Basketball is a relatively new game that appeared only in the late nineteenth century. Despite its relative youth, this game has captured the hearts of millions of fans around the world.
1. Basketball was invented in 1891 at a training center in Springfield, USA, to diversify boring physical education classes. The game was invented by a Canadian, Dr. James Naismith.
2. In January of the following year, he also published the basketball rules in a local newspaper. The game quickly spread among students of other educational institutions and, after the emergence of the NBA, became the most popular game in America.
3. In the beginning, basketball was not like we used to see it right now. Players passed the ball to each other, standing still, and it could be thrown into the basket only with both hands from below or from the chest.
4. Originally, the first basketball hoops were peach baskets nailed to an elevated track, so every time a point was scored, the game would have to stop for the referee to climb up and retrieve the ball from the basket.
5. In 1987-88, the shortest and the tallest players in NBA history played for one team. Manute Bol a Sudanese who measured 7’6” (231 cm) and Muggsy Bogues an American professional basketball player was 5’3” (160 cm) tall.
Manute Bol and Muggsy Bogues played for the Washington Bullets (now Wizards).
7. Basketball grew steadily in popularity, but the biggest surge came after the creation of the NBA in 1946 and the rise of television broadcasts, which brought the game into millions of homes across the United States.
8. As of May 2025, LeBron James has scored 42,184 regular-season points, making him the NBA’s all-time leading scorer. On March 4, 2025, in a game against the New Orleans Pelicans, he became the first player in NBA history to reach 50,000 total points including playoffs.
9. Wilt Chamberlain set the NBA single-game scoring record with 100 points against the New York Knicks on March 2, 1962 — a record that still stands. The closest to it is Luka Dončić, who scored 73 points vs. the Atlanta Hawks on January 26, 2024.
10. The highest-scoring NBA game in history took place on December 13, 1983, when the Detroit Pistons defeated the Denver Nuggets 186–184 after three overtimes. The game featured a total of 370 points, a record that still stands today.
The NBA logo shows a silhouette of ex-Lakers star Jerry West.
12. Michael Jordan, widely considered the greatest basketball player ever, was famously cut from his high school varsity team as a sophomore. His relentless determination and exceptional skill propelled him to win six NBA championships and five MVP awards in his career.
13. The first-ever Olympic basketball championship took place in Berlin in 1936. Originally, 23 countries were scheduled to participate in the event. The United States defeated Canada, 19-8, to win the first Olympic basketball gold medal.
14. The Boston Celtics and New York Knicks are the two oldest teams in NBA history that are still based in the same cities where they were founded.
