1923–1991 CSKA was founded on 29 April 1923, then known as
OPPV, when on that day soldiers and sportsmen fought in
football against each other for the first place of Moscow. "OPPV", which means
Опытно-показательная военно-спортивная площадка всевобуча, a department in the General military education service, was the first central sports department of the
Red Army. It was based on the pre-revolutionary "Community of Amateur Skiers". The star player of CSKA was
Nando de Colo, who was named both the season
EuroLeague MVP, and the
EuroLeague Final Four MVP. In 2016–2017, CSKA reached the Final Four again, but once again lost to Olympiacos in the semifinals. CSKA beat Real Madrid to win 3rd place. In
2017-18 season CSKA finished with a 24–6 record. Qualifying to the Final Four, however, CSKA suffered a complete fiasco - losing to Real Madrid in the semifinals, and to
BC Žalgiris in the 3rd place game. In the
VTB United League, CSKA secured their 9th title after defeating
Khimki 95:84 in the
2018 Final Four. In the
next season CSKA finished at the 2nd place of the regular season, securing its 17th
Final Four appearance in the 21 century. In
Vitoria-Gasteiz the club made a comeback during the semifinals against Real Madrid and beat
Anadolu Efes in the final, achieving 8th title in club's history. CSKA also won the
VTB United League, sweeping Khimki 3:0 in the finals. There were changes in the 2019–20 season. Defending champion CSKA Moscow played steady until November, when they suffered four losses in a row, stepping down to the 6th position at worst. Due to the
COVID-19 pandemic, CSKA and all other teams quit playing after the 28th round; there was no winner declared. At the time of the season's stopping, CSKA was behind Khimki in the VTB standings. The tournament was also stopped with no winner being announced. In the 2020-2021 season, CSKA again lead in the EuroLeague standings for much of the season, before repeated conflicts by Itoudis, CSKA management, and
Mike James resulted in James, team leader, leaving the team in March. While losing the first place in the standings to FC Barcelona, CSKA went all the way to the EuroLeague Final Four. CSKA, however, lost to Efes in the semifinals, and were beaten by
EA7 Emporio Armani Milan in the third place game, thus finishing the season in disappointing 4th place. In the VTB United League, despite finishing the regular season in just 4th place, CSKA beat
Nizhny Novgorod 2-1 in the quarterfinals, regular season winners
Zenit Saint Petersburg 3-1 in the semifinals, and
UNICS Kazan 3-0 in the finals to win the VTB United League once again.
2022–present In early 2022, upon the outbreak of the
2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine,
Tornike Shengelia from Georgia left the club (saying: "Everyone says it was a difficult or big decision, but it was not. First of all, I felt that my family was threatened, even though the war was not in Moscow. With war you never know what will occur, one second is enough for something to happen. The first thing I wanted to do was to send my family away and then I made the decision to depart too."),
Johannes Voigtmann from Germany ("I can't reconcile myself playing for a Russian team.... The Russian president is responsible for a brutal war, because of which innocent people are dying in Ukraine. Millions of people have to flee their homes, and children, in particular, are losing their homes or even their lives. I just couldn't stay in Russia and carry on as if nothing had happened...."),
Gabriel Lundberg from Denmark,
Marius Grigonis from Lithuania, Italian-American
Daniel Hackett, and Russian-American
Joel Bolomboy all left the team. Canadian-Slovenian
Kevin Pangos who signed with CSKA one day before the war started never joined the team. The team informed them all that the departure means violating of their contracts and reached the agreements on terminating the contracts with all but one player, Joel Bolomboy, who was given a letter of clearance by FIBA to sign for
Olympiacos Piraeus when his CSKA contract expired in summer of 2022. CSKA informed about the intention to sue Bolomboy for breaching his CSKA agreement earlier. On February 28, 2022,
EuroLeague Basketball suspended the team because of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. On March 22, 2022, CSKA, UNICS Kazan, and Zenit St. Petersburg were disqualified from the EuroLeague. In October 2022, CSKA Moscow president Andrey Vatutin said: "Owners and sponsors are in crisis and are not interested in spending big money just to participate in the VTB league – therefore the budget is reduced. We have left the international scene, so CSKA's role in world basketball is declining." In the VTB United League, CSKA made the finals once again. Despite leading 3-1 in the finals, CSKA lost the last three games to Zenit St. Petersburg, who won the VTB title with a 4-3 series win - for the first time since 2010-2011, CSKA did not win the competition. Greek head coach
Dimitrios Itoudis left the team in June 2022, immediately after losing the final game to Zenit, with one year remaining on his contract. ==Home arenas==