Interbasket

Even if you aren’t an expert in international basketball, one can recognize names like Dirk Nowitzki, Yao Ming, Manu Ginobili, Pau Gasol, Sarunas Jasikevicius, and Luis Scola. And to know that these players are going to play a huge role in their team’s success and most likely will be leaders in several statistical categories.

If you are familiar with names such as Berni Rodriguez, Roko Leni-Ukic, Carlos Delfino, Liu Wei, and Olimpio Cipriano, congratulations, that means you’re well-versed about hoops around the world.

However, international tournaments always have a handful of little-known players that come in with much less fanfare and reputation, only to use that tournament as a springboard into national and international headlines.

About a month after the Olympics have officially ended, Interbasket will be profiling several of these players, over the next month.  Players that made names for themselves during the 2008 Olympics or furthered their reputation with their play.

The Monkey King Cometh
Sun Yue didn’t exactly tear it up in any one category at the Olympics, but the self-proclaimed Monkey King made a lasting impression with his ability to do a little of everything on the floor.  His final statistics, 6.8 points, 2.5 assists, 1.7 rebounds, 1.3 steals and 1 block, didn’t sum up his contributions.  Sun Yue’s effort, energy, and athleticism on the floor gave Team China another dimension.

In six Olympic games, Sun Yue played 28 minutes a game, and shot an efficient 46.7% from the field, 35.3% from three, and 87.5% from the free throw.

The 22-year old Sun has spent the majority of his professional career with the Chinese club Beijing Aoshen Olympian and while with the team, Sun was in the subject of a power struggle between the Chinese National Team and his club in the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA).

In 2005, when the Aosehn teammates, the then 19-year old Sun and teammate Zhang Songtao were called upon for the under-20 national team duty, the Beijing club refused to release either player. In response to Beijing’s dissension, the CBA would place a two-year suspension on Aoshen, which would disallow the team from participating in their league.  Sun Yue and Aoshen would eventually end up in the ABA, the American Basketball Association.

In Aoshen’s first season in the ABA, Sun would display his all-around abilities by putting up 9.5 points, 7 rebounds, 6.7 assists, 1.9 steals, 2.5 blocks and 4.3 turnovers per game.  Q-Tip, as he was known around the league was second in Rookie of the Year voting, was named to the 2005-06 ABA All-Star team as well as All-ABA second team.

The next season would be Sun’s last in the ABA, but he would significantly improve over his rookie campaign.  Sun improved his overall floor game and averaged a double-double in the 2006-07 season.  Sun averaged 13.5 points and 10.5 assists as well as 6 rebounds, 1.9 steals, 2 blocks and decreasing his turnovers to 3.8 per game.  Sun was named All-ABA First Team along.

“In American basketball, everyone has confidence, basketball is much better here.” Sun would say about his experience in the ABA.

After bring drafted by the Lakers in the second round of the 2007 NBA Draft, Yue wouldn’t sign with the Los Angeles Lakers until after the 2008 Olympics and will join the team for the 2008-09 season, making Sun the fifth Chinese player ever to play in the NBA after Wang Zhizhi, Yao Ming, Mengke Bateer, and Yi Jianlian.

He’ll join other international players Pau Gasol, Sasha Vujacic, Vladmir Radmanovic, and DJ Mbenga on the Lakers squad.

Slightly less slight than the slight Shaun Livingston of the Los Angeles Clippers, Sun Yue is a 6-9, 212lb point guard that has a long wingspan and gets off the ground quickly.  And like Livingston, a tall point guard in the greater Los Angeles area always brings up comparisons to another 6-9 point guard.

Though Sun Yue has made it clear he doesn’t want to be compared to Magic Johnson (some say he closer to Hedo Turkoglu), I am sure Sun hopes he can mirror at least half of the Magic man’s accomplishments in his time in Southern California.

Links and Resources: Lakers Sign Sun Yue (NBA.com),  China’s Sun next rising NBA star (China Daily), Sun Yue: Don’t Call me Magic, call me Monkey King (Ball Don’t Lie), 6-9 PG Sun Yue to be featured on ESPN magazine (Interbasket Forum), Beijing Aoshen Olympians 2006-07 ABA season (Interbasket)

The three-point line has become such a integral part of basketball that it’s difficult to fathom the game was ever played without the ability to shoot from afar for an extra point.

However taking a quick look over the history of  the three-point line; the three-pointer has only been around for roughly 40 years - with it first being popularized by the ABA.  Even with the ABA’s mainstream use in the 1970s, the idea of the three-point line has been around for as long at 75-years, depending on whom you believe and how you define the invention.

The Inventor(s) of the Three-Point Line
We can all agree that it wasn’t in Naismith’s original game plan when he invented basketball back in 1891.   So then, who came up with the idea of a basketball three-point line?

This is where the facts get a little hazy.

Checking over the information on the web, Wikipedia refers to the possibility that the three-pointer was first created in 1933.

Herman Sayger, a high-school basketball phenom cum coach in the midwest, came up with the idea of a three-point shot in a scoring system that rewarded distance of the shot being made; shots made within 15 feet of the basket were worth one point, shots between 15-25 feet were worth two points, and shots from 25 feet (!) and beyond were worth 3 points.

Despite Saygar’s stature (he set the Indiana state record for points in a game with 113) his suggestion was never put into practice.

