Basketball is a sport in which two teams of five players each try to score points by
throwing a ball through a hoop (the basket) under organized rules.
Since its invention in 1891, it has developed to become a truly international sport. Organized league play
originated in the YMCA; early leagues were
formed in colleges. Basketball eventually became a professional
sport. Even though it was originally a North American sport, it quickly spread
internationally and outstanding players and teams are found today all over the
world.
Basketball is primarily an indoor sport, played in (the court). Points are
scored for passing the ball through the basket from above (shooting); the
team with more points at the end of the game wins. The ball can be advanced on
the court by bouncing it (dribbling) or passing it between teammates.
Disruptive physical contact (fouls) is not permitted and there are
restrictions on how the ball can be handled (violations).
Through time, basketball has developed to involve common techniques of
shooting, passing and dribbling, as well as players' positions, and offensive
and defensive structures. While competitive basketball is carefully regulated,
variations have developed for casual
play. Basketball is also a popular spectator sport. Basketball is unique in that it was invented by one person, rather than evolving
from a different sport. In early December 1891, Dr. James Naismith, a Canadian-born physician and minister on the faculty of
a college for YMCA professionals (today, Springfield
College) in Springfield, Massachusetts, sought
a vigorous indoor game to keep young men occupied during the long New England winters. Legend has
it that, after rejecting other ideas as either too rough or poorly suited to
walled-in gymnasiums, he wrote the basic
rules, and nailed a peach basket onto the 10 foot elevated track. The first
official game was played in the YMCA gymnasium on January 20, 1892. At that time, it was played with nine players on a
court just half the size of a present-day NBA
court. "Basket ball", the name suggested by one of his students, was popular
from the beginning, and with its early adherents being dispatched to YMCAs
throughout the United States, the game was soon played all over the country.
Interestingly, while the YMCA was responsible for initially developing and
spreading the game, within a decade, it discouraged the new sport, as rough play
and rowdy crowds began to detract from the YMCA's primary mission. Other amateur
sports clubs, colleges, and professional clubs quickly filled the void. In the
years before World War I, the Amateur Athletic Union and the Intercollegiate Athletic
Association (forerunner of the NCAA)
vied for control over the rules for the game.
Basketball was originally played with a soccer ball. The first balls made specially for
basketball were brown, and it was only in the late 1950s that Tony
Hinkle, searching for a ball that would be more visible to players and
spectators alike, introduced the orange ball that is now in common use. Naismith himself was instrumental in establishing the college game, coaching
at University
of Kansas for six years before handing the reins to renowned coach Phog Allen. Naismith disciple Amos Alonzo Stagg
brought basketball to the University of Chicago, while Adolph Rupp, a student of
Naismith at Kansas, enjoyed great success as coach at the University of
Kentucky. College leagues date back to the 1920s, and the first national
championship tournament, the National Invitation Tournament
(NIT) in New York, followed in 1938. College basketball was rocked by gambling
scandals from 1948 to 1951, when dozens of players from top teams were
implicated in game fixing
and point shaving.
Partially spurred by the association of the NIT with many of the cheaters, the
NCAA national
tournament surpassed the NIT in importance. Today, the NCAA tournament is
rivaled only by the baseball World Series and the Super Bowl of American football
in the American sports psyche.
In the 1920s, there were hundreds of professional basketball teams in towns
and cities all over the United States. There was little organization to the
professional game, as players jumped from team to team, and teams played in
armories and smoky dance halls. Leagues came and went, and barnstorming squads
such as the New York Rens and the Original Celtics
played up to two hundred games a year on their national tours. Before widespread school district consolidation, most U.S. high schools were far smaller
than their present day counterparts and during the first decades of the 20th
century basketball quickly became the ideal interscholastic sport due to its
modest equipment and personnel requirements. In the days before widespread television coverage of professional
and college sports, the popularity of high school basketball was unrivaled in
many parts of America.
