- published: 22 Jul 2014
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John Albert Kundla (born July 3, 1916) is an American former college and professional basketball coach. He was the first head coach for the Minneapolis Lakers of the National Basketball Association (NBA) and its predecessor, the Basketball Association of America (BAA), serving 11 seasons, from 1948 to 1959. His teams won five league championships, one in the BAA and four in the NBA. Kundla was the head basketball coach at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis for one season in 1946–47, and at the University of Minnesota for ten seasons, from 1959 to 1968. He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1995.
After attending and playing basketball for Minneapolis Central High School, which closed in 1982, Kundla attended the University of Minnesota and was a standout for the Minnesota Golden Gophers basketball the late 1930s. Following graduation, he stayed on at the university as an assistant coach to Dave MacMillan. He would then move to the high school ranks as the head coach of DeLaSalle High School in Minneapolis, Minnesota. After two years there, the United States entered World War II, and Kundla joined the Navy, where he was assigned to LST units in both the European and Pacific theaters. After the war, he was hired to coach the College of St. Thomas.