99% Invisible - 199- The Yin and Yang of Basketball

Episode Date: February 10, 2016

In 1891, a physical education teacher in Springfield, Massachusetts invented the game we would come to know as basketball. In setting the height of the baskets, he inadvertently created a design problem that would not be resolved for decades to come. The … Continue reading →

This is 99% Invisible. I'm Roman Mars. Tomorrow night, 15,000 cheering fans will pack Madison Square Garden in New York City to witness a giant basketball double header. In that cheering crowd, sitting in row C, C-11 will be a modest 77-year-old man. Those fans won't know that he made possible the games they're watching. But you're going to meet him now. That tape is from an old New York radio show called We The People. The guest is James Naysmith. A hundred and twenty-five years ago in 1891, Naysmith was a PE instructor at a small

college in Springfield, Massachusetts when a particularly bad snowstorm struck. For days the students couldn't go outdoors, so they began rough housing in the halls. We tried everything to keep them quiet. Something had to be done. One day I had an idea. I called the boys to the gym, divided them up into teams of nine,

and gave them an old soccer ball. I showed them two peach baskets I'd nailed up with each end of the gym. I told them the idea was to throw the ball into the opposing team's peach basket. A lot of sports don't have such a definitive point of origin, but this one does. I blew a whistle and the first game of basketball began. That day in 1891 James Nasemith invented basketball. And what rules did you have for your new game, Dr. Nasemith? Well, I didn't have enough, and that's where I made my big mistake. The boys began tacking, kicking and punching in the clinch. They ended up in a free for all in the middle of the gym floor.

In subsequent weeks, Nase Smith would go on to make more rules for the game. Some of those are still around today. Like the one that says players can't run while holding the ball. They have to dribble it. But there was one thing, not so much a rule, but a design decision that he made back in 1891 that continues to define the way the game has played. He had to decide how high to hang the Peach Basket. That's Kerry Champion. She's an anchor at ESPN and host of the Be Honest Podcast and she's going to help us tell our story today. Nase Smith chose to hang the Peach Basket at 10 feet above the court floor. There was a running track that went around the court at that level, but otherwise the decision

was pretty random and just a little higher or a little lower and everything would be different. That arbitrary decision to put the basket at 10 feet caused the game of basketball to take shape around the tallest players, but it happened gradually. In fact, in the beginning, the game was played by shorter, less imposing players. In the very early days of the game, people didn't really have a conception of height, having really any importance to the game. That's writer and journalist Andrew Heisel. So a lot of the high scores in the very early days,

were guys who were like six foot tall. It was not until a few decades in that team started recruiting really tall guys. And at the time, they were sort of referred to often as goons. Nowadays, if you play a little rough or dirty, you might be called a goon. Back then, Big Men were sometimes called goons just because they were big. The first so-called goon to have a major impact on the game was a big white dude named George Micon,

who played for the Minneapolis Lakers from 1948 to 1956. He was a six foot ten monster who wore big round spectacles when he played. Mikean towered over his opponents and broke scoring records with his strength and accuracy. George Mican forces his way through the center spins and shoots and is followed by a ball of his opponents and broke scoring records with his strength and accuracy. Mike and with such a force they actually had to change some rules in the game to offset his advantage. For example, the rule against goal-tending came about because of Mikan. Goaltending is the act of catching or batting away another player's shot as the ball is on a downward path toward the basket. Mikan was so tall he could just stand under the basket and swat away shots by the other team. Goaltending was banned in 1945.

But rule changes didn't stop George Mikan or his fellow big Man from dominating defensively and offensively. You started to see people saying like it's too easy to score. Like they were really sort of disgusted. They thought this should be a triumph to get the ball in the hoop, not something that happens 100 some times a game. The ease with which these super tall players could put the ball in the basket was alarming people. The traditionalists didn't like the way the game was going, but they had no idea what was about to hit them.

The Dunk. Sometimes called the slam dunk. The first one in an organized game happened in 1936, but dunking didn't really get going in basketball until the 1960s. And man, the traditionalist, they hate it the dunk. But not just because it was a new, unconventional way to put the ball in the basket. The dunk became political. The key year is 1966. That's Matt Andrews. My name is Matt Andrews.

I teach American History at UNC Chapel Hill and I have a particular focus on sport and society. So it was in 1966. In the NCAA Championship game, Texas Western, with an all black starting five, easily defeat Adolf Rupp's all white University of Kentucky team. This win by Texas Western against Kentucky was a big deal in the college basketball world. Kentucky was one of the last major college teams in the country that still didn't have any black players. The coach of Kentucky was a guy named Adolf Rupp, many viewed him as a racist.

