Celebrating 125 years of basketball in the rue de Trévise, the world’s oldest original hoops court.

What happens when hoops goes global—and why was the First World War such a major accelerator for this global game?

When soccer news from outside of Europe penetrates the global consciousness, it is often some outlandish item, a curiosity of the can-you-believe-it variety. Two of the more famous incidents to come from West Africa since the turn of the millenium include the February 2002 arrest of Cameroon head coach Winfried Schafer at the Africa Cup of Nations for allegedly planting an amulet on the field and, in the summer of that year, the wild ride of Senegal’s team at the World Cup, where their success was rumored to be aided by the country’s marabouts, which are similar to shamans.

(CNN)They stood united on the Olympic podium, heads bowed, black-gloved fists raised in the Black Power salute while the "The Star Spangled Banner" rang out to honor athletic achievement.

This month marks fifty years since the 1968 Mexico Games, most often recalled for the athlete protests they spotlighted as part of that year’s global turbulence. But while popular memory focuses upon the Olympians and professionals whose actions, rhetoric, and examples helped draw attention to injustices, what about the athletes they inspired?

There’s a lot to be said about sport diplomacy, and hoops diplomacy has often gotten short shift. But in many ways, basketball is a sport primed for this prism.

If Summer 2018 showed us anything, it’s the importance of communicating globally about sport and our world today.

Basketball is often overlooked as one of the world's major sports; but the fact that so many other countries on all of the continents play their own brand of the game gives pause to those who think that global hoops is only NBA. It's not, and there's a very rich history still waiting to be mined.