National Basketball Association
In 1946, the Basketball Association of America (BAA) was formed, organizing the top professional teams and leading to greater popularity of the professional game. The first game was played in Toronto, Ontario, Canada between the Toronto Huskies and New York Knickerbockers on November 1, 1946. Three seasons later, in 1949, the BAA became the National Basketball Association (NBA). An upstart organization, the American Basketball Association, emerged in 1967 and briefly threatened the NBA's dominance until the rival leagues merged in 1976. Today the NBA is the top professional basketball league in the world in terms of popularity, salaries, talent, and level of competition.
The NBA has featured many famous players, including George Mikan, the first dominating "big man"; ball-handling wizard Bob Cousy and defensive genius Bill Russell of the Boston Celtics; Wilt Chamberlain, who originally played for the barnstorming Harlem Globetrotters; all-around stars Oscar Robertson and Jerry West; more recent big men Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Karl Malone; playmaker John Stockton; crowd-pleasing forward Julius Erving; European stars Dirk Nowitzki and Drazen Petrovic and the three players who many credit with ushering the professional game to its highest level of popularity: Larry Bird, Earvin "Magic" Johnson, and Michael Jordan.
The NBA-backed Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) began in 1997. Though it had an insecure opening season, several marquee players (Sheryl Swoopes, Lisa Leslie and Sue Bird among others) helped the league's popularity and level of competition. Other professional women's basketball leagues in the United States, such as the American Basketball League (1996-1998), have folded in part because of the popularity of the WNBA.
In 2001, the NBA formed a developmental league, the NBDL. As of 2008, the league has sixteen teams.
Basketball teams make up approximately 13 percent of franchised sports in the U.S, and an average of 17,558 spectators regularly attend basketball games in the NBA, with the Chicago Bulls (22,103), Detroit Pistons (22,076) and Cleveland Cavaliers (20,499) topping the popularity stakes. The combined revenue from the 30 NBA teams is approximately $3.37 billion and rising. [5]
International basketball
The International Basketball Federation was formed in 1932 by eight founding nations: Argentina, Czechoslovakia, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Portugal, Romania and Switzerland. At this time, the organization only oversaw amateur players. Its acronym, derived from the French Fédération Internationale de Basketball Amateur, was thus "FIBA."
Basketball was first included in the Olympic Games in 1936, although a demonstration tournament was held in 1904. The United States defeated Canada in the first final, played outdoors. This competition has usually been dominated by the United States, whose team has won all but three titles, the first loss in a controversial final game in Munich in 1972 against the Soviet Union. In 1950 the first FIBA World Championship for men was held in Argentina. Three years later, the first FIBA World Championship for Women was held in Chile. Women's basketball was added to the Olympics in 1976, with teams such as the Soviet Union, Brazil and Australia rivaling the American squads.
FIBA dropped the distinction between amateur and professional players in 1989, and in 1992, professional players played for the first time in the Olympic Games. The United States' dominance continued with the introduction of their Dream Team. However, with developing programs elsewhere, other national teams started to beat the United States. A team made entirely of NBA players finished sixth in the 2002 World Championships in Indianapolis, behind Yugoslavia, Argentina, Germany, New Zealand and Spain. In the 2004 Athens Olympics, the United States suffered its first Olympic loss while using professional players, falling to Puerto Rico (in a 19-point loss) and Lithuania in group games, and being eliminated in the semifinals by Argentina. It eventually won the bronze medal defeating Lithuania, finishing behind Argentina and Italy.
Worldwide, basketball tournaments are held for boys and girls of all age levels. The global popularity of the sport is reflected in the nationalities represented in the NBA. Players from all over the globe can be found in NBA teams:
- Chicago Bulls star forward Luol Deng is a Sudanese refugee who settled in Great Britain.
- Steve Nash, who won the 2005 and 2006 NBA MVP award, is a South Africa-born Canadian.
- Andrea Bargnani of the Toronto Raptors, top pick in the 2006 NBA Draft, is from Italy. In addition, American superstar Kobe Bryant spent much of his childhood in Italy while his father was playing there.
- Dallas Mavericks superstar and 2007 NBA MVP Dirk Nowitzki is German.
- All-Star Pau Gasol of the Los Angeles Lakers is from Spain.
- 2005 NBA Draft top overall pick Andrew Bogut of the Milwaukee Bucks is Australian. Also, 2008 rookie Nathan Jawai is set to become the first Indigenous Australian ever to play in the league.
- Houston Rockets center Yao Ming is from China.
- All star and former three point champion Peja Stojakovic is Serbian.
- All star Andrei Kirilenko is Russian.
- Phoenix Suns guard Leandro Barbosa and Denver Nuggets forward Nenê are Brazilian.
- Cleveland Cavaliers big man Zydrunas Ilgauskas is Lithuanian.
- Perhaps no NBA team is as identified by international players as the San Antonio Spurs. The team's three most prominent players are all international—Tim Duncan of the U.S. Virgin Islands, Manu Ginobili of Argentina and Tony Parker of France. (Duncan competes for the United States internationally, as the Virgin Islands did not field a basketball team for international competition until well after Duncan started playing internationally, and all U.S. Virgin Islands natives are United States citizens by birth.)
- Ginobili's countryman Andrés Nocioni plays for the Chicago Bulls.
Even in the 90's, many non-American players made their names in the NBA, such as Croats Dražen Petrović and Toni Kukoč, Serb Vlade Divac, Lithuanians Arvydas Sabonis and Šarūnas Marčiulionis and German Detlef Schrempf.
The all-tournament teams at the two most recent FIBA World Championships, held in 2002 in Indianapolis and 2006 in Japan, demonstrate the globalization of the game equally dramatically. Only one member of either team was American, namely Carmelo Anthony in 2006. The 2002 team featured Nowitzki, Ginobili, Yao, Peja Stojakovic of Yugoslavia (now of Serbia), and Pero Cameron of New Zealand. Ginobili also made the 2006 team; the other members were Anthony, Gasol, his Spanish teammate Jorge Garbajosa and Theodoros Papaloukas of Greece. The only players on either team to never have joined the NBA are Cameron and Papaloukas. The strength of international Basketball is evident in the fact that the last three FIBA world championships were won (in order) by Serbia (Yugoslavia in 1998) and Spain.