With our Golden State Warriors and the playoffs, we thought we'd re-broadcast this piece about the design of basketball.

So we'll give you nerd something to say when everyone is talking about the playoffs.

It's one of my favorite episodes. Hope you enjoy it.

This is 99% Invisible. I'm Roman Mars.

Tomorrow night, 15,000 cheering fans will pack Madison Square Garden in New York City to witness a giant basketball double header.

In that cheering crowd sitting in Roe C. C. 11 will be a modest 77 year old man.

Those fans won't know that he made possible the games they're watching.

But you're going to meet him now.

That tape is from an old New York radio show called We The People.

The guest is James Naysmith.

125 years ago in 1891, Naysmith was a PE instructor at a small college in Springfield, Massachusetts

when a particularly bad snowstorm struck.

For days, the students couldn't go outdoors, so they began rough housing in the halls.

We tried everything to keep them quiet. Something had to be done.

One day, I had an idea. I called the boys to the gym, divided them up into teams of nine and gave them an old soccer ball.

I showed them two peach baskets I'd nailed up at each end of the gym.

I told them the idea was to throw the ball into the opposing team's peach basket.

A lot of sports don't have such a definitive point of origin, but this one does.

I blew a whistle and the first game of basketball began.

That day in 1891, James Naysmith invented basketball.

And what rules did you have for your new game, Dr. Naysmith?

Well, I didn't have enough.

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