Britannica Educational Publishing - Basketball and Its Greatest Players

BASKETBALL
AND ITS GREATEST PLAYERS

inside sports

EDITED BY SHERMAN HOLLAR

Published in 2012 by Britannica Educational Publishing
(a trademark of Encyclopdia Britannica, Inc.)
in association with Rosen Educational Services, LLC
29 East 21st Street, New York, NY 10010.

Copyright 2012 Encyclopdia Britannica, Inc. Britannica, Encyclopdia Britannica, and the Thistle logo are registered trademarks of Encyclopdia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved.

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First Edition

Britannica Educational Publishing

Michael I. Levy: Executive Editor, Encyclopdia Britannica
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Basketball and its greatest players / edited by Sherman Hollar.
p. cm. (Inside sports)
In association with Britannica Educational Publishing, Rosen Educational Services.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-61530-558-2 (eBook)
1. Basketball playersJuvenile literature. I. Hollar, Sherman.
GV885.1.B36 2011
796.323dc22

2010052666

On the cover, page : NBA superstar LeBron James of the Miami Heat plays against the Detroit Pistons. Miami Herald/MCT via Getty Images

Pp. www.istockphoto.com/Thomas Levack; back cover, remaining interior background image Shutterstock.com

W hile baseball has long been considered the American national pastime and football the most watched televised sport in the country, basketballconceived entirely by Massachusetts physical education instructor James Naismithis also a truly American institution. From casual one-on-one games in a gym to international Olympic-level competitions, shooting hoops has come to occupy a unique place on the both the American and international cultural landscapes. This volume examines the history of this much-loved form of recreation and introduces some of the game-changing professional players whose abilities have elevated the artistry of the game.

At first glance, basketball does not seem to be a complicated sport. As its name suggests, the key components of a basketball game are a ball and a basket into which the ball must be thrown in order to score points (the actual peach baskets used in early games were later replaced with the open hoops in use today). However, a number of elements add a certain amount of drama to each game. Within a short amount of time after gaining possession of the ball, each team must attempt to sink a shot into the basket that the opposing team is defending. Various offensive and defensive strategies may be employed throughout the course of a game. The press, for example, is a defensive strategy often used to force the opposition to hurry its movements and to commit errors that result in turnovers.

Originally designed as an indoor game for Naismiths students to play in the winter, basketball has since evolved in many respects. Although it is still enjoyed by students and casual athletes both indoors and out, its national and international appeal has escalated dramatically. The National Basketball Association (NBA) can be credited with much of this change. While it competed with other professional leagues in its early years, it eventually emerged as the primary professional league for male players in the United States and transformed the game. With increased visibility and popularity both at home and abroad, the NBAs teams and players have sold out arenas 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. Womens teams emerged soon after mens teams, and basketball has thus retained popularity among women nearly as long as it has men. Like the mens game, womens basketball has undergone a number of modifications over the years. The establishment of the Womens National Basketball Association (WNBA) in 1997 as the primary professional league for female players in the United States cemented the presence of womens 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 a global phenomenon.

The first basketball court was set up in this Springfield, Mass., gymnasium in 1891 by James Naismith. Hulton Archive/Getty Images

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 basketball without recalling the acrobatics of Michael Jordan, or Air Jordan, as he aptly came to be known. The icons of todayShaquille ONeal, Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, to name a fewowe much to the generations of athletes 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, basketball has endured and evolved immensely in the years since its invention. Still, it retains much of 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 players that have reinvented the idea of skill.

I 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 basketball 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 winter 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 keep some distance between the players and the actual scoring. Thus the internationally popular game of basketball was born.