Basketball was invented in December 1891 by the Canadian clergyman,

educator, and physician James Naismith. Naismith introduced the game when he
was an instructor at the Young Men's Christian Association Training School (now
Springfield College) in Springfield, Massachusetts. At the request of his superior, Dr.
Luther H. Gulick, he organized a vigorous recreation suitable for indoor winter play.
The game involved elements of American football, soccer, and hockey, and the first
ball used was a soccer ball. Teams had nine players, and the goals were wooden
peach baskets affixed to the walls. By 1897-1898, teams of five became standard.
The game rapidly spread nationwide and to Canada and other parts of the world,
played by both women and men; it also became a popular informal outdoor game.
U.S. servicemen in World War II (1939-1945) popularized the sport in many other
countries.

A number of U.S. colleges adopted the game between about 1893 and 1895.
In 1934 the first college games were staged in New York City's Madison Square
Garden, and college basketball began to attract heightened interest. By the 1950s
basketball had become a major college sport, thus paving the way for a growth of
interest in professional basketball.

The first pro league, the National Basketball League, was formed in 1898 to
protect players from exploitation and to promote a less rough game. This league only
lasted five years before disbanding; its demise spawned a number of loosely
organized leagues throughout the northeastern United States. One of the first and
greatest pro teams was the Original Celtics, organized about 1915 in New York City.
They played as many as 150 games a season and dominated basketball until 1936.
The Harlem Globetrotters, founded in 1927, a notable exhibition team, specializes in
amusing court antics and expert ball handling.

In 1949 two subsequent professional leagues, the National Basketball League

(formed in 1937) and the Basketball Association of America (1946) merged to create
the National Basketball Association (NBA). The Boston Celtics, led by their center
Bill Russell, dominated the NBA from the late 1950s through the 1960s. By the
1960s, pro teams from coast to coast played before crowds of many millions
annually. Wilt Chamberlain, a center for the Los Angeles Lakers, was another
leading player during the era, and his battles with Russell were eagerly anticipated.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, also a center, came to prominence during the 1970s. Jabbar
perfected his famed "sky hook" shot while playing for the Los Angeles Lakers and
dominated the opposition.

The NBA suffered a drop in popularity during the late 1970s, but was
resuscitated, principally through the growing popularity of its most prominent players.
Larry Bird of the Boston Celtics, and Magic Johnson of the Los Angeles Lakers are
credited with injecting excitement into the league in the 1980s through their superior
skills and decade-long rivalry. During the late 1980s Michael Jordan of the Chicago
Bulls rose to stardom and helped the Bulls dominate the NBA during the early 1990s.
A new generation of basketball stars, including Shaquille O'Neal of the Orlando
Magic and Larry Johnson of the Charlotte Hornets, have sustained the NBA's growth
in popularity.

In 1959 a Basketball Hall of Fame was founded in Springfield, Massachusetts.

Its rosters include the names of great players, coaches, referees, and people who
have contributed significantly to the development of the game. The formation of both
the National Basketball League, and the Basketball Association of America created a
strong attraction nationwide, to Canada and other places around the world. The
game of basketball had become a worldwide phenomenon in the matter of a few
years. The development and growth in the NBA since the year 2000 has meant
anything from isotonic drink sponsors, trainer brands, hot dog companies and online
casino brands all wanted to grab a slice of the NBA exposure. This resulted in an
increased amount of coverage towards the game, meaning sponsorship and
endorsement deals came flooding through from many avenues.

DEC 5, 1891

The Invention of Basketball

Dr. James Naismith, a physical education teacher at a YMCA in Springfield, MA

invented the game of basketball to keep his students active during the cold winter
months of Massachusetts. The game was played with a peach basket that was
nailed to the wall 10 feet off the ground and a soccer ball. Dribbling was not originally
allowed in the game.

JAN 20, 1892

The First Official Game

The first official basketball game was played at a YMCA in Albany, New York with 9
players. The final score of the game was 1-0.

FEB 9, 1895

The First College Basketball Game is Played

The first college basketball game is played between Ham;ine University and the
School of Agriculture. The School of Agriculture won 9-3.

