James Naismith: invention and early development of Basketball

James Naismith left many diaries and interviews that explain clearly how
and when he created basketball. Massachusetts had cold winters, and people
wanted a game that could be played inside. Naismith was a Canadian
teacher, born in Almonte, Ontario on the 16th November, 1861.[1]. Naismith
was an orphan from early in his life, and his uncle led him to study Hebraism
and philosophy, to train to become a priest. He graduated from McGill
University, Montreal, in 1887 (it was the first graduation of eleven), but at
the college he discovered sports: he played in the American football team for
eight years, even when he studied at the Presbyterian College in Montreal.
But he dropped out in 1890, to become a teacher at the International Young
Men’s Christian Association Training School in Springfield, Massachusetts.

There, Luther Hasley Gulick, the creator of the local “Physicians Education”
course asked him to invent a new indoor game, which could be
played during the cold winter. He also made it for a physical education
class to play[5]. He started work on it in December 1891. He wrote that he
took some idea from other sports: when he was young, he played with his
friends «some kind of game in which most of the group joined. In their
favorite game, “Duck on the Rock”, one boy guarded his “duck” from the
stones of the others; and the fun began as the boys gathered their stray
shots. It was this game that was later to play such an important part in the
origin of basketball[6].» The first game was played on December 29, 1891.

Ancient origins

Naismith also knew a couple of ancient religious traditions: the Mayan

po-ta-pok and the Aztec tchlatchli. Po-ta-pok was played using a full
inside ball made by rubber and a ring, placed on a pole, as in the modern
basketball, but vertically. Inside the ring usually there were religious
symbols, and in Chichén Itzá, there is the typical image of Quetzalcoatl,
one of their Gods. Dozens of players could take part. During po-ta-pok
matches, injuries and even deaths were common, due to the ball's heaviness
and the violence of the game. Sometimes, the losing team was supposed to
be sacrificed to God. Tchlatchli was more or less the same. There is a famous
anecdote about a match between the teams of Nezahualpilli, tlatoani of
Texcoco, and Moctezuma II, tlatoani of Tenochtitlan (tlatoani means “ruler”).
They organised the match because they didn’t agree on a prophecy about
the conquest of their kingdoms by a foreign country: Nezahualpilli agreed,
Moctezuma didn’t. The first one won three matches out of five, and in the
same year, the Spanish army conquered their kingdoms. (See:
Mesoamerican ballgame)

The first basketball game

On December 21, 1891, James Naismith defined a new game using five
base ideas and thirteen rules]. That day, he asked his class to play a
match in the Armory Street court: 9 versus 9, using a soccer ball and
two peach baskets. Frank Mahan, one of his students, wasn’t so happy. He
just said: "Huh. Another new game.» However, Naismith was the inventor of
the new game: someone proposed to call it “Naismith Game”, but he
suggested "We have a ball and a basket: why don’t we call it basket ball"?»
The only eighteen players were: John J. Thompson, Eugene S. Libby, Edwin P.
Ruggles, William R. Chase, T. Duncan Patton, Frank Mahan, Finlay G.
MacDonald, William H. Davis and Leyman Archibald, who defeated George
Weller, Wilbert Carey, Ernest Hildner, Raymond Kaighn, Genzabaro Ishikawa,
Benjamin S. French, Franklin Barnes, George Day and Henry Gelan 1-0 first
goal was scored by Chase. There were other differences between Naismith’s
first idea and the game played today. The peach baskets were closed, and
balls had to be retrieved manually (using a stair). Later they cut a small hole
in the bottom of the peach basket and poked the ball out using a stick. Only
in 1906 were metal hoops, nets and boards introduced. Moreover,
earlier the soccer ball was replaced by a Spalding ball, similar to the
one used today. Finally, the players could not move with the ball: they had
to pass it, without dribbling around or past the opponents, as is common
today.

Professional leagues, teams and organizations

The first professional league was founded in 1898. Six teams took part in the
National Basket Ball League, and the first champions were the Trenton
Nationals, followed by the New York Wanderers, the Bristol Pile
Drivers and the Camden Electrics. The league was abandoned in 1904[23].
Then, many small championships were organized, but most of them were not
as important as some teams who played for money against challengers.

The Original Celtics, for instance, are considered the "fathers of modern
basketball", and were presented as "World’s Basketball Champions"; the
players had to sign a contract to play with them and the manager, Jim Furey,
organised matches as a circus, moving daily from town to town. The Celtics
became the strongest team, and their successes lasted from 1922 until
1928, when the team disbanded due to ownership problems. The Original
Celtics are sometimes incorrectly thought of as forebears of the current
Boston Celtics of the NBA; in reality, they share only a name, as today's
Celtics were not founded until 1946, nearly two decades after the demise of
the Original Celtics. In 1922, the first all-black professional team was
founded: the Rens (also known as New York Renaissance or Harlem
Renaissance). The Rens were the Original Celtics’ usual opponent, and for
their matches a ticket cost $1. They took part in some official championships
and won the first World Professional Basketball Tournament in 1939. The
team disbanded in 1949.
In the 1920s and 1930s, Eastern Basket Ball League (founded in 1909),
Metropolitan Basketball League (founded in 1921) and American Basketball
League (founded in 1925) were the most important leagues.

15 years..