Just as important to the Jordan icon as his amazing play and remarkable marketing skill is the game he plays. Basketball is no longer the strictly white game that it was when James Naismith invented it as an American sport in 1892. On January 15 of that year the sport was first played in recognized and organized fashion in YMCA's around Springfield, Massachussetts. As the game's appeal continued to grow, it spread to universities around the country as a game played dominantly by whites. But this white domination did not last long because blacks began to play the game in the cities as a sport of their own in post-Civil War America. It has come a long way from Naismith's original game -- so far, in fact that the original peach "baskets" on barns have turned into rusted metal rims with chain "nets" on courts covered with broken glass in the inner city ghettos. It is now this image that defines a game that truly has become an African-American game. Black Americans have "invented" basketball just as much, or more than, Naismith did. Basketball has become a reflection of black ghetto culture, much in the form of jazz and blues music represented black culture in the American past. (George: xvii) Especially to lower class blacks in the inner cities of America, basketball has become one of the most expressive modes of cultural expression -- much like music, literature and fashion in other forms. It has become a ritual of expression. SO now tell me something about why I don't like the NBA.