In early December 1891, Luther Gulick, chairman of the physical
education department at the School for Christian Workers (now
Springfield College) in Springfield, Massachusetts, instructed
physical education teacher James Naismith to invent a new game to
entertain the school's athletes during the winter season. With an
ordinary soccer ball, Naismith assembled his class of 18 young men,
appointed captains of two nine-player teams, and introduced them to
the game of Basket Ball (then two words). Naismith, who had outlined
13 original rules, dispatched the school janitor to find two boxes to
be fastened to the balcony railing at opposite sides of the gymnasium,
where they would serve as goals. The school janitor, however, only
found two half-bushel peach baskets, and the game was played with
these.
The soccer ball and the peach basket soon gave way to specialized
equipment. For example, in the early days the peach baskets were
closed at the bottom, meaning that someone had to climb on a ladder to
retrieve the ball after a made basket. The peach basket was later
replaced by a metal rim with a net hanging below, and in 1906 people
began opening the netting to let the ball fall through. Check out the
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basketballs were made from panels of leather stitched together with a
rubber bladder inside. A cloth lining was added to the leather for
support and uniformity. The molded basketball, introduced in about
1942, was a significant advancement for the sport. The molded ball, a
factory-made ball that had a constant size and shape, offered better
reaction and durability, making play more consistent and the
development of individual skills easier. In Naismith's original 13
rules, the ball could be batted in any direction with one or both
hands, but it could not be dribbled because players could not move
with the ball. Beginning in 1910 a player could dribble the ball, but
could not shoot after dribbling. It was not until 1916, following
heated debate, that players were allowed to shoot after dribbling.
Throughout basketball's history, no part of the game has been more
monitored than the act of fouling an opponent. In basketball's early
days, a player's second foul would mean removal from the game until
the next field goal was made. If a team committed three consecutive
fouls, the opposition would be awarded a field goal. Beginning in 1894
players were given a free throw when fouled. Beginning in 1908 players
who committed five fouls were disqualified from the game. Based on the
severity of the foul, the rules were soon amended so that players were
awarded either two shots or one shot plus a bonus shot, which was
attempted only if the first shot was made. The rules also determined
that an offensive player could commit a foul by playing too
aggressively.
In 1892 Lithuanian-born physical education teacher Senda Berenson
Abbott introduced basketball to women, at Smith College in
Northampton, Massachusetts. Because it was believed that Naismith’s
version of the game could be too physically demanding for women,
Berenson Abbott made the following changes to the game: The court was
divided into three equal sections, with players required to stay in an
assigned area; players were prohibited from snatching or batting the
ball from the hands of another player; and players were prohibited
from holding the ball for longer than three seconds and from dribbling
the ball more than three times.
Basketball's growth spread in the United States and abroad through
Young Men's Christian Associations (YMCAs), the armed forces, and
colleges. Due to its simple equipment requirements, indoor play,
competitiveness, and easily understood rules, basketball gained
popularity quickly. In May 1901 several schools, including Yale and
Harvard universities and Trinity, Holy Cross, Amherst, and Williams
colleges, formed the New England Intercollegiate Basketball League.
The development of collegiate leagues and conferences brought
organization and scheduling to competition, and formal league play
created rivalries. More importantly, collegiate leagues became a
critical training ground for officials.
By the early 1900s basketball was played at about 90 colleges—most of
them located in the East and Midwest. In 1905 teams from the
University of Minnesota and the University of Wisconsin traveled to
New York to challenge Eastern League champion Columbia University.
Columbia’s “Blue and White Five” defeated both Midwestern teams, and
the idea of an intercollegiate championship was born. By 1914 more
than 360 colleges offered basketball, and the sport had spread heavily
into the Midwestern states.
In 1915 the Amateur Athletic Union of the United States (AAU), the
NCAA, and the YMCA formed a committee to standardize rules, and during
the next ten years a number of regional conferences were formed. Games
between top regional teams were sometimes awarded national champion
status by the press, but an official championship tournament was still
many years away. Travel and scheduling difficulties and continued
regional rule differences slowed the organization of a tournament that
could impartially produce a national champion.
The first national collegiate tournament was held in Kansas City,
Missouri, in 1937. The teams in this tournament, however, were all
from the Midwest. New York, with a large fan base that generated
travel funds, was the site of the NIT tournament, which was the first
truly national collegiate tournament. The first NIT was held at the
end of the 1937-38 season.
The NIT was promoted by members of the Metropolitan Basketball Writers
Association—a New York City sportswriters’ group. In 1939 a group of
coaches from the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC),
fearing Eastern bias, organized and sponsored the first NCAA national
tournament. In this tournament the University of Oregon defeated Ohio
State University. The NCAA took sole control of the organization of
its tournament after that first year. For the next decade, the NCAA
and NIT tournaments competed to become the universally recognized
national championship tournament, with the NCAA eventually winning
out.
