which isn't that good but plays in a big conference) that could realistically make the NCAA tournament on any given year. Usually about 5 to 7 schools from PA will actually make it.
High school basketball is also good. PA usually has a few teams ranked in the top 25 nationally every year. Chester High School is probably the top public high school basketball team in the country over the last 5 years which is really saying something considering the fact that some of there best players (i.e. Tyreke Evans) went to private school instead. The Philadelphia public leagues and catholic leagues are some of the toughest in the country.
Then on the proffesional level the 76ers, after Boston and LA, are one of the most storied franchises in the NBA (third most playoff wins and a bunch of legendary players like Wilt Chamberlain, Hal Greer, Paul Arizin, Julius Erving, Moses Malone, Charles Barkley, Allen Iverson among others)
I really think the mecca of basketball is the BosWash area. Mainly the area from DC to NYC. Even though there is a lot of people living in this region the amount of great players from this area compared to the population is disproportionately high. Three of the top five players in the NBA are from this area (Kobe, Durant and Carmelo). I added Boston in there just because basketball was invented in Massachusetts and thats where the hall of fame is. Also, there are a rediculous amount of legendary coaches from PA and this region in general.
Not saying that PA is neccessarily number one but it has to be top five. I'd say you could make a case for New York, Illinois, California, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Indiana, New Jersey, Louisiana, and Kentucky (which I believe has the most NBA/ABA players from it per capita)
Might want to have a read of that there Weeny...and don't tell me history doesn't matter. It definitely matters. It's generational.
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