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Lately there were new personal documents found in his family's basement. It says that his students got bored during the winter months when they couldn't play outdoor soccer and football. Naismith needed to invent a strenuous game that could be played on small indoor courts.

He tried to adapt lacrosse and football to be played inside. He even introduced his students to a slew of invented games like Hylo Ball, Scruggy Ball and Association Football. None of them took.

You can read more about it here:

 http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=2660882

It seems like the cold Massachusetts winter has a lot to do with this invention. Dr. Naismith wanted to create a sport that would involve skill as well as strength and it needed to be indoors. As you can imagine the first version of basketball was very different from the basketball we see today.

Here is a description of the first version of basketball that Dr. Naismith invented.