Murder At the Foul Line
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Basketball was a little different when I was growing up, which is just before James Naismith reputedly invented the game in 1891.
First, most of the players were white. I don’t know if they could jump, but I do know they didn’t jump. Dunking was something you did with a doughnut and a cup of coffee. There was such a thing as a two-handed set shot. I’m not making this up. Hook shots were common, and soon some of the better players developed a jump shot. Foul shots were frequently taken underhanded, with two hands guiding the ball toward the hoop. Eventually, to help speed the game up, the twenty-four-second clock was invented.
Second, players actually played by the rules, mainly because the referees called fouls and other violations. Traveling, for example, was called if a player carried the ball for two steps. Today it’s called only if he carries the ball to another city. Basketball was described accurately back in the Dark Ages as a noncontact sport. If you bumped into a player, you were called for a foul. Today the foul is called only if you hit someone repeatedly, generally with a blunt instrument.