The NCAA tournament's original format, used for its first 12 years,
divided the country into eight districts, each with a regional
selection committee sending a team to the eight-team tournament. As
the tournament gained importance, the field gradually enlarged to its
present size of 64, made up of champions from a number of conferences,
in addition to other successful teams.
Professional basketball began in 1896 at a YMCA in Trenton, New
Jersey. A dispute between members of the YMCA team and a YMCA official
led to the players forming a professional team and playing for money.
In 1898 a group of New Jersey newspaper sports editors founded the
National Basketball League (NBL). The NBL consisted of six franchises
from Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Stars of this league included Ed
Wachter, who played in about 1,800 professional games, and Barney
Sedran, who played on 10 championship teams in 15 years.
The Buffalo Germans, a team that won 111 straight games between 1908
and 1911, and the Original Celtics, a team that pioneered many tactics
in basketball, including the development of the zone defense, were
extraordinarily successful professional teams in the early 20th
century. The first successful national professional league was the
American Basketball League (ABL), which lasted from 1925 to 1931. The
New York Renaissance, a team made up of black players, dominated the
1930s. The Rens, as the team was called, were the best team of the
era, winning 88 consecutive games during one stretch. Another
all-black team with similar success was the Harlem Globetrotters. The
Globetrotters were founded in 1927 as a competitive team, but through
the years they became known for their basketball acrobatics and
humorous routines.
Although most basketball players were men, 37 states offered high
school varsity basketball for women by 1925, and in 1926 the AAU
formed a national tournament for women's teams. This enabled women to
showcase their basketball skills after scholastic play was finished,
and also to gain employment at companies that sponsored their own AAU
teams. Notable players from this era of women's basketball include
Babe Didrikson, Alline Banks Sprouse, and Nera White, who was one of
the first two female players elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame.
In 1938 the three-court game was changed to a two-court game, with six
players on a team (three on offense and three on defense). Players
were still prohibited from straying from their assigned areas.
In the mid-1930s another professional league called the National
Basketball League (NBL) was founded, taking the same name as the
earlier NBL, which had ceased operation some years before. In 1946 a
group of executives in New York City formed yet another new
professional basketball league, known as the Basketball Association of
America (BAA). This new circuit was a direct competitor with the new
NBL, with teams in New York City; Boston, Massachusetts; Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania; Chicago, Illinois; and Detroit, Michigan. Just before
the 1948-49 season, the four strongest teams in the NBL—those from
Minneapolis, Minnesota; Rochester, New York; Fort Wayne, Indiana; and
Indianapolis, Indiana—joined the BAA. The following season, the NBL's
six surviving teams also joined the BAA, forming a three-division
league that was renamed the National Basketball Association (NBA).
After the 1949-50 season the NBA reduced its size and established two
divisions, the forerunners to the Eastern and Western conferences that
were established after the 1969-70 season.
In the late 1940s and early 1950s, the Minneapolis Lakers, led by
center George Mikan and coached by John Kundla, won five NBA
championship titles (1949, 1950, 1952-1954). In the 1950s guard Bob
Cousy and forward Bob Pettit had the greatest individual impact on
professional basketball. Cousy, nicknamed the Houdini of the Hardwood
because of his ball-handling skills, led the NBA in assists eight
straight years (1953-1960) and guided the Boston Celtics to six NBA
titles (1957, 1959-1963). Pettit finished his career with a remarkable
26.4 points per game (ppg) average while leading the St. Louis Hawks
to appearances in the NBA championship finals in 1957, 1958, 1960, and
1961, with the Hawks winning the title in 1958.
The Celtics dominated the NBA from 1957 to 1969. During this 13-season
period, the team, coached mostly by Red Auerbach, won 11 NBA titles
(1957, 1959-1966, 1968, 1969), including 8 consecutively. The Celtics
had many stars, but center Bill Russell was arguably the greatest. In
his 13-season career Russell averaged 15.1 ppg and 22.5 rebounds per
game (rpg). Another dominant center of the time was Wilt Chamberlain.
Chamberlain played for the Philadelphia Warriors, San Francisco
Warriors (the team moved west in 1962), Philadelphia 76ers, and Los
Angeles Lakers. He scored 100 points in a single game in 1962 and
averaged 50.4 ppg for the 1961-62 season. Neither record has ever been
approached by another player. Top guards of the 1960s included Oscar
Robertson of the Milwaukee Bucks, Jerry West of the Los Angeles
Lakers, and Walt Frazier of the New York Knicks.
The University of California, Los Angeles dominated college basketball
from 1963 to 1975. Coached by John Wooden, UCLA won ten national
championships during this time (1964, 1965, 1967-1973, 1975),
including seven consecutively. From 1971 to 1974, UCLA won 88
consecutive games, an NCAA record. Wooden's UCLA teams featured great
players such as center Bill Walton, guard Gail Goodrich, forward
Jamaal Wilkes, and forward Marques Johnson. The best player to emerge
from UCLA was center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who was born Lew Alcindor.
Abdul-Jabbar led UCLA to three straight NCAA titles from 1967 to 1969.