According to the sports correspondent Frank DeFord, who was in the Kentucky locker room that night, the language Rupp used against the Texas Western players sent a chill down his spine. And there was this moment right at the beginning of the game where Texas Western's David Latin gets the ball and makes a move toward the hoop. The defender in front of him is Pat Riley. He go on to win nine NBA titles as a player, coach and executive and Latin flies over him. Riley's like six foot four, stockly both, and Latin just rises above him and slams the ball through the hoop. Texas' victory and Latin's dunk were seen as direct challenges to the establishment.

After all, this was 1966. There was a lot going on in America. The Black Panthers have become a visible force. In Oakland, the Panthers had armed and organized themselves to protect their communities from brutal racist police. And many white Americans were worried a revolution was about to take place. Black Power was this new, evocative phrase. So that the failure to pass a civil rights bill isn't because of black power, isn't because of the student nonviolent court.

What's so interesting about this phrase is it's lack of specificity, knowing is exactly sure what black power means. Into this context comes the dunk, and the dunk seems to be black power manifest on the basketball court. The dunk is physical, the dunk is forceful. You know, when you lay the ball in, you're laying the ball in, but when you dunk, you're doing it to someone. And at a time, when so many white Americans are uneasy with the specter of black violence. The dunk becomes suspect. Then to scare people like Adolf Rupp even more comes a player called Lou Alcender.

He would later change his name to Karim Abduljbar and become one of the most exciting and famous players in the history of the game. But in 1967 he was a young man, 7 feet 2 inches tall, and already tearing in the history of the game. But in 1967 he was a young man, seven feet, two inches tall, and already tearing up the college game with his vicious dunks and fast movement. House senders surrounded by white shirts, unstoppable. So the NCAA, that's the National Collegiate Athletic Association, made a decision.

The only way to stop this guy was to get rid of the thing he did best, the slam dunk. In 1967, they banned the dunk. And for 10 years, there's no dunking in college basketball. Lou Elcender, aka Kreme Abdul Jabbar, was not happy about this. In fact, he explicitly said that the only reason for the ban was because they were scared that black guys like him were going to take over the game, although he used much stronger words. Regardless, the slam dunk was done, and college basketball was sent back in time for 10 years. Basketball was in a bad place. The NCAA administrators

had made an arguably racist decision to ban the slam dunk. Meanwhile, in the professional league, the NBA, players could still dunk, but fans were losing interest. Here's Andrew Heisel again. This is for the NBA, considered like the low point of the league. There are all of these pieces written about how the game is dying and nobody wants to watch it. And there's all these questions about why. Nase Smith's original accidental design decision

to put the basket at 10 feet had inadvertently given us this beautiful and exciting slam dunk, but it had also caused the professional game to revolve too much around these super tall players. The game had gotten jammed up around the net. People weren't passing as much. They just hand the ball to the giant guy and he'd stand under the basket, trying to put it in.

This had the effect of slowing down the play, and that slowness was draining the game of its excitement. Basketball needed a design solution. People suggested a lot of fixes. No backboard, a convex backboard, a smaller basket, a bigger ball, a smaller ball, a no scoring zone around the basket, and even a height cap. Another group of coaches called for the hoop to be raised to 12 feet.

None of those changes caught on. And then, this guy comes along. Well, we feel that those people who are not under a contract to a lot of litigation, if they like to take a look at us, we would. So remember George Mican, the original NBA Goon 6-foot ten inches tall with big round specs. Well, in 1967 he was working as a travel agent in Minnesota where he used to play. When he gets a call from a couple of guys asking if he wants to head up a new professional basketball league that would compete with the NBA.

What do his old NBA friends have to say about his new job. Good luck, baby. I mean, it really was just sort of making up that you go along. It was simply what's getting an idea. And let's see what we can do here. That's Terry Pluto who wrote a book about the founding of this new league. They called it the ABA, the American Basketball Association. And George Mike and became its first commissioner. They were trying everything to get fans reengaged in the game.

Sometimes they featured cow-moaking contests for entertainment. And one halftime show in Indiana involved a wrestling bear called Victor. Beautiful brown bear who looks to me that he weighs at least 500 pounds. Most of their ideas didn't stick. A lot of times good ideas are like that. They're one of 12 things that people stuck to the wall and out of the 12. One became really good, one helped a little bit, and the other 10 were almost embarrassing. In this case, one of the ideas was really good. In fact, it's the design solution that arguably saved basketball, and the secret star of this story that we're telling right now.

The three point shot. Fire in for three, kicks a three, fur is in, and he hits a three. He's one, knocks down. The flutters and knocks it down for three. So all you sports fans know this, but originally shots from the field were all worth two points. But the ABA's innovation, which they actually borrowed from an earlier defunct week, was to draw an arch line about 22 feet away from the basket, and any shot made from behind that line was now worth three points. The ABA was trying to please the fans.

