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.
