Basketball was invented in 1891, at a YMCA in Springfield, Massachusetts. It’s as American as apple pie, bald eagles, and that other most American of pastimes, baseball.
Isn’t it?
It all depends on whom you ask. Halfway around the globe, one billion people think that basketball is as Chinese as fireworks, porcelain, and giant pandas!
Ever since American missionaries introduced it to that country in 1895, the game has been played by students, office workers, and soldiers alike. Today, something like 300 million Chinese play basketball regularly. And 450 million of them say they’re fans. It’s so much a part of the culture that in 2014, when sports giant Nike set out to inspire a new generation of basketball-loving kids, it chose to do it in the Middle Kingdom.
China…
