Hi everybody, welcome to Explained Back on 5, the podcast where we take questions you always want to ask, and talk about them in a way that's easy to understand. We are your hosts, I'm Tim. Hey everyone, I'm Kevin. So Kevin, the month of March is the month where a lot of people in the United States start talking about basketball because of the NCAA tournament, and we thought we would explain basketball this week as a result.
Well hey Tim, how about the other reason we're talking about basketball? You know, with all the positive feedback on last week's Hurricanes episode. Oh yes, we should say a big thank you to those of you who wrote in, and also those of you who've taken the time to help give us a rating on iTunes this past week. Every extra rating and review helps other people to discover our podcast, so we really appreciate it.
Now Kevin, you were referring to the link between Hurricanes and the NBA player Tim Duncan, correct? Oh yes, yes, there's a really fun fact here. Did you know that Tim Duncan, one of the best NBA players of all time, grew up in the U.S. Virgin Islands, thinking he'd actually be an Olympic swimmer.
That's right, he was training for the 1992 Olympics when Hurricane Hugo hit, and it basically destroyed the U.S. Virgin Islands' only Olympic-sized pool. You know, the only alternative for him was to swim in the ocean, and he was a friend of sharks, so that's when he turned to basketball. And we're glad that he did make that choice, he was a phenomenal player.
Now, rewinding the clock, basketball was one of the sports that was invented in the United States quite recently, right? Oh yeah, it's pretty recent. Basketball was invented by a P.E. instructor called James Naismith in 1891, right here in Springfield, Massachusetts, at the International Young Men's Christian Association Training School.
Is that the YMCA? That's right, the YMCA was responsible for initially developing and spreading the game, but the funny thing is that within a decade, it discouraged the new sport, as kind of like a lot of rough play and rowdy crowds began to detract from the YMCA's primary mission. How was basketball in its earliest form different to the basketball we know today? A few things.
So for that first game, Naismith actually used two half-bushel peach baskets, which gave the sport its name, basketball. It was originally also played with a soccer ball, or rather an association football ball. Remember the episode we did on that? Oh yes, I do remember that episode.
Yeah, so these round balls from association football were made at the time with a set of laces to close off the hole, so dribbling wasn't that easy. It also took a few years for dribbling to become common, and a rule against the double dribble only came about in 1898. And then in 1906, the peach baskets were finally replaced by metal hoops with backboards. I have always wondered how backboards came into existence.
Why are they part of the sport of basketball? Oh yeah, so the peach baskets that were originally used, they were originally nailed to kind of like this mezzanine balcony of the playing court. But the problem was that spectators in the balcony started interfering with shots. The backboard was introduced to prevent this interference.
And then they also realized it had the additional positive effect of allowing, you know, rebound shots. What is the purpose of switching out the basketball net frequently? Something that professional teams do quite a lot. Oh yeah, so for those unaware, the NBA, they have a rule which says a basketball net needs to be switched out every seventh home game.
And actually, there's teams like Golden State Warriors who switch them out every game. And this is because nets, they can tear. And if the hole is near the top of the hoop, the ball can go through the hoop, enter the net, and hit one of those holes, and bounce right back out. So you could end up with a situation where a game is worn or lost based on a condition of the net, and not the quality of the shot.
So some people familiar with street basketball might have some personal experience of this and appreciate this fact with it. I believe James Naismith was also instrumental in establishing college basketball. Oh yes, that's right. A colleague of his fielded the first ever college basketball game just a year after that first Springfield YMCA game.
Naismith himself later coached at the University of Kansas for six years before handing the reins to renowned coach Forrest Fogg-Allen. So an interesting fact that I learned recently is that the NBA and NCAA basketball teams have home uniforms that typically are light in color, white or yellow, and that the visiting teams are always the ones to wear the darker color. Why is this? Yeah, yeah, that is a good observation.
And there's actually a rationale for this convention too. Home teams in basketball wear white uniforms because traditionally, the home team had access to laundry facilities since they were at home. And by wearing gray or another dark color, the visiting team was better able to conceal any dirt or stains that may have accumulated under uniforms over the course of being away for a whole series. Very practical.
There's another practical question the community has had over the years, and that is, if I'm practicing basketball and I shoot a basketball say a thousand times in a row and miss a thousand times in a row, would that make me get better because I'm doing repetition or would that make me just develop bad muscle memory and actually get worse? Hmm. You know, there's an adaptive phrase that sums it up nicely. Practice doesn't make perfect, practice makes permanent.
So you'd likely actually be making yourself worse if you're not improving with each shot. But if you really miss a thousand times in a row, Tim, I suggest you might try changing your technique to the underhanded free throw shot. Ah, you mean what some people would call the granny shot? Yeah.
There's actually some research that does say that underhanded free throws are actually a better way to make free throws. But nobody has really done this since a player called Rick Barry in the 60s and 70s, who did have an 89% free throw percentage. Okay. Finally, one of the most famous basketball teams in history is the Lithuanian Olympic team of 1992.
Can you explain what happened to them and their link to the Grateful Dead? Sure. Sure. So what happened back then is Lithuania, they withdrew from the 1992 Olympics due to the lack of money after the fall of the USSR.
And the Grateful Dead, they agreed to fund all the transportation costs for the basketball team along with Grateful Dead designs for the team's jerseys and shorts. It was only about $5,000 for the transport, but it actually started a whole movement as the team were really good and they went out to win the bronze. The Lithuanian basketball slash Grateful Dead t-shirts, it actually became a part of pop culture, especially in Lithuania. Interesting.
1992, that year where Tim Duncan was training to be an Olympic swimmer and also that was the year of the Dream Team with Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, wasn't it? Oh yes, that was the year indeed. There's a whole documentary on the thing. They titled the documentary The Other Dream Team.
Very interesting. You learned something new, if you did, and especially if you are one of our regular listeners, please do give us a rating on iTunes. It helps other people to find the podcast and we really appreciate it. As always, thank you to the community at r slash 995 and we will see you all next week.