Fans get excited when they see a three-pointer, but they can also go and practice the shot at home. It's more egalitarian. That's Ramona Shelburn, senior writer for ESPN.com. It's the sense that if I practice hard enough, I don't have to be the most athletic guy in the court. I don't have to be an incredible dunker. It's something that when fans watch it,

they think, oh, I could do that too. In 1976, the NBA merged with the ABA, and three years later, they brought in the three-point shot. At first, it was about pleasing the fans, but they slowly came to realize something about the three-point shot. When you'd study it, if you shoot 35% on three-pointers, and you shoot 45% on two pointers, if you just break it

down, it makes so much more sense to build a team around three point shooting because you're going to score more points and that's the point of the game. And now some teams have decided that the way to win is to concentrate on three point shots. When the NBA first introduced the three-point shot, games featured only a couple of three-point attempts. This season, it's more than 10 times that. And if there's any team that's demonstrating the value

of the three-point shot right now, it's the Golden State Warriors from California and Mr. Steph Curry. Curry for the league! Curry, what's the deepest behind the back? Curry for the league. Curry, what's the deepest behind the back? Fire's a train. How are we going to put it in?

If you don't know who Steph Curry is, he's about 6 foot 3, so he's short by NBA standards. But this hasn't stopped him from being the star of the team and of the whole NBA. I think every kid growing up in America now is trying to be Steph Curry. He is skinny and doesn't seem to have anything physically dominant about him, and yet when you watch him play, he's electric. Curry can hit three pointers for Golden State from really anywhere he likes, which makes it hard to defend against him and balances the influence of the big men. Because if there are guys like Curry who can score from anywhere, then the 7-foot guys have to move away from the basket,

where they're most useful, to defend. And once you allow players to score an extra point from shooting further out, the game spreads out. You get a whole new game. The game has changed for the better. There's no doubt about it. That's former Indiana Pacer Jerry Harkness. Harkness was a player in the NBA and the ABA. Because the game is exciting. The game is running shoot, quickness, defense, opening the game up, making it more aggressive. But even though the three-point shot has had a balancing influence, some traditionalists

still don't like it. And I think it's basketball. I think it's like a circus sort of thing. Why don't we have a five point shot and a seven point shot? Where does it stop? That's sort of thing. But that's just me, that's just old school. That San Antonio Spurs coach Greg Popovich speaking to ESPN about Steph Curry's golden state

warriors last year. What Popovich is saying kind of echoes what people said about the dump 50 years ago. That it's a trick, a departure from the fundamentals of basketball. And I kind of agree with Coach Pop. But even Popovich seems to think that the three point shot is here to stay. So a certain degree, you better embrace it, you're going to lose. And every time we've won a championship, three point shot was a big part of it. shot is here to stay. Instead of designing the beautiful, powerful dunk out of the game, we designed a counterbalance,

the three point shot, and now the game is more inclusive than it's ever been. You've got these little guys that can shoot bombs from anywhere on the court, and they're still room for the big guys close in. The three pointer and the dunk have become the Yin and Yang of basketball. All of this has sort of been by accident. The 10-foot tall basket, the dunk, the three-point shot. But then again, the game wasn't carefully designed in the first place. Really it came about because all James and Ace Smith wanted was to stop some rowdy kids from getting into too much trouble. And the whole thing started with a couple of peach baskets I put up in a little gym 48

years ago. I guess it just goes to show what you can do if you have. I'll be right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah That's 99% infosble for this week. This episode was a collaboration with our friends at ESPN in his part of a podcast mini-series that they're launching later this spring called Dunkumentaries. It's a collection of stories all related to basketball slam dunk. The feed is live right now so you can subscribe to it on the ESPN mobile app or on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also find them on Twitter at Dunkumentaries for more info.

Joe Sykes reported and produced this story with us for ESPN with help from Ryan Nantel, Emma Morgan Stern, Delina Termin, Joe Fuentes, and Kevin Wilde's. Special thanks to Jody Avergan for hooking this all up. Also check out Cari Champion's podcast Be Honest, where she has candid conversations with some of the biggest names in sports, music, and entertainment. Andrew Heisel's story in Vice inspired the idea for this story you can find a link on our website. On the 99P I-Team Katie Mingle did the heavy lifting on this one, with Sam Green's

man Avery Trouffin and Kirk Colstead Delaney Hall, Sharif Yusef and me Roman Mars. We are a production of 99% Invisible Inc, a project of KALW San Francisco, and produced out of the offices of ArcSign, an architecture in Interior's firm, in beautiful downtown Oakland, California, the one and only home of the Warriors. If you want to learn about another little game design innovation that saved the game of basketball, look for episode number 77 of this program. It's called Game Changer. It's about the shot clock. You'll like it. You can find this show and like the show on Facebook. All of us run Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, and Spotify, but to find out more about this story, including cool pictures and links

and listen to all the episodes of 99% of visible, you must go to 99pion.org.