James Naismith (November 6, 1861 – November 28, 1939) was a Canadian-American physical educator, physician, chaplain, sports coach and innovator. He invented the sport of basketball in 1891. He wrote the original basketball rulebook, founded the University of Kansas basketball program, and lived to see basketball adopted as an Olympic demonstration sport in 1904 and as an official event at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, as well as the birth of both the National Invitation Tournament (1938) and the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship (1939).

Docente di educazione fisica e laureato in medicina, fu colui che inventò la pallacanestro: scrisse infatti le prime 13 regole fondamentali del gioco ed organizzò la prima partita sperimentale, che venne disputata il 21 dicembre 1891 dal cosiddetto First Team presso una palestra dello Springfield College situata ad Armory Street, a Springfield, Massachusetts.