Four NBL teams, including the Pistons, jumped over to the rival Basketball Association of America for the 1948-49 season. Fort Wayne fell to a 22-38 record and finished in fifth place in the BAA's Western Division.

Following the 1949 playoffs the NBL and BAA merged to form the National Basketball Association. The Pistons were placed in the Central Division, the circuit's toughest, along with the Minneapolis Lakers and the Rochester Royals. Fort Wayne put together a decent campaign at 40-28 and swept Rochester in the first round of the playoffs. However, the Pistons were no match for eventual NBA-champion Minneapolis Lakers, who eliminated them in two games. Fred Schaus led the team in scoring that season with an average of 14.3 points per game.

The Pistons finished in the middle of their division during each of the next four years. The team made the playoffs in all four of those seasons but survived the first round only once. In 1952-53, after getting by Rochester in the division semifinals, Fort Wayne extended the powerful Minneapolis Lakers to the limit in the Western Division Finals before bowing out in five games.

12 Seconds From Ecstasy

Led by Coach Charles Eckman, the Pistons forged a 43-29 record in the 1954-55 season and came within 12 seconds of winning the NBA championship. This was the first season in which the 24-second clock was used, transforming the previously plodding NBA into a running league. In the final game of the 1955 NBA Finals the Pistons built a 17-point second-quarter lead over Syracuse, then saw the Nationals claw their way back. As the fourth quarter waned, a free throw by George Yardley pulled the Pistons to a 91-91 tie. The Nats' George King followed with a free throw to give Syracuse a 92-91 edge; then King intercepted Fort Wayne's inbounds pass to seal the Pistons' fate.

The mainstays of the Fort Wayne team were Max Zaslofsky (a former league scoring titlist with the Chicago Stags who was finishing out his career), Mel Hutchins, and Yardley, who became the first player to score 2,000 points in a season when he reached 2,001 in 1957-58. The team also had a powerful center in 6-9, 250-pound Larry Foust, who was named to the All-NBA First Team in 1955. Foust finished the 1954-55 season with a career-high 17.0 points per game.

The 1955-56 Pistons reached the NBA Finals after winning the Western Division with a 37-35 record. However, they fell to the Philadelphia Warriors in five games. (It would be more than 30 years before the franchise would play for the championship again.)