How Harlem Globetrotters founder shaped basketball as we know it today

(JTA) - When basketball superstar Stephen Curry sunk a series of three-point shots to help Team USA clinch the Olympic gold medal in Paris this summer, it's unlikely the four-time NBA champion was thinking about Abe Saperstein.

But as a new biography of the trailblazing Jewish basketball executive suggests, Curry had plenty of reasons to be grateful to Saperstein, who is best known as the founder and longtime head coach of the Harlem Globetrotters.

Saperstein, who at 5-foot-3 is the shortest man in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, is credited with introducing the three-pointer to...