- What is basketball?
- Basketball history
- Basketball rules
- Basketball court measurements
- Basketball Basics
- NBA
We explain what basketball is, its history, rules, the size of the court and its fundamentals. Also, what is the NBA.
What is basketball?
The basketball, basketball or basketball (Castilianization of basketball, in English) is a sport as a team and play ball game in which two sides of players face off, usually indoors.
Each team must enter the ball through the opponent's ring, suspended about three meters high at the end of their side of the court. At the same time, you must prevent the other team from scoring in their own ring.
It is one of the most practiced sports today, with approximately 400 million players in the planet entire, many of whom are women. There are, in addition, contemporary variants, such as wheelchair basketball, the streetball and 3 × 3 basketball.
A whole culture emanated from this sport towards media, fashion and video games, partly thanks to the popularization of American basketball stars such as Dennis Rodman, Larry Bird or Michael Jordan, among many others.
The International Basketball Federation (FIBA) is the regulatory body for the practice of this sport throughout the world, as well as the organization of its official competitions. This body was created in 1932 and is currently based in Miles, Switzerland.
Basketball history
Basketball started at the YMCA (Young Men’s Christian Association o Young Christian Association) of Springfield, United States, faced with the need to practice an indoor sport during the harsh winter of the region.
Its invention in 1891 is credited to the Canadian physical education teacher James Naismith (1861-1939). However, remote antecedents of Mesoamerican ancestral cultures are also known - the Maya and the Aztec, particularly.
This sport, as it was initially conceived, was rather simple and improvised, since Naismith made use of what the debts could get him, which were baskets of peaches. Since then, basketball has evolved over time. weather until you define your rules in a professional way.
In this the YMCA played a crucial role, spreading the new sport throughout the country and then the world. The first basketball game in Europe it took place in Paris just two years after its invention.
The first professional basketball game in history was in 1896, two years before the so-called National Basketball League, precursor of the current National Basketball Association (NBA) in the United States.
Finally, the globalization and its processes massified the sport and built alternative leagues to the United States, which began to rival it in international attention, and finally the variants of basketball mentioned at the beginning, since it is also an Olympic sport.
Basketball rules
Basketball is governed by the following fundamental rules:
- Two teams with a maximum of 12 players each will face each other, having only five simultaneously on the court at any given time. Teams may make as many substitutions as they wish.
- The game will last four periods of 10 minutes each, with the possibility of an extra time of 5 minutes in case there is a tie in the score. In the absence of any scores, there will be successive overtime until a team takes the lead.
- The objective of the game is to drive the ball through the opponent's ring as many times as possible, in order to accumulate points. The team with the most points at the end of the game will win.
- Each basket corresponds to a score, but depending on the way it is done, it can have a different score: 2 points if it is close to the basket, 3 points if it is from long distance, and 1 point if it is a free throw.
- When a team has possession of the ball, they have 24 seconds to attempt a shot at the basket. Nor may they remain in the restricted area of the opponent's ring for more than 3 seconds for the attack.
- Illegal contacts between opponents will be considered personal fouls, and carry individual penalties (every 5 fouls committed the player is expelled) and collective (after 4 fouls have been committed in the same period, two free throws will be awarded to the opposing team for each additional foul) .
Basketball court measurements
The basketball court must be flat and free of obstacles, rectangular and divided into two parts by a line in the middle, on which there is a circle 3.6 meters in diameter. This means that the court is about 15 meters wide and 28 meters long.
At each end is a hoop, suspended about 10 feet from the I usually, facing each other, in a semicircular area of 4.9 x 8.32, which separates the 2-point shooting area from the 3-point shooting area.
In addition, each one has a cone with a restricted area in front of it, and behind it is a tempered glass or other transparent material, with a thickness of 3 cm and measures 1.80 meters wide by 1.05 high.
Basketball Basics
Basketball has three basic fundamentals:
- The boat or dribble. As long as a player has the ball, he must constantly bounce it against the ground, so that it returns to the hand that pushed it. East movement It is done with one hand, using the tips of the same and in a controlled way, so that the player can walk or even run at the same time. The pot cannot be made with both hands, nor can the player advance without doing so, but neither can it be made if the player stops. In that case, you must take a step or attempt a shot at the hoop.
- The passes. Passing is the action of delivering the ball to a teammate, effectively and precisely, through a variety of movements such as the chest pass, the back pass, the dive pass (bouncing once against the ground), the overhead pass, heads-up, or alley-opp (shooting close to the basket for a partner to pocket). Opponents can try to interrupt a pass and get hold of the ball.
- Shots. The shots consist of throwing the ball to the hoop, thus making a score. The shots can also be: suspension (throwing to the basket after rising in the air( violent shots against the rim, either vertically with both hands or with only one hooking it in the air).
NBA
The National Basketball Association (National Basketball Association) is a private American professional basketball league, perhaps the most famous in the world. It does not depend on the American Basketball Federation, since it is a private league, but it has agreements with it and with FIBA so that its players are authorized to compete in international games.
It was founded in 1946. It is made up of 30 teams or franchises, grouped into two conferences: the East and the West, and into six divisions of five teams each.