Basketball is an exciting sport with a global footprint. Proof of the global popularity of basketball is evident on both the collegiate and professional hardwoods. In fact, the National Basketball Association noted prior to the opening night of the 2024-25 season that league rosters featured 125 international players from a record-tying 43 countries across six continents.
The popularity of basketball is undeniable. With so many tuned in to the exciting action, now is an ideal time for fans of basketball to learn some fun facts about the game.
· Michael Jordan, arguably the greatest player of all time, was once cut from his varsity high school team. Debates as to who is the greatest basketball player of all time will likely never cease, but many fans point to the man nicknamed “His Airness.” Indeed, Jordan’s many accolades include six NBA championships and six NBA Finals Most Valuable Player awards. Fans can be forgiven if they read Jordan’s impressive résumé and conclude his skills were identified as superior from the moment he stepped on a court, but the eventual five-time NBA MVP failed to make his high school varsity team in his sophomore year. Jordan ultimately used that as motivation, and averaged more than 25 points per game in his junior and senior seasons.
· Dunking was once illegal at certain levels. Few moments in a basketball game are as exciting as a thunderous slam dunk, but such feats were once outlawed in scholastic and collegiate competitions. Between 1967 and 1976, high school and college players were forbidden from dunking, a rule that might have satisfied basketball purists and assuaged concerns about increasingly tall players dominating the game with simple baskets, but one that undoubtedly confused players. Indeed, in a 2023 media interview, former University of Detroit player Terry Tyler noted his confusion over the rule during his collegiate playing days. Interestingly, Tyler eventually competed in a competition celebrating the slam dunk when he signed up to participate in the 1986 NBA Slam Dunk Contest. That competition was ultimately won by five-foot-seven Spud Webb, a victory that suggests concerns about taller players were misplaced.
· Two men are tied as the tallest players in NBA history. Height is a definite commodity in professional basketball, and two former players are proof of that. Gheorghe Muresan and Manute Bol, who were each seven-foot-seven, currently hold the record as the two tallest men to play in an NBA game. Curiously, Muresan, whose NBA career ended with the New Jersey Nets in 2000, ultimately found himself the second-tallest player in a game played in 2007. In an appearance that was akin to a promotional endeavor by the Maryland Nighthawks of the American Basketball Association, Muresan was temporarily teammates with Chinese player Sun Mingming, who was measured at seven feet, nine inches tall by the Guinness World Records.
· Dribbling was not always part of the game. Skilled ballhandlers are a big part of the appeal of modern basketball, but dribbling was not always part of the game. In the early days of basketball, players moved the ball by passing it to one another, standing in place and then throwing the ball to another player. Details are fuzzy, but basketball historians now credit players at Yale University in 1901 as the first to dribble in a game.
The global phenomenon of basketball has a rich and interesting history, and the game people love today once looked vastly different.
