NEW YORK — Ralph Kaplowitz, who played in the first NBA game and on the league's first championship team, has died. He was 89.

"I'm sure he was proud of it, but it wasn't something he bragged about or even would tell people up front," his daughter, Barbara Kaplowitz, said.

Kaplowitz, who lived in Floral Park, New York, died Feb. 2 after a short illness.

He started for the New York Knicks on Nov. 1, 1946, when they played at the Toronto Huskies in the first game of the Basketball Association of America, the NBA's forerunner.

Kaplowitz was traded to the Philadelphia Warriors later that season and averaged 7.0 points as the team won the league's first title.

Kaplowitz starred at New York University and was inducted into the school's Athletics Hall of Fame in 1986.