WHAT'S BEST TO THROW AT A PLAYER THROUGH A CAGE? -- History of the NBA Finals Part 1

This is a story of the men who have fought and perspired for the most sacred prize in all of sport -- the Larry O'Brien trophy, signifying the end of the NBA playoffs...and title as world champion.

To win this fifteen-pound chunk of sterling silver with 24 carat gold glaze...one must win four games during the most hallowed tournament there is...the NBA Finals. 

To make the NBA means that you are more then just a professional athlete. It means that you are one of the 330 very best athletes in the world.

World's greatest athletes.

Which means that somebody in the NBA Finals, no matter what the year...is one of the three very best athletes on the globe.

The honor is so real that there is no such thing in these upcoming hubs as a FLUKE.

Nobody who wins the NBA title is an illigitimate, paper champion.

And now on with the story.

We won't spend lots of time in the past, but it's important to have a direction.

We will discover that alot of societal trends will not only anchor this league, but anchor how the games and eventual championship serieses ultimately pan out.

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1891

The game of basketball was invented by a very cool Sunday School teacher.

To all the athiests out there...while Sunday School sucks ass...many of the pastors are in fact cool.

He invents a game that for the next fifteen years...takes off like wildfire. 

It's a unique kind of game, because it's the first of it's kind to actually have players looking UPWARD.

Like a good Sunday School teacher was used to having his students do!

That's right, ladies and gentlemen. When people say basketball is God, alot of them are on the right track.

For this game would pave the way for Jesse Owens, civil rights, and particularly help scores of poor white towns become prominent.

For to make something come along that women would lay you for...that emphasized agility and jumping over strength and hitting...is the whole reason that cool people were able to emerge.

Basketball would prove to be the reason why we don't have to lose teeth anymore to show we're macho.

Basketball would take the ballet acrobat, the jazz musician, the painter, the runaway...and make him a star.

Plessy vs. Furguson, making segregation legal throughout the United States, would go through all its' trial selections and deliberations...coinciding with the birth of a sport that would singlehandedly make the resulting verdict something not only stupid and wrong...but dorky and uncool.

The hand that basketball would do in helping poor whites was IMMEASURABLE.

Towns on the map that never were before?

Such as Trenton, New Jersey.

This was home to the world's first GOOD basketball team.

They were the example of the day for everyone to follow. 

Yet their following wasn't due as being good, as much as the fact that basketball was a CAGE MATCH.

They tried to play at the YMCA, and were getting brushed away by the managers so badminton could be played instead.

So they tried playing in places like Masonic Hall and other auditoriums where you go and see opera.

The problem was that people threw shit at the players, for at the start of basketball's birth...sports and safety didn't go together if you wanted to draw a crowd. 

It seemed impossible for a manly man sport to be without the hits and the blood.

So the solution for the fans throwing shit? Building cages.

Metal ones.

The players would throw each other into the fuckers.

Ah, there we go...

THERE's your blood.

THERE's your broken teeth.

The great thing about cage ball was that the ball was always in play. It would just bounce off the cage and you'd go after it like a hockey puck.

Long before dunks this was of course, and so these white guys would have to do either set shots...or layups.

Layups would have been funny.

Before the days of 3-in-the-key and lane violations...you could in fact just stand there in front of the basket like a goalie to keep those layups from happening.

Everywhere the game went, people of each town would start to throw something different and distinct through the cages. 

It went from nickles, to lit cigarettes...to freaking NAILS.

Pittsburgh basketball fans, baby. 

The players would always end up tripping and falling on the floor anyway because the floor was always waxed.

Know why? Dances and other social events and fundraisers. 

This is what high schools all across America just happened to be doing...with a fully equipped built-in arena...

to be continued...

http://hubpages.com/hub/WHATS-BEST-TO-THROW-AT-A-PLAYER-THROUGH-A-CAGE-History-of-the-NBA-Finals-Part-1