Neither you nor I would recognize the game of basketball as it was played from its beginning in 1891 through the end of the 1936-37 season.

Most of us would not recognize the NBA as it was presented from its inception as the Basketball Association of America in 1946 through the 1953-54 season.

And a great percentage of the NBA’s current followers would not recognize the game as it was played prior to the 1979-80 season.

Can you imagine basketball mandating that there would be a new center jump after each basket? But that was indeed the case until 1937. The center jump after each basket was eliminated for the 1937-38 season.

Can you imagine the NBA without a 24-second shot clock? But that was indeed the case prior to the 1954-55 season. Not surprisingly, there was a dramatic increase in scoring. The Celtics were the scoring leaders in ’53-’54 with 87.7 points per game. Only three of the league’s nine teams averaged more than 80. With the advent of the 24-second clock, the Celtics again led the league in scoring with a then-record 101.5 points per game. The lowest scoring team was Milwaukee (forerunner of today’s Atlanta Hawks) with 87.4. Every other team broke 90. As you well know, we have never looked back.

Keeping with this theme, can anyone under, say, age 40 imagine the NBA without the 3-point shot? It took awhile for things to evolve, but the game we now witness on a nightly basis has become as singular a product as the game with no center jump or 24-second clock. We simply cannot imagine basketball life without it.

Full disclosure: I am no fan of the 3-point shot. I think it has distorted the game at every level and it would be just fine with me if it had never been allowed. But I fully recognize I am part of an increasingly diminishing shrill minority. Our ship sailed a long time ago. The 3-point shot ain’t going anywhere.

But I do think it’s interesting to note that the 3-point shot was thrust upon us by a man whose motivation was showmanship, not the artistic betterment of the game. The man was Abe Saperstein, and if it rings a bell it’s because, yes, it’s the same Abe Saperstein who created the Harlem Globetrotters 90 years ago.

The first documented evidence of a 3-point shot in competition came from a game between Columbia and Fordham in 1945. But the man who really made it happen was Saperstein, who founded a rival league to the NBA in 1961 with the 3-point shot as a feature. His American Basketball League didn’t even make it through a second season, but the shot was adopted by the Eastern Basketball League in 1963 and was a well-publicized part of the American Basketball Association when it began play in the 1967-68 season.

Abe Saperstein died in 1966, so we have no idea what he would think of today’s game. He thought the 3-pointer would stimulate the crowd, and there’s no question it has done that. People not named Bob Ryan have demonstrated their love for Abe’s gimmick. So be it. But did he ever think the shot would come to dominate the game, going so far as to give birth to a theory that “the worst shot in basketball is the long 2?’’ Did he ever think that 7-footers would come along with no pivot moves, but with the ability to make his 3-pointer? Could he have remotely imagined a Kristaps Porzingis?

It’s always amusing to look back at the reaction to the three when it came into the NBA for the 1979-80 season. For some teams it was almost toxic. My pal Hubie Brown didn’t appear to think very much of it. His Hawks won the Triple Crown of 3-point negativity, attempting the fewest 3-pointers (75), making the fewest (13), and having the lowest shooting percentage (.173).

Seventy-five 3-point attempts all season! Imagine that. Last season Stephen Curry attempted 789 threes by himself, and that was 97 fewer than he had taken the year before. It is an utterly different game. This past Tuesday, the Rockets put up more 3-point attempts than twos (47-36), making 10 threes in the fourth quarter alone. Wonder how long it took Hubie’s Hawks to make 10 threes?

All this was hardly aberrational. Three years into the rule, the 1981-82 Lakers won the championship while going 13 for 94 on threes during the regular season. No, I’m not making that up.

Without question, the most fascinating aspect of the 3-point takeover is the role of the big men. Just about all the quality big men who have entered the league in the past few years have done so with the capability of making a three. Anthony Davis . . . Boogie Cousins . . . Joel Embiid . . . they are all comfortable shooting the three. And there’s a guy out there who is proving that, in basketball at least, you can indeed teach an old dog a new trick.

Say hello to Brook Lopez. The sturdy 7-footer entered the league in 2008-09, and in his first eight seasons he operated as centers have always operated, sticking his big butt in the low post. He took exactly seven threes in his first six seasons (all at the end of the shot clock, I’d bet), making none. In Year 7 he finally made one (in 10 attempts). In Year 8 he freaked out big, going 2 for 14. But last year he completely reinvented himself. Guess who led the Brooklyn Nets in 3-point field goal attempts? Why, our boy Brook, who went 134 for 387, a respectable .346 percentage. As I write he is 70 for 211 this year as a Laker. In a funny twist of fate, he dropped six threes on the Nets earlier this season.

Now that’s adaptability.

The three has had a monumental effect on the game of basketball. Is it as profound an alteration as eliminating the center jump or implementing a shot clock? Perhaps not. But it’s not too far off, either.

Abe Saperstein . . . little did he know.

Bob Ryan’s column appears regularly in the Globe. He can be reached at ryan@globe.com.