More than 300 million people today are hooked on basketball, but what do we really know about this game? Here’s a list of some fun facts about basketball to share with friends, families, and random acquaintances.
- When James Naismith created the game of basketball, his 13 basic rules were loosely based on his favorite childhood game, “Duck on a Rock”. If it weren’t for the peach baskets used as goals for the game, would we have ended up with a cool sport known by a fancy name? Basket duck doesn’t really sound so bad once you get used to it.
- It was due to his superior, Dr. Luther Gulick’s order that James Naismith ended up creating this sport in the first place. During a harsh winter at the International YMCA Training School, in order to pacify a hoard of teenagers quickly becoming annoyed and ill-tempered, Naismith came up with the brilliant idea for a brand new indoor sport. So the next time you are snowed in, why don’t you try investing on some innovative thinking to get those annoyed and ill-tempered kids in yours house entertained? You never know, right?
- James Naismith may have invented the game in 1891, but he did not become an official coach for a particular team until 1898 when he became the first basketball coach for the University of Kansas.
A list of fun facts about basketball will not be complete without the numbers:
- A lot of us – both avid fans and mere observers alike – may have been smitten by the glory days of the Chicago Bulls, but those guys cant hold the candle to the team who holds the record for most championship titles won. The Boston Celtics grabbed 17 NBA championships – the highest in NBA history – with even a seven-win streak from 1960 to 1966.
- To their credit, the Chicago Bulls won all six of the NBA finals they have appeared in between the years 1989 to 1998.
- Kareem Abdul-Jabbar scored a total of 38,387 points in the 20 seasons he played for the NBA. This puts him on top of the list for most points scored, followed by Karl Malone with 36,928 and the iconic Michael Jordan with 32,292.
- The record for most points scored in a single game, however, does not belong to any of the aforementioned greats. This feat was achieved in the professional league by Wilt Chamberlain on March 2, 1962 when he scored 100 points for the Philadelphia Warriors. This feat does not at all seem uncommon for smaller leagues in colleges and high schools.
- Coaches may not score the points, but they do make history by the number of games they have led to victory throughout their careers. The record for most number of wins belongs to Don Nelson with 1,335. He surpassed Lenny Wilkens’s previous record by 3 wins.
Another “must” on a list of fun facts about basketball are height matters:
- The shortest player to ever play in the NBA was Tyrone Curtis “Muggsy” Bogues at 5 feet 3 inches. Naturally, he filled in the role of point guard for four teams within his 14-season professional basketball career.
- On the flip-side, the title of the tallest player to ever play in the NBA actually goes to two men: the Romanian Gheorghe Muresan and the Sudanese Manute Bol, both at 7 feet 7 inches. Muresan’s gigantic stance was due to a pituitary disorder, while Bol was just naturally gigantic.
- What of Yao Ming, you ask? Well, he missed the plate by 1 inch, but he is credited as the tallest player in NBA today. The shortest, Earl Boykins, stands at a mere 5 feet 5 inches.
- Alan Iverson holds the record for being the shortest player to ever win MVP at 6 feet flat.
