Editing Basketball (section)

===Professional basketball===
[[File:Liberator-ad.jpg|thumb|upright|Ad from ''[[The Liberator (magazine)|The Liberator]]'' magazine promoting an exhibition in Harlem, March 1922. Drawing by [[Hugo Gellert]]]]
Teams abounded throughout the 1920s. There were hundreds of men's [[professional basketball]] teams in towns and cities all over the United States, and little organization of the professional game. Players jumped from team to team and teams played in armories and smoky dance halls. Leagues came and went. [[Barnstorm (sports)|Barnstorming]] squads such as the [[Original Celtics]] and two all-African American teams, the [[New York Renaissance|New York Renaissance Five]] ("Rens") and the (still existing) [[Harlem Globetrotters]] played up to two hundred games a year on their national tours.

In 1946, the [[Basketball Association of America]] (BAA) was formed. The first game was played in [[Toronto]], Ontario, Canada between the [[Toronto Huskies]] and [[New York Knicks|New York Knickerbockers]] on November 1, 1946. Three seasons later, in 1949, the BAA merged with the [[National Basketball League (United States)|National Basketball League]] (NBL) to form the [[National Basketball Association]] (NBA). By the 1950s, basketball had become a major college sport, thus paving the way for a growth of interest in professional basketball. In 1959, a [[Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame|basketball hall of fame]] was founded in [[Springfield, Massachusetts|Springfield]], Massachusetts, site of the first game. Its rosters include the names of great players, coaches, referees and people who have contributed significantly to the development of the game. The hall of fame has people who have accomplished many goals in their career in basketball. An upstart organization, the [[American Basketball Association]], emerged in 1967 and briefly threatened the NBA's dominance until the [[ABA-NBA merger]] in 1976. Today the NBA is the top professional basketball league in the world in terms of popularity, salaries, talent, and level of competition.

[[File:Diamond DeShields (1) drives to the basket around Maya Moore (23) in the Minnesota Lynx vs Chicago Sky game.jpg|thumb|[[Diamond DeShields]] (#1) drives to the basket around [[Maya Moore]] (#23) in the Minnesota Lynx vs Chicago Sky game]]

The NBA has featured many famous players, including [[George Mikan]], the first dominating "big man"; ball-handling wizard [[Bob Cousy]] and defensive genius [[Bill Russell]] of the [[Boston Celtics]]; charismatic center [[Wilt Chamberlain]], who originally played for the barnstorming [[Harlem Globetrotters]]; all-around stars [[Oscar Robertson]] and [[Jerry West]]; more recent big men [[Kareem Abdul-Jabbar]], [[Shaquille O'Neal]], [[Hakeem Olajuwon]] and [[Karl Malone]]; playmakers [[John Stockton]], [[Isiah Thomas]] and [[Steve Nash]]; crowd-pleasing forwards [[Julius Erving]] and [[Charles Barkley]]; European stars [[Dirk Nowitzki]], [[Pau Gasol]], [[Nikola Jokić]] and [[Tony Parker]]; Latin American stars [[Manu Ginobili]], more recent superstars, [[Allen Iverson]], [[Kobe Bryant]], [[Tim Duncan]], [[LeBron James]], [[Stephen Curry]], [[Giannis Antetokounmpo]], etc.; and the three players who many credit with ushering the professional game to its highest level of popularity during the 1980s and 1990s: [[Larry Bird]], [[Magic Johnson|Earvin "Magic" Johnson]], and [[Michael Jordan]].

In 2001, the NBA formed a developmental league, the [[National Basketball Development League]] (later known as the NBA D-League and then the [[NBA G League]] after a branding deal with [[Gatorade]]). As of the 2023–24 season, the G League has 31 teams.