NOV 20, 1898

The First Pro Basketball League is Established

The National Basketball League was established to organize players and establish
official rules.
MAY 14, 1906

The Invention of the Modern Hoop

Peach baskets were used until 1901, when the modern hoop was invented with a
metal rim, a cloth net, and a wooden backboard.

MAY 28, 1949

The NBA is Formed

The BAA merged with the National Basketball League to form the National
Basketball Association (NBA).

FEB 5, 1958

The Implementation of the Modern Basketball

It was not until the late 1950's when Tony Hinkle invented the more visible orange-
rubber basketball that is used today.

MAR 18, 1959

Dribbling Becomes Part of the Game

Once the manufacturing of basketballs became universal, the technique of dribbling

was implemented as the basketballs were more consistently shaped.

MAR 25, 1976

The ABA-NBA Merger

An upstart organization, the American Basketball Association, emerged in 1967 and

briefly threatened the NBA's dominance until the ABA-NBA merger in 1976. Today
the NBA is the top professional basketball league in the world in terms of popularity,
salaries, talent, and level of competition. This created the NBA we know today.
HISTORY OF BASKETBALL

Winter had not even officially arrived, and already the boys were getting
restless. Days after a blizzard buried Springfield, Massachusetts, in snow, a highly
contagious case of cabin fever tore through the International Young Men’s Christian
Association (YMCA) Training School. The unruly students roughhoused in the halls
and wouldn’t quiet down. Even a modified game of football in the gymnasium failed
to burn off their excess energy.

James Naismith, a second-year graduate student who had recently been

appointed a physical education instructor, took up a teacher’s challenge to develop a
game that would keep the pupils active in the winter months. The 30-year-old
Canadian native drew on his knowledge of rugby, lacrosse and a childhood game
known as “duck on a rock,” which combined tag with throwing, to dream up a new
sport.

On December 21, 1891, Naismith cleared the athletic equipment off the
gymnasium’s wooden floor and picked up a soccer ball. He asked a janitor for two
square boxes, but the best the custodian could do was a pair of peach baskets,
which Naismith mounted to the lower rail of the gym’s balcony, about 10 feet off the
ground.

“I called the boys to the gym, divided them up into teams of nine and gave
them a little soccer ball,” Naismith recalled in a 1939 radio interview that aired on
WOR-AM in New York City. “I showed them two peach baskets I’d nailed up at each
end of the gym, and I told them the idea was to throw the ball into the opposing
team’s peach basket. I blew the whistle, and the first game of basketball began.”

The only rule Naismith gave to the boys was to get the soccer ball into the
bottom of the peach basket, from which it was retrieved by students in the balcony.
The lack of guidelines, however, soon proved problematic. “The boys began tackling,
kicking and punching in the clinches. Before I could pull them apart, one boy was
knocked out, several of them had black eyes and one had a dislocated shoulder. It
certainly was murder,” Naismith said in the 1939 broadcast, which is thought to be
the only existing recording of his voice.

The game may have been rough, but it was fun. “After that first match, I was
afraid they’d kill each other, but they kept nagging me to let them play again, so I
made up some new rules,” Naismith recalled. The physical education instructor sat
down and devised 13 rules for his invention and gave them to his secretary to type
up onto two pages, which he posted in the gym.

The most important rule was that there could be no running with the soccer
ball. It could only be thrown or batted from the spot where it was caught. “That
stopped tackling and slugging,” Naismith said. “We tried out the game with those
rules, and there were no casualties. We had a fine, clean sport.”
 Naismith had considered instituting free throws as penalties for teams
committing fouls but found that “after a little practice, a good thrower could convert it
into a goal almost every time.” Instead, the original rules called for a player making
two consecutive fouls before the scoring of a basket to sit out until the next goal.
Three consecutive fouls by a team resulted in a score for the opponents. There was
to be “no shouldering, holding, pushing, tripping or striking in any way” in the game,
which was composed of two 15-minute halves.

In spite of student suggestions that he call the game “Naismith Ball,” the
modest inventor gave the sport a two-word moniker—“basket ball.” In an article that
ran in the January 15, 1892, edition of The Triangle, which was distributed to YMCAs
around the country, Naismith detailed his 13 rules for a “new game of ball” that “calls
for physical judgment and co-ordination of every muscle and gives all-around
development.”

