From the history pf sports краткий пересказ

Basketball as a game appeared at the end of the nineteenth century. It was introduced by James Naismith, a college coach during the winter of 1891-1892. He wanted to train his students between the end of the football season and the beginning of the baseball season. He placed fruit baskets on the walls at the opposite ends of the gymnasium and organized nine-man teams who played with a ball used for football. Each team tried to throw the ball into the other team's basket and at the same time tried to keep that team from throwing the ball into their basket. The students had a lot of exercise; they moved a lot about the gym, jumped and ran. They liked the game and called it basketball.

Nowadays the game itself is the same but there are many changes in it. For example, now there are five players in a team. This game is very popular in Europe, where it was brought during World War I. It is interesting that at first basketball was an indoor game, and in America it is still played indoors.