The first time basketball was ever played in Lebanon was in the mid-1920s in the American University of Beirut. Gabi Arbaji was the first to prepare a basketball playground in Tabaris area, where the early college competitions were held.
In 1939 the first college championship was organized and the finals opposed the Makassed team to the AUB and ended with a major victory to Makassed with a score of (33 - 11). The Lebanese Basketball Federation was jointly founded later in 1949 along with the Lebanese Volleyball Federation. The Lebanese made their debut in the European championship tournaments with Eurobasket 1949, held in Cairo, Egypt. They lost all six of their games in the seven team round robin tournament, finishing in 7th and last place.
The refusal of the Soviet Union to host the competition and FIBA Europe's unwillingness to ask Czechoslovakia to host consecutive tournaments meant that 1947 bronze medallist Egypt hosted the competition. Due to travel difficulties and fears, few European teams would travel to the African country to compete. Lebanon, as well as Syria, were asked to compete in the European championship despite being Asian countries.
Lebanon played in the European competition again at Eurobasket 1953 in Moscow. They lost all four of their preliminary round, including one by forfeit as the team refused to play against Israel. The team was able to defeat Sweden in the first classification round, giving them their first Eurobasket win. They placed 4th in their five-team group, advancing to the 13-16 classification games. They lost the first 58-56 to West Germany, but won against Denmark 74-40 to take 15th place of the 17 teams.
The two federations broke up and the first independent Lebanese Basketball Federation was founded in 1955. This plan was already organized by the year 1951. The Lebanese Basketball Championship was formed back then, and went into action till Lebanese civil war. In this period before the war, Sporting Al Riyadi Beirut team had the biggest number of trophees.
After the war in 1993, the 1st championship was organized under the era of Tony Khoury who stood in the Federation for many years; from that time the media started to have a bigger interest in this game. In late 1996, a new Federation was formed with Antoin Chartier as a president, at that time the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation sponsored the game and is still till nowadays.
In Late 1999, new Elections were made and a new group came to the federation on their head Jean Hammam with a big target in his mind to reach to higher levels on the clubs and national teams competitions. The new federation started to work on the national teams for men, women , junior Men.