Today virtually every high school in the United States fields a basketball
team in varsity
competition, and its popularity remains high, both in rural areas where they
carry the identification of the entire community, as well as at some larger
schools known for their basketball teams where many players go on to participate
at higher levels of competition after graduation. In the 2003–04 season,
1,002,797 boys and girls represented their schools in interscholastic basketball
competition, according to the National
Federation of State High School Associations. The states of Indiana and Kentucky are particularly well known for their
residents' devotion to high school basketball; the critically acclaimed film
Hoosiers shows high school
basketball's depth of meaning to these rural communities. In 1946, the National Basketball Association
(NBA) was formed, organizing the top professional teams and leading to greater
popularity of the professional game. An upstart organization, the American Basketball
Association, emerged in 1967 and briefly threatened the NBA's dominance
until the rival leagues merged in 1976.
The NBA has featured many famous players, including George Mikan, the first dominating "big man";
ball-handling wizard Bob Cousy
and defensive genius Bill Russell of the Boston Celtics; Wilt Chamberlain (who
originally played for the barnstorming "Harlem Globetrotters"); all-around stars
Oscar Robertson and
Jerry West; more recent big
men Kareem
Abdul-Jabbar and Bill
Walton, playmaker John
Stockton; and the three players who many credit with ushering the
professional game to its highest level of popularity: Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, and Michael Jordan.
The NBA-backed Women's National
Basketball Association began play in 1997. Though it had an insecure opening
season, several marquee players (Sheryl Swoopes, Lisa Leslie, and Sue Bird among others) have helped the league improve
its popularity and level of competition, as in the NBA. Other professional
women's basketball leagues in the United States have folded in part because of
the presence of the WNBA. The International Basketball
Federation was formed in 1932 by eight founding nations: Argentina, Czechoslovakia, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Portugal, Romania and Switzerland. At this time, the organisation only
oversaw amateur players. Its acronym, in French, was thus FIBA; the "A" standing
for amateur.
Basketball was first included in the Olympic Games in 1936, although a demonstration
tournament was held in 1904. This competition has usually been dominated by the
United States, whose team has won all but three titles, the first loss in a
controversial final game in Munich in
1972 against the Soviet Union. In 1950 the first World Championships for men were
held in Argentina. Three years
later, the first World Championships for women were held in Chile. Women's basketball was added to the Olympics in
1976, with teams such as Brazil and Australia rivaling the American squads.
FIBA dropped the distinction between amateur and professional players in
1989, and in 1992, professional players played for the first time in the Olympic
Games. The United States' dominance briefly resurfaced with the introduction of
their Dream Team. However, with
developing programs elsewhere, other national teams have now caught up with the
United States. A team made entirely of NBA players finished sixth in the 2002
World Championships in Indianapolis, behind Serbia and
Montenegro, Argentina, Germany, New Zealand and Spain. In the 2004 Olympics, the United States suffered
its first Olympic loss while using professional players, falling to the Puerto Rican national
basketball team and eventually came in third after Argentina and Italy.
Worldwide, basketball tournaments are held for boys and girls of all age
levels, from five- and six-year-olds (called biddy-biddy), to high
school, college, and the professional leagues.
The global popularity of the sport is reflected in the nationalities
represented in the NBA. Players from all over the globe can be found in NBA
teams. Steve Nash, who won the
2005 NBA MVP award as the Most
Valuable Player in the NBA, is a South African-born Canadian player. Dallas Mavericks superstar Dirk Nowitzki, is German. The San Antonio Spurs feature three stars from
outside the United States in Tim
Duncan of the United States Virgin Islands, Manu Ginobili of Argentina, and Tony Parker of France; however, Duncan competes for the United States
internationally.
The all-tournament team at the most recent World Basketball Championships
held in 2002 in Indianapolis demonstrates the
globalization of the game equally dramatically. The team featured Nowitzki,
Ginobili, Peja Stojakovic of Serbia
and Montenegro, Yao Ming of China,
and Pero Cameron of New Zealand; all except Cameron
were or became NBA players. zahudfhaduliaheugopes |
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