In 1891 the minister Dr. James Naismith faced the problem of finding a sport for students at the School for Christian Workers that could be played indoors during the bitter New England winter. Taking inspiration from a game he played as a child called "Duck-on-a-Rock," he nailed peach baskets (originally he asked the janitor for boxes but none could be found) to two YMCA gymnasium walls and wrote up thirteen simple rules. The very first basketball game, which featured two teams of nine players using a soccer ball, occurred on January 20, 1892 and ended in an amazingly low score of 1-0. Basketball showed people that an indoor sport could require the vigor and athleticism (as opposed to, say, cribbage) that were usually reserved for outdoor sports, and as a result the game was immediately popular.

In its first couple decades, basketball's rules varied from game to game as it slowly evolved. In Naismith's original rules, the player could not dribble or move while in possession in the ball, so the only way to for a team to advance towards the goal was through passing, as in Ultimate Frisbee. Players were finally allowed to move with the ball while dribbling in 1910, but they were not allowed to attempt a shot after moving. It wasn't until 1916 that the rules allowed players to move, dribble, and shoot in a way that that is familiar to modern players.

The game's rules started to codify when colleges started to establish teams. Naismith, proud of his new game, worked hard to spread it to colleges, even coaching at University of Kansas for six years. College leagues began in the 1920s, and the first national championship tournament, the National Invitation Tournament (NIT) in New York, followed in 1938.

In the 1920s, professional teams could be found in hundreds of towns and cities all across America. There was little organization, and since gymnasiums weren't always available, players were often forced to play the balletic game in dance halls, or any other wide open indoor space available.

The National Basketball Association was founded in New York City on June 6, 1946 as the Basketball Association of America (BAA). At its start, player salaries were about $5,000 per season. The income that came with playing basketball professionally was so small it forced many players to seek off season jobs. The league's very first game occurred on Nov. 1, 1946 in Toronto, Canada, with the Huskies hosting the New York Knickerbockers at Maple Leaf Gardens. As a promotion, anyone taller than the tallest Husky (6' 8") received admission free. The Knickerbockers, a name later shortened to The Knicks, went on to win 68-66.

In the early 50's, one of the most common strategies in the game was "stalling," where the leading team would pass endlessly so the opposing team wouldn't have a chance to have possession of the ball. This could render the game as boring as cribbage, so College Coach Howard Hobsen came up with the solution: a "shot clock," which imposed a limit on the time each team could possess the ball without attempting a shot. It was first used in scrimmage game organized by the Syracuse Nationals owner Danny Biasone, who also invented the idea of making the shot clock 24 seconds by dividing 2,880 (the number of seconds in a game) by 120 (the average number of shots in a game at the time). The shot clock was soon adopted by the National Basketball Association, and some argue it saved the sport by increasing the pace and average score per game.

The National Basketball Association has been the primary governing body of professional basketball since its inception. Its only rival was the American Basketball Association (ABA), which was founded in 1967 and eventually merged with the NBA in 1976. The league has featured many innovators and masters of the game, such as Walt Frazier, whose thirty year record for the most career assists remains unbroken. Other greats who have played for the NBA include Larry Bird, Earvin "Magic" Johnson, Michael Jordan and "Dr. J" Erving. Today the NBA is dominated by players like Kobe Bryant, Allen Iverson, Dwyane Wade, Shaquille O'Neil and the young prodigy LeBron James.

The first professional women's circuit was the WBL (Women's Professional Basketball League), which emerged in 1978. The league lasted only three years, and was discontinued in 1981. However, a new professional women's league - The Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) - surfaced in 1997 and continues, for the most part, to expand and thrive. The league originated with eight teams and has since expanded to 14 with the help of stars like Rebecca Lobo, Lisa Leslie and Sheryl Swoops.

Perhaps the most profound changes in styles of play over the years have involved the slam dunk. Originally a no-no in the world of basketball, the dunk became popular by the early 1960's as a power tool employed by the game's biggest players. It wasn't until the late 1960's that the modern dunk was invented - one defined by agility and finesse as much as it was sheer power. Probably more than any other player, Julius "Dr. J" Erving revolutionized the slam dunk. Playing in the pre-merger ABA in the early 1970's, Erving added elements to the dunk that nobody had ever seen, such as the windmill and behind the head slams. With such techniques (and new ones) seen regularly in the NBA today, the slam dunk has evolved into one of the basketball's most crowd-pleasing features.