As a professional he led the Milwaukee Bucks to an NBA title in 1971,
and he led the Los Angeles Lakers to five NBA titles in the 1980s
(1980, 1982, 1985, 1987, 1988). Known for his famous sky-hook shot,
Abdul-Jabbar played 20 seasons in the NBA and retired as the league's
leading career scorer, with 38,387 points.
For two decades after its founding, the NBA was the only major
professional basketball league. But in 1967 the American Basketball
Association (ABA) was formed. The league became known for the flashy
playing style it encouraged and the distinctive red, white, and blue
basketballs it used. The ABA convinced several NBA players to switch
leagues, often for lucrative contracts. Probably the best player in
the ABA was guard and forward Julius Erving, who later starred in the
NBA. The ABA disbanded in 1976, with several of its teams joining the
NBA.
In the late 1970s, the NBA experienced difficulty: The game was
perceived as dull, the league's ticket sales decreased, revenue
declined, and television ratings were as low as they had ever been. In
March 1979, however, two collegiate players, forward Larry Bird of
Indiana State University and guard Magic Johnson of Michigan State
University, helped revive public interest in basketball. The two
players, the stars of their teams, faced each other in the 1979 NCAA
championship game, won by Michigan State. Both players went on to have
distinguished NBA careers. In the 1980s Bird helped revitalize the
Boston Celtics franchise, leading the team to three NBA titles (1981,
1984, 1986). Johnson did the same in Los Angeles, as he and
Abdul-Jabbar guided the Lakers to five NBA championships.
In the late 1980s the Detroit Pistons emerged as a powerhouse team,
featuring stars such as guard Isiah Thomas and forward Dennis Rodman.
Detroit reached the NBA Finals in 1988, 1989, and 1990, capturing the
title during the latter two years. Increased interest in the
professional game carried over to collegiate basketball as well, as
the NCAA tournament became more popular than ever.
Dramatic changes in women's basketball occurred in the late 1960s. In
1966 unlimited dribbling became legal, and in 1969 the first
five-player full-court game was played. The five-player form became
the official game in women's basketball in 1971. Women's basketball is
now played with virtually the same rules, regulations, and styles as
men's basketball, although the women use a slightly smaller ball at
many levels, including college. With the changes of the late 1960s,
women's basketball began a period of tremendous growth, and in 1971
the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) was
founded, offering a national college basketball tournament for women.
The women’s game gained strength in the late 1970s after a law called
Title IX was increasingly enforced, helping strengthen women's
basketball programs. The law, passed as part of the Education
Amendments Act of 1972, prohibited discrimination on the basis of
gender in educational institutions receiving federal aid, meaning that
women's athletic programs had to be treated as equal to men's
programs. In 1978 the AIAW championship was televised, and the same
year a professional league called the Women's Basketball League (WBL)
made its debut. Featuring eight teams, the league lasted three years.
The AIAW disbanded in 1982, but that same year the NCAA held its first
national championship for women. Three years later, in 1985, the
Basketball Hall of Fame began inducting female coaches, players, and
contributors. These inductees include important pioneers such as Ann
Meyers, who was the first woman to receive a collegiate athletic
scholarship; Carol Blazejowski; Cheryl Miller; Anne Donovan; and Nancy
Lieberman-Cline.
In the 1990s interest in basketball at all levels continued to grow.
The most important figure in this growth was guard Michael Jordan, who
is considered by many to be the greatest player ever. Jordan's
exceptional basketball skills and flair for entertainment helped keep
basketball in the forefront of American culture as he led the Chicago
Bulls to six NBA championships (1991-1993, 1996-1998) and led the
league in scoring a record ten times. Other great players of the 1990s
included Hakeem Olajuwon, Scottie Pippen, Charles Barkley, David
Robinson, Karl Malone, John Stockton, and Shaquille O'Neal. Star
players of the women’s professional leagues included Cynthia Cooper,
Sheryl Swoopes, Teresa Edwards, Lisa Leslie, and Jennifer Azzi.
Beginning in the late 1980s, it became increasingly common for the
best male collegiate players to leave college before graduating, as
they chose to enter the NBA draft hoping to play professionally for
large sums of money. The NBA, while affording young players this
opportunity, has tried to curtail this practice. In 1995 the league
enacted a limit on the amount of money a rookie could earn, called a
rookie salary cap, hoping to discourage players from leaving school.
Following the 1997-98 season NBA owners and players could not agree on
rules regarding a salary cap and several other issues, and the NBA
owners instituted a player lockout. The dispute cancelled all league
play until an agreement was reached in January 1999, resulting in a
strike-shortened, 50-game season followed by a regular playoff
schedule and championship series. Jordan announced his retirement from
professional basketball after the labor dispute was resolved. The San
Antonio Spurs, led by David Robinson and Tim Duncan, won the 1999 NBA
title. The Los Angeles Lakers, featuring Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe
Bryant, won the 2000 league championship. Duncan and Bryant are part
of the next generation of superstars that the league hopes will carry
on the legacy of past heroes such as Bird, Johnson, Barkley, and
Jordan. |