History of Basketball
Basketball, one of the greatest sports ever played on earth was invented
by Dr James Naismith in 1891. Dr Smith born in 1861 near Altamonte, Ontario,
Canada developed the idea from a game he played during his school days
known as duck-on-a-rock the idea of the game being to knock a "duck" off
the top of a large rock by tossing another rock at it. Dr Naismith created
the game when he was working for the YMCA Training School in Springfield,
Massachusetts after being instructed by Dr Luther Gulick the Physical Education
Director to create an indoor game within 14 days for the students to get
through the harsh New England Winter. The first ever basketball game was
played with a soccer ball and two peach baskets affixed to a 10 foot railing.
Each team had 9 players on their side. Dr Naismith came up with the
13 original rules of basketball out of which 12 remained; the only rule
that changed was that the player was allowed to dribble the ball. Basketball
spread rapidly around the world by the start of World War I becoming one
of the major sports and the addition of basketball to the Olympic Games
in Berlin promoted the game further bringing honors to Dr Naismith.
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Basketball mainly spread in the United States through the YMCA, armed
forces and colleges like Yale, Harvard, Princeton and Cornell which were
the first ones to form college basketball teams. Basketball leagues were
starting to form all over America by 1898 with the National basketball
league being one of the first. The American basketball League and Basketball
association of America were formed over the years. The National Basketball
Association (NBA) was formed in 1949 which was a merger of the National
Basketball league formed in 1898 and the Basketball Association of America
formed in 1946.
The game of basketball has grown over the years and is played in over
20 countries over the world with the majority of professional play taking
place in the United States and Canada. It has evolved into being one of
the best loved sports over the world.
