Basketball as we know it began in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1891, “but its real history is a New York story,” writes Whitney W. Donhauser in the foreword to a book of photographs whose publication accompanies next week’s opening of “City/Game: Basketball in New York,” at the Museum of the City of New York. “What makes New York the mecca of basketball? Is it [its] legendary playgrounds? The world-famous arenas? The hype? All that is part of it,” Knicks star Walt “Clyde” Frazier writes, “but mostly New York is the mecca because of the people.” Here, a selection of images from the book chronicles the sport’s connection with the city that gave us Michael Jordan, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Chris Mullin. —Julia Vitale