World Cup soccer's exploits have been well chronicled. Basketball's international competitions, excluding Olympic gold-medal games, have received much-less attention from the sporting press.
Manu Ginobili, star of the NBA's San Antonio Spurs, will lead reigning
Olympic champion Argentina in the FIBA World Championship in Japan.
AP PHOTOPerhaps you know that Dr. James Naismith invented the game in 1891 in Springfield, Mass. It was first played with a soccer ball, peach baskets and -- get this -- nine players on each team. But it's safe to say that the majority of sports fans couldn't rattle off a plethora of facts about basketball's world championship.