Basketball without James Naismith

[UrbanRedneck]

In 1892 James Naismith published rules for a game he had invented called basketball.

But what if no Naismith? I think we can all assume another indoor court based game would have been invented but here is the question - how similar to OTL basketball would it have been?

Basically what Naismith did was take a peach basket, put it above a door, and created a set of rules for a game. The height of that door happened to be 10 feet so that distance stuck. the other rules he invented thru trial and error based on what he saw worked out the best.

So what do you all think?

PS. Recently a copy of those rules sold for $4 million.

 

[anon_user]

Maybe an indoor soccer or street hockey game? Or perhaps a handball-type game? I don't necessarily see someone else making the specific inventions Naismith did - in particular, the idea of a game involving arced shots seems to be completely original to him.

 

[1940LaSalle]

Interestingly, the original intent was to have an indoor alternative that would be a tad slower so that older men could participate regularly. I'd venture a guess that a different indoor game might be more baseball-like: hockey was still an outdoor game at that point (largely), and soccer was pretty much in the province of the immigrant population and universities.