Naismith’s brainchild caught on quickly at other YMCAs and spread to college

campuses to become the fastest-growing game in the history of sports. Basketball
was not only for the boys, either. From the sport’s advent, women dressed in blouses
and bloomers played the game that the Boston Globe found in 1893 to be a “very fair
feminine substitute for football.”

In 1898, Naismith was hired as the first men’s basketball coach at the
University of Kansas. (Ironically, he is the only men’s coach in the program’s history
to have a losing record.) During his tenure, he saw his 13 rules begin to evolve. The
bottoms were eventually cut out of the peach baskets to make them hoops, and free
throws ultimately gained favor to become part of the game. Dribbling was introduced
in 1901. While Naismith initially wrote that team sizes could range from 3 to 40
players, depending on the size of the floor space, five-player squads became the
norm.

The first basketball team, consisting of nine players and their coach on the steps of
the Springfield College Gymnasium in 1891 are shown. Dr. Naismith is in civilian
clothes.

Naismith’s original 13 rules—complete with a hand-written line edit—now

reside at the University of Kansas after alumnus David Booth, who grew up in
eyeshot of the campus, purchased them at auction in 2010 for $4.3 million. The price
fetched by the two yellowing pages even eclipsed that of a copy of the Emancipation
Proclamation signed by Abraham Lincoln and once owned by Robert Kennedy that
was up for bid at the same auction. Earlier this year, a new display featuring the
rules was unveiled in a 32,000-square-foot building adjacent to the university’s
basketball arena.
 Basketball rule books have gained considerable heft since Naismith
concocted the first guidelines 125 years ago. The National Basketball Association’s
Official Rule Book is now more than 65 pages long and dictates everything from
where coaches may stand on the sideline to the need for players to tuck in their
shirts to something that Naismith could never have dreamed of—the use of instant
replay to aid referees.

James Naismith’s Original Rules of Basket Ball display, developed in 1891.

Naismith’s 13 original rules:

1. The Ball may be thrown in any direction by one or both hands.

2. The ball may be batted in any direction with one or both hands (never with the
fist).
3. A player cannot run with the ball. The player must throw it from the spot on
which he catches it, allowance to be made for man who catches the ball when
running, if he tries to stop.
4. The ball must be held by the hands; the arms or body must not be used for
holding it.
5. No shouldering, holding, pushing, tripping, or striking in any way the person of
an opponent shall be allowed; the first infringement of the rule by any player
shall count as a foul, the second shall disqualify him until the next goal is
made, or if there was evident intent to injure the person, for the whole game,
no substitute allowed.
 6. A foul is striking at the ball with the fist, violation of rules 3, 4, and such as
described in rule 5.
7. If either side makes three consecutive fouls it shall count a goal for the
opponents (consecutive means without the opponents in the meantime
making a foul.)
8. A goal shall be made when the ball is thrown or batted from the grounds into
the basket and stays there, providing those defending the goal do not touch or
disturb the goal. If the ball rests on the edges, and the opponent moves the
basket, it shall count as a goal.
9. When the ball goes out of bounds it shall be thrown into the field of play by the
person first touching it. In case of a dispute the umpire shall throw it straight
into the field. The thrower-in is allowed five seconds; if he holds it longer it
shall go to the opponent. If any side persists in delaying the game, the umpire
shall call a foul on that team.
10. The umpire shall be the judge of the men and shall note the fouls and notify
the referee when three consecutive fouls have been made. He shall have the
power to disqualify men according to rule 5
11. The referee shall be the judge of the ball and shall decide when the ball is in
play, in bounds, to which side it belongs, and shall keep the time. He shall
decide when a goal has been made, and keep account of the goals, with any
other duties that are usually performed by the referee.
12. The time shall be two 15-minute halves, with 5 minutes rest between.
13. The side making the most goals in that time shall be declared the winner. In
case of a draw, the game may be by mutual agreement, be continued until
another goal is made.

Note: Basketball was originally two words. These original rules were published Jan.
15, 1892, in the Springfield College school newspaper, The Triangle.