Basketball from A to Z: Rules, Dimensions, and Referees

Basketball is an Olympic kind of sport and a team sport with a ball. The main task of the given play for any team is to hit the basket more times than their opponents manage to do over the stipulated period of time. Every team consists of 5 field players.

Rules

Over the whole history, the basketball rules have witnessed a lot of justifications until they have become as they are today. So, it is extremely important to know them for fans, to tell nothing about players.

A basketball match is played between two teams with 12 players in each. Each team is allowed to have only 5 players on the court at the same time, all the others are said to be players for substitution.

Athletes holding the ball are allowed to move across the court by bouncing the ball. Otherwise, “carrying the ball” is declared, which is a foul according to the basketball rules. If a basketball player accidentally touches the ball with any body part other than a hand, it is not a foul, which is opposite to intentional touching the ball with, for example, a foot or fist.

A basketball match consists of 4 periods, the duration of which depends on a basketball association. To be more exact, a period lasts for 12 minutes in the NBA and 10 minutes in the FIBA.

The periods are separated by short intervals, while the interval is the largest between the second and the third periods.

Hitting the basket can result in a various number of points:

• if a player hits the basket from a free throw, his team is awarded one point;
• the ball thrown from a middle or close distance (closer than the three-point line) will result in two points for a team;
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• Three points go to a team, a player of which has managed to hit the basket by throwing outside the three-point line.

Should the teams score the same number of points after the four periods, five-minute overtime is awarded. If it does not name a winner, another one is awarded unless there is no winner.

Finally, it should be mentioned that there were only 13 rules in the very beginning of basketball era. Nowadays, there are over 200 of them.

Fouls

As soon as the rules exist, there exist players violating them, and such violation in basketball is known as a foul.

So, players may not slap one another on hands, push, block with their hands, step on feet, and block with legs. If a player makes any of these things, he is said to commit a foul. A player that has obtained five fouls over a single match (six in the NBA), he is sent off and substituted by another player.

A double foul occurs when players of both teams were simultaneously violating the rule. In this case, the two players are said to make fouls, and the ball remains in possession of the team that held it before the violation. Also, one can find the technical foul (field players, substitutes, and even referees can obtain a technical foul for disputes with a referee, misconduct, and so on; this is known as an unsporting behavior) and the intentional foul (for a rough play to prevent opponents from scoring a goal).

A so-called disqualifying foul is the severest punishment in basketball. It occurs when a player’s aggressive behavior can be followed by his sending off and substitution despite how many fouls he has committed before.

If a foul is committed against the player who was throwing the ball into the basket or a technical foul was committed, a referee awards free throws. These throws can be performed either by the player, against whom the violation was made or by his partner, which depends on the violation nature. The free throws are taken from a six-meter distance from the basket. Every successful throw can result in one point.

In basketball, there are also a few numerical rules. To explain, they are as follows:

1. The rule of 3 seconds – no player is allowed to stay under the opponents’ basket more than 3 seconds without holding the ball.
2. The rule of 5 seconds – no player is allowed to take the ball into possession more than 5 seconds without passing or throwing it.
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3. The rule of 8 seconds – a team must take the ball onto their opponents’ half within 8 seconds.
4. The rule of 24 seconds – a team has only 24 seconds to make a throw; if it fails to do it, a foul is awarded.
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Court

A basketball court is a rectangle with a hard surface. The surface should be free from holes, cracks or any other deformations. The court dimensions are 28 meters long and 15 meters wide. The ceiling should be 7-12 meters high. The court should be perfectly and equally illuminated to not result in any inconveniences for players. It was allowed to organize basketball tournaments in the open air until the late 60s. Nowadays, all the basketball matches should be held indoors only.

The border lines are used to form the court itself. They include two short end lines and two long sidelines. The central line indicates the horizontal middle of the court because it unites the central spots of the sidelines. The central zone with a radius of 1.8 meters is located in the very center of the court. It is the place where every match begins from.

The three-point-lines are semi-circles with a radius of 6.75 meters that are tied to the end lines. The free throw line is 3.60 meters long. It is drawn perfectly centered in respect of the basket.

Ball

The basketball ball is a spherical item of a certain hue of the orange color. It has the peculiar pattern of eight pieces and black stitches. There are four sizes of the basketball balls, each of which has its own weight and perimeter of the circle.

Basket and Backboard Sizes

The basket should be located 3.05 meters high from the ground. Its diameter varies from 45 to 45.7 centimeters. The basket should be of the bright orange color. The special net with the length of 40-45 centimeters is attached to the basket.

The backboard also has a number of important parameters. Its dimensions are 1.8 meters wide and 1.05 meters wide. Modern backboards are made of heat-strengthened glass.

Referees

The basketball rules are supervised by:

• referee;
• timekeeper;
• scorer;
• scorer assistant.

The referees should wear a gray shirt, long black trousers, and black basketball shoes.

History and Development

It happened in 1891 when a young teacher, James Naismith, decided to enliven gymnastics lessons and attached two fruit baskets to balcony balustrade and asked his pupils to throw football balls into them. That game was far away from basketball in its modern meaning. Those players could not even think of dribbling; they only threw the ball to each other and tried to hit the basket from a long distance. Evidently, the team that managed to hit the basket more times was declared a winner. It took a year for Naismith to develop the first basketball rules. As soon as the first matches were played according to them, the rules started changing.

From the USA, basketball began to gradually move to the East – Japan, China, the Philippines, to Europe, and South America.

In 10 years, the Saint Louis Olympics saw basketball exhibition performance organized by teams from several American cities. 1946 witnessed the emergence of the Basketball Association of America (BAA) that settled the first official match in Toronto in the same year. The National Basketball Association (NBA) appeared in 1949 as a result of the merger between the BAA and the National Basketball League of the USA. Today, the NBA is said to be the most powerful and the most popular basketball league in the whole world.

It happened in 1932 when the International Federation of Amateur Basketball (commonly known as FIBA because of its French origin) was created. The Federation was entered by Argentina, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Portugal, Romania, Sweden, and Czechoslovakia. It was assumed that the body would deal with amateur basketball only but the corresponding word vanished from its name in 1989, and professional basketball players obtained the right to participate in international competitions. Although the word disappeared from the full name of the body, its abbreviation preserved the latter. So, the organization is currently known as the FIBA. By the way, the first international basketball match occurred in 1904, while basketball became an official summer Olympic kind of sport in 1936.

Competitions

In fact, there are a lot of basketball tournaments all over the world and the whole year round. Almost every country has its national club tournament, some of them have even several leagues. At the same time, it is impossible to forget about the international competitions, with World Championships, European Championships, and Summer Olympics being the most popular and prestigious ones.