While the consensus on the origin of the sport of basketball places its origin as a sport to Springfield’s James Naismith, there have been a few competing claims over the decades, such as that of Lambert Will of Herkimer, New York. But if one looks at the general concept of putting a bouncy ball through a hoop, the roots of such sport go much deeper in the history of the Americas.
Ahead of the Boston Celtics’ first round tilt with the Atlanta Hawks, Boston’s Jaylen Brown paid homage to those roots in the form of sneakers painted to raise awareness of the Maya or Mesoamerican ball game as a progenitor of sorts for the sport Brown now plays for a living.
Associated with the ancestors of today’s indigenous cultures of what is today Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, El Salvador, the Caribbean, and the US Southwest, the sport bears a clear resemblance to basketball.
The Maya Ballgame “Pok Ta Pok” was a ritual deeply ingrained in the Maya culture. It served much more than being just a sporting event, it was a way of calming disputes and settling arguments which avoided wars. There are many versions of the game. pic.twitter.com/Lp6XhkwYoW
— Dr. Jay (@ChatProLegend76) April 14, 2023
There is no continuous connection between Naismith’s reinvention in 1892 and this sport dating back to about 2,000 BC, but the similarities are not minor.
The ball game, which likely originated with the Olmec or other local ancient cultures, has a bouncy rubber ball, a large stone hoop, and a walled, rectangular court with players working together to put the proverbial biscuit in the basket.
But from there, things diverge. The ball game had ritual significance, and the rules as it was played then were not spelled out given that what little writing that existed tended to focus on local rulers and their deeds.
RUCKER PARK!! #History#Legends
The Madison Square Garden of Street ball. 🏀✊🏾🏀✊🏾🏀✊🏾🏀✊🏾🏀✊🏾🏀 pic.twitter.com/j0CohIv126— Rod Strickland (@rod_strickland) October 10, 2021
Some matches seem for fun — others ended in one team being sacrificed to the gods. It may also be more accurate to think of the sport as a collection of related sports in the way that football can mean any of several sports with a common origin.
The versions closest to basketball seem to come from the Maya culture and were been played by bouncing the ball of various body parts to get it into the hoop in matches where teams had multiple players.
Brown was partially behind the refurbishment of the New York City streetball mecca of Rucker Park in a style that paid homage to those origins back in 2021.
A$AP Ferg redesigns NYC's famous Rucker Park basketball court with Jaylen Brown's help
⏩ READ MORE: https://t.co/KwAX9uBgPW pic.twitter.com/pxrXWAoFXg
— HipHopDX (@HipHopDX) October 11, 2021
His painted sneakers — the second he’s worn this postseason after another paying homage to Celtics great Bill Russell — ask the reader “Was it really (sic — we blame ex-teammate Aaron for the typo) Neismith?”, alluding to the indigenous parallel evolution of ball-and-hoop sports.
On the other side with writing, we are invited to “Just Do Better” on shoes with images and on the opposite sides.
One shoe references the Castillo of Chichen Itza (a place where the author’s adoptive family grew up on their way to becoming big fans of basketball and the NBA), and the other the Aztec, Maya, and Olmec cultures, who were the most prolific adopters and diffusers of the Mesoamerican ball game.
As with many aspects of sport and culture more generally, anything you might think is a novel development could very well have been invented (and re-invented) multiple times long before the version you think so new and shiny and engaging existed.
It’s also pretty awesome to see Brown pushing our awareness to those earlier iterations of hoop-and-ball sports with his on-court shoe selections as a sneaker free agent.
Jaylen Brown’s shoes for tonight pic.twitter.com/SSlO6N1Px3
— Jared Weiss (@JaredWeissNBA) April 21, 2023
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