According to a couple articles, Howard Hobson was the innovator I was looking for.  Back in 1945, Hobson was the head coach of the University of Oregon and was also part of the Rules Committee.  And as a Rules Committee member, Hobson lobbied for the “bonus shot” designed to limit the effectiveness of a taller players and eliminate zone defenses.  The three point line, as well as other rule changes, were tested in a game between Columbia and Fordham on February 07, 1945.

Another source says that Al Grenert, former basketball All-American and coach, introduced the line back in the 1950s as a competitive advantage for smaller players in a time where giants were dominating and changing the face of the game.  I wasn’t able to find any of other sources for this one.

Some give credit to the ABL, a professional men’s basketball league that started play in 1961, when they made the arc an official part of their league.

And some insist that the inventor of the three-pointer is Puerto Rico’s Eddie Rios Mellado, who created the line for a childrens’ league and later implemented the line in an official international tournament held in 1962.   And Tuto Marchand, FIBA’s honorary secretary, is lobbying the international organization to recognize Mellado as the inventor.  Check out the following article:

Inventor of “Arms Raised”
By Lester Jiménez, Primera Hora, May 31, 2008

Puerto Rican teacher Eddie Ríos Mellado is known as the inventor of basketball’s three-point line – it is time that the rest of the world knows it.

The honorary secretary of the Federación Internacional de Baloncesto en América (FIBA Americas),  Jenaro “Tuto” Marchand is on a mission to prove in the highest levels of international basketball that Puerto Rico, in 1962, invented, regulated and patented the famous rule that revolutionized the sport of hoops.

Marchand said yesterday that last week he sent all the documentation to prove that Ríos Mellado was the first to use the three-point line rule in an official tournament to various international organizations, including the FIBA Europe and the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, USA (Massachusetts), eight years before it was used for the first time in the United States.

“This is a long process that is going to take time. The first thing that I will do is try to identify which is the right forum that recognizes this type of things. Therefore I have sent the documents all over the place, “ said Marchand in an interview with PRIMERA HORA. “I am completely convinced that Eddie was the first one [to use the three-point line]. The proof is eloquent, clear, simple and very-well documented,” said Marchand, who maintained that his goal is that the Puerto Rican teacher be including in the International Hall of Fame in Spain and the United States.

It was in 1962, while Ríos Mellado was director of sports for the Caparra Country Club, that he decided to create a league, Mini Basketball, for the small children from ages six to ten. As way to motivate to the smaller stature players, he invented a shot that counted for three points.

“I went to the center of the hoop and I made a line from ten feet and I tested it. From eleven feet, I tested it. From twelve, I tested it. And from thirteen I tested it and left it there. That was the birth of the three-point basket,” said Ríos Mellado, commenting on the history of his famous invention, 78 years; 58 of them as a physical education teacher. “I recorded it in the Mini Basketball League that we had the three-point basket and I have all those papers that prove it,” he added.

It was not until 1968 that the American Basketball Association (ABA) included a three-point line in its tournament, as a measure to try to compete with the most powerful league, the NBA, although they did not necessarily copy Ríos Mellado’s idea.

“It could have been a coincidence, but what we want to clarify is that the first one that used the rule in a tournament was Eddie Ríos, and the proof is there,” said Marchand.

Ríos Mellado, for his part, is still surprised to see that world basketball just wouldn’t be the same without the three-point line.

“I never thought about it [around the world], nor was it my intention. I didn’t invent it for Russia or the United States. I came up with it for the children of my country and for myself to enjoy the game with them using that new rule,” he said.

Mainstream Adoption of the Three-Point Line
The NBA adopted the three-point line previous to the 1979-80 season, three seasons after merging with the ABA, the rival, counter-culture league that  popularized the shot.

The ABA had used the three-point shot all throughout the 1970s before merging with the NBA in 1976.  Along with the slam dunk, the ABA used the shot as a way of creating excitement during the game, as well as differentiating themselves from the NBA.

Then in 1984, the International Federation of Basketball (FIBA) adopted a shorter three-point shot for international competition (at 20 feet and 5 inches, the line was 3 feet 3 inches shorter than the NBA).  FIBA is set to extend the line to 22 feet, 2 inchs in 2010.

And in 1986, after 5 or 6 years of NCAA conferences adopting differing distances for the three-point arc, the NCAA introduced a standardized three-point line for college basketball at 19 feet and 9 inches, which will extend an extra foot out for the 2008-09 season.

The Decision is up to you
So then, who invented the shot?  Well, it all depends on whom and what you believe.

Was it a high school player/coach in the midwest that had the idea in 1933, but never put into play?  Or was it when it was actually introduced in a test game (1945), does that count?  Did the invention become legitimized when it was permanently adopted by a little-known professional league (1961) or in an documented international tournament (1962)?  How much does documentation count for you? Are you a believer that the idea counts as the invention or when the idea becomes tangible?

Whatever answer you go with, you better be ready for a nice discussion.  And you better know Spanish.

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Sources: Three-Point Field Goal (Wikipedia), When was the three-point shot added to basketball? (Wiki-Answers), Herman “Suz” Sayger Profile (Hoopedia), Naismith of the Three (IvyLeagueSports.com), El Inventor de loa “Manos Arriba” (PrimaAhora.com) — thanks to MVBlair for the article translation, So… Who Really Invented the Three-Pointer?? (Interbasket Message Board)