History of Basketball“Second everywhere from Australia to the United States and everywhere in between, the game of basketball is played.” (Faurschou, “History of Basketball”). The game is played wherever you can get a ball and something to throw it through. “GL Pierce patented the basketball on June 25, 1929.” (Bellis, “Basketball-James Naismith”). Basketball became an official Olympic sport in the 1936 game. “Both the Aztecs and Mayans had a version of the game of basketball. The Mayans played the first basketball game about 500 years ago, even though their ball was the human skull of a defeated enemy!” (Faurschou, “History of Basketball”). Aspects of the games included modern-day basketball, American football and soccer. The game of basketball originated with thirteen rules in 1891 by James Naismith. James combined elements of several sports to create basketball, which includes football, lacrosse and a game he played as a child called duck on a rock. “Duck on a rock was a game in which a person threw rocks at a target that was on top of a rock.” (Laughead Jr. History of Basketball”).“ The first game was played on January 20, 1892 in Springfield, Massachusetts. The game was invented for the YMCA during the winter months. The match was initially played with 9 people per team. (Faurschou, “History of Basketball”).“By 1896, enough colleges had formed teams to stage the first competition. The match was played with only 5 members from each team. ” (McNamee, “A Brief History of Basketball”). Two years later the first professional league was formed. “The addition of nets to the sidelines was done to speed up the game before the addition the referee would have had to climb a ladder and catch the ball. Another… middle of the paper… best scoring output (100) and highest field goal percentage (.727). Wilt is also the only NBA player to average more than 48 minutes in a season: 48.5 due to overtime. Basketball today remains very close to James Naismith's original game. Who knew that an idea as simple as throwing a ball through a hoop would become so popular? Work Cited http://nbahoopsonline.com/Articles/History1.html http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blbasketball.htm http:/ /nbahoopsonline.com/Articles/2008-09/Mesoamericanball.htmlhttp: //www.britannica.com/blogs/2013/04/history-basketball-time-final/http://www.remembertheaba.com/http:/ /www.history.com/this-day-in-history/ nba-is-bornhttp://www.kansasheritage.org/people/naismith.htmlhttp://www.remembertheaba.com/