Basketball - Ten Facts

As you enter camp opposite our main office you will see our Basetball court, which has one of the best backdrops of any court around the world.

1. Asked in 1891 to invent an indoor winter activity by his boss at a YMCA in Springfield, Massachusetts, James Naismith is credited as the founder of basketball. Naismith, a physical education teacher, also wrote the original basketball rule book and founded the University of Kansas basketball program.

2. Naismith proposed two 15-minute halves, with five minutes of rest in between.

3. Basketball is played with two teams, with 5 players from each team on the court at one time. The maximum number of players on the bench differs by the league.

4. The 24-second shot clock was the brainchild of Syracuse Nationals owner Danny Biasone and general manager Leo Ferris. The NBA first adopted the shot clock during the 1954-1955 season.

5. Contrary to their name, the Harlem Globetrotters were not from Harlem, New York. Their origins stem from Chicago, Illinois.

6. Basketball was made an official Olympic game in 1936 in Berlin, Germany.

7. Since the 1936 Summer Olympics, the United States has only failed to win the gold for men’s basketball four times. The Soviet Union won the gold in 1972 and 1988, Yugoslavia in 1980, and Argentina in 2004.

8. Coach Paul Westhead is the first coach to win championships in both the NBA (Los Angeles Lakers) and the WNBA (Phoenix Mercury).

9. A soccer ball (or what is widely known as a football) was used to play the first basketball games until a basketball was invented in 1929.

10. Slam dunks were considered illegal in 1967. After nine years, it was legalized again.