Sport-Basketball

Basketball was founded by a Canadian

2006-04-11T04:39:00.000-07:00

Dr. James Naismith is known world-wide as the inventor of basketball. He was born in 1861 in Ramsay township, near Almonte, Ontario, Canada. The concept of basketball was born from Naismith's school days in the area where he played a simple child's game known as duck-on-a-rock outside his one-room schoolhouse. The game involved attempting to knock a "duck" off the top of a large rock by tossing another rock at it. Naismith went on to attend McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

After serving as McGill's Athletic Director, James Naismith moved on to the YMCA Training School in Springfield, Massachusetts, USA in 1891, where the sport of basketball was born. In Springfield, Naismith was faced with the problem of finding a sport that was suitable for play inside during the Massachusetts winter for the students at the School for Christian Workers. Naismith wanted to create a game of skill for the students instead of one that relied solely on strength. He needed a game that could be played indoors in a relatively small space. The first game was played with a soccer ball and two peach baskets used as goals. Naismith joined the University of Kansas faculty in 1898, teaching physical education and being a chaplain.

James Naismith devised the following set of rules for basketball:

1. The ball may be thrown in any direction with one or both hands;
2. The ball may be batted in any direction with one or both hands, but never with the fist;
3. A player cannot run with the ball. The player must throw it from the spot on which he catches it, allowance to be made for a man running at good speed;
4. The ball must be held in or between the hands. The arms or body must not be used for holding it;
5. No shouldering, holding, pushing, striking or tripping in any way of an opponent. The first infringement of this rule by any person shall count as a foul; the second shall disqualify him until the next goal is made or, if there was evident intent to injure the person, for the whole of the game. No substitution shall be allowed;
6. A foul is striking at the ball with the fist, violations of Rules 3 and 4 and such as described in Rule 5;
7. If either side make three consecutive fouls it shall count as a goal for the opponents (consecutive means without the opponents in the meantime making a foul);
8. Goal shall be made when the ball is thrown or batted from the ground into the basket and stays there, providing those defending the goal do not touch or disturb the goal. If the ball rests on the edge and the opponents move the basket, it shall count as a goal;
9. When the ball goes out of bounds, it shall be thrown into the field and played by the first person touching it. In case of dispute the umpire shall throw it straight into the field. The thrower-in is allowed five seconds. If he holds it longer, it shall go to the opponent. If any side persists in delaying the game, the umpire shall call a foul on them;
10 . The umpire shall be judge of the men and shall note the fouls and notify the referee when three consecutive fouls have been made. He shall have the power to disqualify men according to Rule 5;
11. The referee shall be the judge of the ball and decide when it is in play in bounds, to which side it belongs, and shall keep the time. He shall decide when a goal has been made and keep account of the goals with any other duties that are usually performed by a referee;
12. The time shall be two 15-minute halves with five minutes' rest between.

Last Rule: The side making the most goals in that time shall be declared the winners.

In addition to the creation of the basketball, James Naismith graduated as a medical doctor, primarily interested in sports physiology and what we would today call sports science and as Presbyterian minister, with a keen interest in philosophy and clean living. Naismith watched his sport, basketball, introduced in many nations by the YMCA movement as early as 1893. Basketball was introduced at the Berlin Olympics in 1936. Naismith was flown to Berlin to watch the games. He died in Lawrence, Kansas, in 1939.

A Sore Sport

2006-04-11T04:38:00.000-07:00

If April is the cruelest month then March is the most frustrating. My favorite sport -- basketball -- is still in full swing but, at the same time, mercilessly pushed out of public view in favor of the NCAA Tournament. College ball is, simply put, basketball played badly, and America's obsession with that game's absurd method of determining a national champion is the true madness.

