BASKETBALL AND ITS GREATEST PLAYERS transformed the game With increased visibil ity and popularity both at home and abroad the NBA's teams and players have sold out are nas and attracted new generations of fans With basketball quickly gaining traction around the country after its introduction it was only a matter of time before women and international players took to the court Women's teams emerged soon after men's teams and basketball has thus retained pop ularity among women nearly as long as it has men Like the men's game women s basketball has undergone a number of modifications over the years The establishment of the Women s A F KED ITZ The first basketball court was set up in this Springfield Mass gymna sium in 1891 by James Naismith Hulton Archive Getty Images
INTRODUCTION National Basketball Association WNBA in 1997 as the primary professional league for female players in the United States cemented the presence of women s games on national television and made the game accessible to wider audiences International teams and players have similarly adopted the game and helped make basketball aglobal phenomenon Although basketball is a team sport that in many ways demands that the whole be greater than the sum of its parts individual players have been critical to advancing the sport and introducing new moves and dynamics to the game After all one can hardly mention bas ketball without recalling the acrobatics of Michael Jordan or Air Jordan as he aptly came to be known The icons of today Shaquille O Neal Kobe Bryant LeBron James to name a few owe much to the generations of ath letes who preceded them and have continued their legacy of innovation in exciting fashion From its humble beginnings in a school gym to selling out Madison Square Garden basket ball has endured and evolved immensely in the years since its invention Still it retains muchof its original character and stands as a testament to the imagination of one teacher as much as it does to the dedication of the remarkable play ers that have reinvented the idea of skill
THE GAME OF BASKETBALL t could have been called boxball In the winter of 1891 James Naismith an instructor at a YMCA training school in Springfield Mass asked the janitor to hang a couple of boxes from the gymnasium balcony for an experimental indoor ball game The game became known as basket ball because the janitor unable to find boxes to make the elevated goals nailed up two half bushel peach baskets Naismith came up with the game in hopes of curing the win ter doldrums of his students who had grown bored with the routine of gymnastics and calisthenics Naismith first experimented with indoor versions of rugby lacrosse and other sports but they proved too violent The former divinity student eventually struck upon the idea of upright goals that would minimize the force on the ball and IO
THE GAME OF BASKETBALL James Naismith the creator of basketball Hulton Archive Getty Images II
