History of Basketball Who is known world-wide as the inventor of basketball? His name is Dr. James Naismith, he was born in 1861 in Almonte, Ontario. Most people wonder were a young man would think of a game like basketball. The concept of basketball was born from his school days in the area where he played a simple child's game known as duck-on-a-rock outside his one-room schoolhouse. The game involved attempting to knock a "duck" off the top of a large rock by tossing another rock at it. Naismith went on to attend McGill University in Montreal, Quebec. In 1891 (after serving as McGill's Athletic Director) Naismith moved on to the YMCA Trainin