Basketball

The phenomenally popular world sport of basketball began quite humbly in 1891, when a YMCA coach, by the name of James Naismith, started throwing balls into peach baskets. The first basketball games were ad hoc and unregulated. The backboards were comprised of metallic wire, and the hoops couldn't 'swish' because they were made of baskets with bottoms.Naismith's invention proved profoundly popular, and basketball caught on throughout the United States. By 1936, it was an Olympic sport. During the 1940s, the National Basketball League merged with another organization called the Basketball Association of America to form a modern organization, known as the National Basketball Association (NBA).Throughout the NBA's history, certain teams have dominated for long periods of time. The Boston Celtics' dynasty stretched from 1960 to 1966. The Chicago Bulls dynasty during the 1990s was one of the most dominant dynasties ever in sports history. Michael Jordan led his team to victory six times in the NBA finals. Jordan scored almost 6,000 career points in the playoffs alone.Wilt Chamberlain, who sunk 100 points in a single game against New York in 1962, holds the all-time record for points in a game. The most points earned in a career goes to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who totaled a phenomenal 38,387 points during his 20 years with the league. The three point shot didn't exist in the NBA until the 1979-1980 season. Fans of the game can explore some of basketball's greatest legends and revisit memorabilia at the National Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield.