All About Basketball: Rules, Tactics, History and Fundamentals

See our complete guide with images and videos featuring Everything About Basketball! How it was created, updated rules and curiosities

Sport practiced in more than 160 countries and one of the most popular in Brazil, basketball has more than a century of history. Did you know that it all started with a Canadian teacher?

In this post we will explain everything about basketball. How it was created, the main rules, sport characteristics tactics and fundamentals and  everything you need to know to follow the NBA , NBB , Euroleague or any other sport competition.
Come with us and answer all your questions about one of the most popular sports in the world.

What is basketball?

One of the most popular sports in the world, basketball is a collective game, created in the late 19th century.  Basketball is the adaptation of the sport's English name, basketball. Basket means basket, while ball is ball. Thus, basketball would be the same as “ball in the basket”.

Want to know more and understand the origin of basketball? Then check out the story of how the sport was created!

Who created basketball?

The inventor of basketball was Canadian James Naismith. He was a physical education professor at Springfield College, an international college of the Christian Youth Association (ACM). In 1891, James Naismith was tasked by the then director of Springfield College, Luther Halsey Gullick, to create a sport that could be practiced indoors during the Massachusetts winter in the United States.

During this period, due to the cold, ACM students were unable to play football or baseball. James Naismith then used two baskets of peach and positioned them at the ends of the court, 3.05 meters from the ground.

The aim of the sport created was simply that the teams hit the ball inside the baskets. Naismith also drew up 13 rules so that basketball could be played by students at the Christian Youth Association.

Interestingly, 4 years later, also at ACM, the history of volleyball started .

It was also in Massachusetts, but in the city of Springfield, that the company Chicope Falls produced the first basketball in 1894, the same year that the sport arrived in Brazil.

Do you love other sports besides basketball? Here at Esportelândia we also talk about:

Soccer
American football
Volleyball
Sneakers

Formula 1

How did basketball get to Brazil?

The person responsible for bringing basketball to Brazil was the American Augusto Shaw. He arrived in the country in 1894, to teach arts at Mackenzie, in São Paulo, and introduced the sport to students.

Augusto Shaw brought a basketball to Brazil. Initially, the new sport was well accepted by women, while facing competition with football among men. But in 1896, he managed to form the first team at Mackenzie.

In the following century, basketball was disseminated in Brazil by the Associação Cristã de Moços (ACM), from Rio de Janeiro. In 1912, the first basketball tournaments were held in Rio. Three years later, ACM promoted the first sport competition in South America, with the participation of six teams.

In 1922, the Brazilian basketball team was called for the first time. On December 25, 1933, in Rio de Janeiro, the Brazilian Basketball Federation was founded. The current name, Confederação Brasileira de Basketball (CBB), was adopted from December 26, 1941.

In 1948, Brazil won its first medal in basketball at the Olympics .