Basketball
7 Historic Facts You Didn't Know About Basketball
The game's inventor, the first ball used, the birth of dribbling, 9 players a side, and many more strange rules and facts of early basketball.
No one said basketball was easy – it takes endurance, a cohesive team, and great skills to outscore opponents and win the game!
The game in modern times is pretty straightforward. Each game has two teams, a rectangular court, a ball, and a referee with a set length of time. Easy.
Strangely, there are countless facts about the early game you would never have considered.
7 historic facts about basketball to share with your team.
01
Credit to Naismith
Basketball enthusiasts must be happy to be introduced to a name they will never forget: James Naismith – a Canadian-American physical educator, physician, Christian chaplain, and sports coach.
He created the game in 1891 while working at the International YMCA Training School in Springfield, Massachusetts.
Naismith was challenged to invent a new indoor game that could be played between football and baseball seasons, and he came up with basketball.
The first game was played on December 21, 1891, and the sport quickly grew in popularity, spreading to high schools, colleges, and eventually becoming an Olympic sport in 1936
02
The first basketball was not a 'basketball'
As bizarre as it sounds: it was a soccer ball.
That wasn't all with the nets originally two peach baskets placed 10 feet up in the air as places to score points.
03
Dribbling? Not Allowed.
Players never could advance the ball. Instead, each player had to throw it from wherever he caught it.
The first team credited with advancing the ball by dribbling it played at Yale in 1897 and the official allowance for the dribble, just one per possession at first, was adopted four years later.
Unlimited dribbling was not allowed until 1909
04
The more the better!
The number of players per side was never specified.
Naismith invented the indoor winter activity with enough flexibility to include whoever wanted to play.
For a while, the total number of players was a default of 18, nine per side, the same number that showed up for the very first game.
However, it was noted that the rules were amended in 1893 to specify that each team should consist of five players, a number that has remained unchanged since
05
No Injury, no foul.
Shouldering, holding, pushing, tripping, or otherwise striking an opponent was never allowed. However, such offenses were never considered fouls until 1910, with the advent of a rule disqualifying a player for committing four of them.
That total was raised to five in 1946, in the inaugural rules of the Basketball Association of America (the original name of the National Basketball Association), and to six the next year.
06
Referees used watches
That is because one of the official duties of early refs was timekeeping. Then again, there wasn’t that much time to keep when the game was primarily played for fun.
The 24-second shot clock wasn’t instituted until 1954, to combat stalling tactics NBA teams had begun to employ.
07
The game's life was short
Naismith proposed two 15-minute halves, with five minutes of rest in between.
However, the rules were adjusted over the years, and by 1905, the game had evolved to be played in two twenty-minute halves, a format that remains standard in men's college basketball.
In the NBA and NCAA, halftime lasts 15 minutes, allowing both teams adequate time to rest and strategize for the second half.
Who would have thought the origins of basketball had such strange and fascinating rules? The modern game is worlds apart and boasts some of the highest levels of athleticism ever seen.
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