Mike Celizic

When I first saw the story, I thought I was reading the Onion, because here was an idea that was too dumb for even the Texas State School Board.

But it’s true. The International Basketball Federation would like to install 3-man basketball as an Olympic sport by 2020.

You heard right. 3-man basketball. You know, the kind you played on half a basketball court when there weren’t enough people or enough space available to play the game the right way.

I understand that despite its low profile, 3-man basketball is kind of a big deal these days. It has its own NCAA tournament (with divisions ranging from ages 9 to over 40) and uncounted thousands of devotees who will swear on a stack of Nikes that if only more people played 3-man basketball, there would be peace on earth, limitless cheap renewable energy, and free non-socialist health care for all.

But 3-man basketball isn’t real basketball and doesn’t belong in the Olympics. It’s a game that was invented for people who aren’t in good enough shape to run up and down a full court, a game that you play on your lunch break, down at the park after work or in your driveway.

Real basketball is played with five players on a side, on a court with two baskets and 94 feet between baselines. In international competition, it’s played in two halves of 20 minutes each.

Three-man basketball is played in three periods on half a court with 60 percent of the optimal number of players.

It’s a fine game, but I don’t care how well you play it, it’s still a pick-up game. But even if it were the greatest sport in the world, it doesn’t belong in the Olympics. The Games already have basketball played by five players on a side, the way God intended.

An International Basketball Federation official essentially admitted it’s not a hard-core sport.

"It's a product that the kids and the youth play out there for their pleasure and which hasn't really been part of anything," FIBA’s Patrick Baumann said, Reuters reported.

If the International Olympic Committee wants more sports, why would it throw away perfectly fine games like softball? First put softball back, then we’ll talk about 3-man basketball.

You can see where this trend is heading. Next up is indoor soccer played with six players on a side and half-court hockey and one-man tennis in which the players compete against a cinder-block wall.

It’s a sneaky way to expand the games without adding a sport, something the IOC is dead set against doing. By keeping the number of sports down, the IOC can keep putting off all the wannabe sports like bowling, ballroom dancing, rock climbing, Ultimate Frisbee, underwater hockey, and gerbil juggling by telling them the Olympic dance card is full. Then they can add another variety of a popular sport to sell more tickets and make more money.

We know this proposal is not about the competition or the public demand, because I have never once seen someone demand that the bartender tune the tube to 3-man basketball. Nor have I ever had a conversation about it or had an obsessed fan demand to know why I don’t write about it.

In other words, tournament bass fishing has a higher profile.

"It's a free game, you go when you want, you play with who you want ... and it's already out there," Baumann said, Reurters reported. “What it is not, it's not part of a worldwide community of 3-on-3 basketball players. That's where I think we have an amazing opportunity to just create a tsunami of basketball players.”

Anyway, the Olympics don’t need made-up sports. They already have a contrived sport that’s neither fish nor fowl nor potted plant. It’s called team handball, which is a game that was cobbled together from leftover bits and pieces of other sports.

Team handball also has some features in common with basketball. You can, for instance, run with the ball as long as you dribble after three steps, which means LeBron James would be a natural. You can’t tackle anyone, but you can block them if they have the ball. Although Europeans claim they invented the sport more than 100 years ago (it’s popular in Europe and Asia, with more than 19 million players worldwide, according to the International Handball Federation), it has the look and feel of a game created by a mad gym teacher who wanted something a step up from dodge ball to inflict on his students.

Slideshow   The Week in Sports Pictures The Giants on top of the football world, getting ready for the London Olympics and more. more photos

Anyway, the point is that team handball has no reason for being in the Olympics other than the fact that in 1972 it slipped in when no one was looking, and no one’s come up with a good reason to get rid of it. It’s like the modern pentathlon in that regard. No American sports fan knows anything about either sport, and that’s not going to change until an American wins a medal in one of them. That will happen no more than a century or two after the United States wins the World Cup, so I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Three-man basketball isn’t any different. It’s another game worshipped by its fans and ignored by the other 99.9 percent of the human race, a made-up sport designed not for entertainment but convenience.

Spare me.

Also on NBCSports.com Beyond the Arc: No. 11 Mich. St. takes big step forward Chandler: Jeremy Lin was special even in 8th grade What NFC teams need this offseason  |  And AFC DeMarco: Dodgers could become a contender Follow us on Twitter: @NBCSports  |  And Facebook