Even if you're not a basketball fan, you probably see some of the tournament games. Thanks to the ubiquitous office pools, the tournament is broadcast constantly -- everywhere -- for a few mercifully brief months. And if you're not a fan, you probably don't appreciate exactly what it is you're seeing. In all college sports, the athletes are, naturally, not up to the standard of their professional peers. They're younger, inexperienced, and physically under-developed. Basketball, however, differs from football in the crucial respect that the most promising professional talents almost never play a full four or even three seasons at the amateur level. Indeed, until the NBA changed its rules last off-season, it was by no means uncommon for the very best players to turn pro straight out of high school. Thus, many of America's brightest basketball stars, including at least three of the top five players in the world -- Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, and Kevin Garnett -- never graced the floors of college competition at all. Other top talents -- Dwyane Wade, Gilbert Arenas, Chris Bosh, Carmelo Anthony -- graduate early. And yet another set of superstars -- Dirk Nowitzki, Tony Parker, Yao Ming, Manu Ginobili -- don’t play college ball because they're foreigners and cut their teeth in the pro leagues of Europe, Asia, or even Latin America.

This has two consequences for the college game. One is simply to deprive it of talent. College football isn't up to the NFL level, but the Bowl Championship Series really does offer the best 18- to 22-year-old players in the world. The best college-age basketball players don't play college basketball -- they're in the NBA. The other, more insidious problem is that in college, as in elsewhere, experience matters. Seniors have an advantage over sophomores -- they've had more time to learn the game, their teammates, and the coach's system. As a result, the savviest college hoops programs don't actually want to recruit the very best young players available. A top talent will come to your school, play for a year or two to show off his stuff, and then move on to bigger and better things. You're looking for a player who, while skilled, has sufficient deficiencies as a player -- typically a lack of height or speed -- to compel him to stick around as an amateur.

Topping that off, this thin pool of talent is stretched even thinner by the relative cheapness of running a Division I basketball team. The NCAA Tournament, allegedly a competition between the very best teams, features an insane 64 squads. The NBA, drawing on a much larger pool of talent that includes a wide range of ages and players from all around the world, has less than half as many and could probably stand to drop a franchise or two.

Consequently, the college game bears only a faint resemblance to the real thing. The dominant big men who can transform a pro game are entirely absent. Strength, speed, quickness, and athleticism are radically diminished, and the quality of the defense is consequently laughable. Yet, despite the poor defense, virtually nobody in the college game has what it takes to penetrate into the lane and make a strong move to the hoop. So the rules need to be altered -- a 35-second shot clock instead of the proper 24 and a short three-point line -- to give the offense some hope. Consequently, players dribble in circles and pass, pass, pass around the horn endlessly, taking advantage of defenders who lack the quickness to snatch the ball. Eventually, someone will wind up open and fire off a shot -- which more often than not they miss anyway. At the pro level, this is called "settling for jump shots" and it's distinctly frowned upon. You take jumpers as a last resort, when you can't make it into the paint, or else you do it as a threat -- and you'd better nail them -- forcing teams to defend you on the perimeter in order to open up the inside game.

To watch the world's best basketball teams -- the Miami Heat, the Phoenix Suns, the San Antonio Spurs, the Detroit Pistons, the Dallas Mavericks -- is to distinctly put oneself in the presence of greatness. The feats on display are not quite super-human -- Shaquille O'Neal and Shawn Marion and Tim Duncan are still members of our species at the end of the day -- but they certainly appear to be. That one could run the floor like Steve Nash or charge the paint like Allan Iverson or crash the boards like Ben Wallace seems absurd. These men are not just better than you or I, they're way better, qualitatively different, exhibiting physical skills that neither you nor anyone you know nor anyone you'll ever meet can even hope to approach. The sheer speed and ferocity of the games is astounding -- even mentally you'd be overwhelmed, lost, driven to tears or insanity amidst the flying bodies, flailing limbs, and zipping ball. Key moves in the game -- the dunk, the alley-oop, the tip -- are just things you could never accomplish, no matter what the circumstances, no matter how long you practice, no matter how weak the competition.

There's something reassuring about the college game. The players are, obviously, better at basketball than any mere fan could dream to be. But unlike basketball on its highest levels -- or even at the intermediate levels of the Euroleague, the CBA, or the Olympics -- it bears a superficial resemblance to what you might do at the YMCA or have done on the JV team in ninth grade.

