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Topic: Basketball: History

Basketball is a team sport played on a rectangular court with two goals at each end. The objective is to score more points than the opposing team by shooting a ball through their goal. Players can dribble or pass the ball and use different shots to score while preventing the other team from scoring. Teams have five players with different positions like center, forward, and guard. Basketball was invented in 1891 by James Naismith in Massachusetts as an indoor winter activity and has grown to become one of the most popular sports worldwide with professional leagues like the NBA.

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82 views3 pages

Topic: Basketball: History

Basketball is a team sport played on a rectangular court with two goals at each end. The objective is to score more points than the opposing team by shooting a ball through their goal. Players can dribble or pass the ball and use different shots to score while preventing the other team from scoring. Teams have five players with different positions like center, forward, and guard. Basketball was invented in 1891 by James Naismith in Massachusetts as an indoor winter activity and has grown to become one of the most popular sports worldwide with professional leagues like the NBA.

Uploaded by

Dhang Calumba
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Topic: Basketball

Basketball, colloquially referred to as hoops, is a team sport in which two teams, most
commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the
primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately 9.4 inches (24 cm) in diameter)
through the defender's hoop (a basket 18 inches (46 cm) in diameter mounted 10 feet (3.048 m)
high to a backboard at each end of the court) while preventing the opposing team from shooting
through their own hoop. A field goal is worth two points, unless made from behind the three-
point line, when it is worth three. After a foul, timed play stops and the player fouled or
designated to shoot a technical foul is given one or more one-point free throws. The team with
the most points at the end of the game wins, but if regulation play expires with the score tied, an
additional period of play (overtime) is mandated.

Players advance the ball by bouncing it while walking or running (dribbling) or by passing it to a
teammate, both of which require considerable skill. On offense, players may use a variety of
shots—the lay-up, the jump shot, or a dunk; on defense, they may steal the ball from a dribbler,
intercept passes, or block shots; either offense or defense may collect a rebound, that is, a
missed shot that bounces from rim or backboard. It is a violation to lift or drag one's pivot foot
without dribbling the ball, to carry it, or to hold the ball with both hands then resume dribbling.

The five players on each side fall into five playing positions. The tallest player is usually the
center, the second tallest and strongest is the power forward, a slightly shorter but more agile
player is the small forward, and the shortest players or the best ball handlers are the shooting
guard and the point guard, who implements the coach's game plan by managing the execution
of offensive and defensive plays (player positioning). Informally, players may play three-on-
three, two-on-two, and one-on-one.

Invented in 1891 by Canadian-American gym teacher James Naismith in Springfield,


Massachusetts, United States, basketball has evolved to become one of the world's most
popular and widely viewed sports. The National Basketball Association (NBA) is the most
significant professional basketball league in the world in terms of popularity, salaries, talent, and
level of competition. Outside North America, the top clubs from national leagues qualify to
continental championships such as the EuroLeague and the Basketball Champions League
Americas. The FIBA Basketball World Cup and Men's Olympic Basketball Tournament are the
major international events of the sport and attract top national teams from around the world.
Each continent hosts regional competitions for national teams, like EuroBasket and FIBA
AmeriCup.

The FIBA Women's Basketball World Cup and Women's Olympic Basketball Tournament
feature top national teams from continental championships. The main North American league is
the WNBA (NCAA Women's Division I Basketball Championship is also popular), whereas
strongest European clubs participate in the EuroLeague Women.

History
Creation
In early December 1891, Canadian James Naismith, a physical education professor and
instructor at the International Young Men's Christian Association Training School (YMCA)
(today, Springfield College) in Springfield, Massachusetts, was trying to keep his gym class
active on a rainy day. He sought a vigorous indoor game to keep his students occupied and at
proper levels of fitness during the long New England winters. 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 an elevated track. In contrast with modern basketball nets, this peach basket
retained its bottom, and balls had to be retrieved manually after each "basket" or point scored;
this proved inefficient, however, so the bottom of the basket was removed, allowing the balls to
be poked out with a long dowel each time.

Basketball was originally played with a soccer ball. These round balls from "association football"
were made, at the time, with a set of laces to close off the hole needed for inserting the
inflatable bladder after the other sewn-together segments of the ball's cover had been flipped
outside-in. These laces could cause bounce passes and dribbling to be unpredictable.
Eventually a lace-free ball construction method was invented, and this change to the game was
endorsed by Naismith. (Whereas in American football, the lace construction proved to be
advantageous for gripping and remains to this day.) The first balls made specifically 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. Dribbling was not part of the original game except for the "bounce pass" to
teammates. Passing the ball was the primary means of ball movement. Dribbling was eventually
introduced but limited by the asymmetric shape of early balls. Dribbling was common by 1896,
with a rule against the double dribble by 1898.The peach baskets were used until 1906 when
they were finally replaced by metal hoops with backboards. A further change was soon made,
so the ball merely passed through. Whenever a person got the ball in the basket, his team
would gain a point. Whichever team got the most points won the game. The baskets were
originally nailed to the mezzanine balcony of the playing court, but this proved impractical when
spectators in the balcony began to interfere with shots. The backboard was introduced to
prevent this interference; it had the additional effect of allowing rebound shots. Naismith's
handwritten diaries, discovered by his granddaughter in early 2006, indicate that he was
nervous about the new game he had invented, which incorporated rules from a children's game
called duck on a rock, as many had failed before it.

Frank Mahan, one of the players from the original first game, approached Naismith after the
Christmas break, in early 1892, asking him what he intended to call his new game. Naismith
replied that he hadn't thought of it because he had been focused on just getting the game
started. Mahan suggested that it be called "Naismith ball", at which he laughed, saying that a
name like that would kill any game. Mahan then said, "Why not call it basketball?" Naismith
replied, "We have a basket and a ball, and it seems to me that would be a good name for it."
The first official game was played in the YMCA gymnasium in Albany, New York, on January 20,
1892, with nine players. The game ended at 1–0; the shot was made from 25 feet (7.6 m), on a
court just half the size of a present-day Streetball or National Basketball Association (NBA)
court.

At the time, football was being played with 10 to a team (which was increased to 11). When
winter weather got too icy to play football, teams were taken indoors, and it was convenient to
have them split in half and play basketball with five on each side. By 1897–1898 teams of five
became standard.

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