It's reassuring, yes, but to take refuge in such reassurance -- to thus celebrate mediocrity -- is ultimately somewhat abhorrent. It's of a piece with the same blinkered anti-elitism that led not only millions of voters but a shockingly large suite of pundits who should have known better to conclude that it didn't matter that George W. Bush wasn't up to the job of running the United States of America. It's the athletic equivalent of the blinkered anti-intellectualism no respectable person would endorse in other walks of life.

The very structure of the tournament reinforced the mediocrity inherent in the sport. A six-round single-elimination tournament is crazy. Even a truly dominant team -- one that wins 80 percent of the time it plays -- will lose such a tournament three times out of four. The defense is that this makes the tournament better for gambling purposes. And, indeed, it does -- if what you're interested in is a structure that rewards mediocre gambling. The high level of randomness ensures that even a bettor with a sophisticated knowledge of the game has only a small advantage over someone equipped simply with the fact that a one seed is better than an eleven seed.

Skill and knowledge will get you almost nowhere, so the whole office can pitch in and a good time can be had by all. But this is merely the same problem all over again -- a weak-minded desire to construct a competition that fails to reward excellence.

If your alma mater is in the mix, or if you, like most everyone, has some money riding on the outcome, then by all means watch and root. But know that you're watching a kind of farce, a competition between players who can't quite hack it designed to ensure that being the best team is no guarantee of victory. Or, you can wait 'til April and May and check out the NBA playoffs if you want to see the game played properly.

Noah courting greatness

2006-04-11T04:37:00.000-07:00

INDIANAPOLIS -- Joakim Noah loves everything about his famous father, Yannick, except for one thing.

"He's always telling me, 'Calm down, take a deep breath, you're not breathing enough,' " the Florida Gators basketball star said yesterday.

"(So he tells him), 'All you've got to do is just chill out, man, drink a couple of beers, watch the game and let me play.' He stresses me out."

It's really a case of like father, like son. Yannick, as a beloved French Open tennis champion representing France in the 1980s and now as a reggae star back home, always has been a guy doing it his way, a guy who doesn't want to be on the sidelines. Joakim, who exudes energy, passion and charisma like his dad, is much the same way, on and off the court.

Tonight, Yannick will sit in the RCA Dome and watch Joakim play the biggest game of his career in his chosen sport -- basketball -- when the Gators face the UCLA Bruins in the NCAA championship. And maybe one day, maybe even this year if the scouts are right, the 6-foot-11 forward will be a high pick in the NBA draft.

As a 5-year-old in France, Joakim asked his father for a tennis lesson. It didn't last long.

"When I was young, you could feel the pressure in something if you're playing with your father because people want to watch," Joakim said.

"When you're a little kid, you don't want that. You don't want people watching you and comparing you to your father. You just want people to leave you alone and you just want to enjoy it.

"I always see that when I go back to New York and go to the park and play basketball or something and see a father pushing his kid and you can tell the kid is not having fun. He's going to stop playing when he's 14 or 15 ... I don't feel the pressure now because I'm doing my own thing."

And doing it well. While his shot is very awkward (with the release coming from around his chest) and his range is far from great, Noah is an athletic sophomore. He blocked four shots in a semi-final win over George Mason Saturday.

"When I see this atmosphere, I want out of tennis," Yannick said in the winning dressing room Saturday. "I wish I had chosen a team sport. But I think it's too late for me."

Yannick, a native of Cameroon, didn't see his son regularly through childhood. He divorced Joakim's mother, Cecilia, an ex-Miss Sweden, when their son was a young boy. Mother and child moved to New York from France to allow Joakim to develop in basketball while Yannick pursued his music career. But the bond remains as tight as could be and perhaps that's because of their similar upbringings.

When Yannick was 12, the great Arthur Ashe discovered him playing tennis on an African tour and led the up-and-comer to a boarding school in France.

"I know that without Arthur, my father wouldn't be the person he is, and I know I wouldn't be here," Joakim said.

"I'd probably be a little kid in Africa or Sweden ... I just appreciate everything he stands for and everything he did for my family. His legend still lives."