BASKETBALL
Basketball is a sport played by
two teams of five players on a rectangular court. The objective is to shoot a
ball through a hoop 18
inches (46
cm ) in diameter and 10 feet (3.0 m ) high mounted to a
backboard at each end. Basketball is one of the world's most popular and widely
viewed sports.
A team can score a field goal by
shooting the ball through the basket during regular play. A field goal scores
two points for the shooting team if a player is touching or closer to the
basket than the three-point line, and three points (known commonly as a 3
pointer or three) if the player is behind the three-point line. The team with
the most points at the end of the game wins, but additional time (overtime) may
be issued when the game ends with a draw. The ball can be advanced on the court
by bouncing it while walking or running or throwing it to a team mate. It is a
violation to move without dribbling the ball, to carry it, or to hold the ball
with both hands then resume dribbling.
Violations are called
"fouls". A personal foul is penalized, and a free throw is usually
awarded to an offensive player if he is fouled while shooting the ball. A
technical foul may also be issued when certain infractions occur, most commonly
for unsportsmanlike conduct on the part of a player or coach. A technical foul
gives the opposing team a free throw, and the opposing team also retains
possession of the ball.
As well as many techniques for
shooting, passing, dribbling and rebounding, basketball has specialized player
positions and offensive and defensive structures (player positioning).
Typically, the tallest members of a team will play "center",
"power forward" or "small forward" positions, while shorter
players or those who possess the best ball handling skills and speed play
"point guard" or "shooting guard".
History of basketball
In early December 1891, Canadian
American Dr. James Naismith, a physical education professor and instructor at
the International Young Men's Christian Association Training School (YMCA) (today,
Springfield College) in Springfield, Massachusetts, USA), was trying to keep
his gym class active on a rainy day. He sought a vigorous indoor game to keep
his students occupied and at proper levels of fitness during the long New
England winters. After rejecting other ideas as either too rough or poorly
suited to walled-in gymnasiums, he wrote the basic rules and nailed a peach
basket onto a 10-foot (3.05 m )
elevated track. In contrast with modern basketball nets, this peach basket
retained its bottom, and balls had to be retrieved manually after each
"basket" or point scored; this proved inefficient, however, so the
bottom of the basket was removed, allowing the balls to be poked out with a
long dowel each time.
Basketball was originally played
with a soccer ball. The first balls made specifically for basketball were
brown, and it was only in the late 1950s that Tony Hinkle, searching for a ball
that would be more visible to players and spectators alike, introduced the
orange ball that is now in common use. Dribbling was not part of the original
game except for the "bounce pass" to teammates. Passing the ball was
the primary means of ball movement. Dribbling was eventually introduced but
limited by the asymmetric shape of early balls. Dribbling only became a major
part of the game around the 1950s, as manufacturing improved the ball shape.
The peach baskets were used until
1906 when they were finally replaced by metal hoops with backboards. A further
change was soon made, so the ball merely passed through. Whenever a person got
the ball in the basket, his team would gain a point. Whichever team got the
most points won the game. The baskets were originally nailed to the mezzanine
balcony of the playing court, but this proved impractical when spectators on
the balcony began to interfere with shots. The backboard was introduced to
prevent this interference; it had the additional effect of allowing rebound
shots. Naismith's handwritten diaries, discovered by his granddaughter in early
2006, indicate that he was nervous about the new game he had invented, which
incorporated rules from a children's game called "Duck on a Rock", as
many had failed before it. Naismith called the new game "Basket
Ball". The first official game was played in the YMCA gymnasium in Albany,
New York on January 20, 1892 with nine players. The game ended at 1–0; the shot
was made from 25 feet
(7.6 m ),
on a court just half the size of a present-day Streetball or National
Basketball Association (NBA) court. By 1897–1898 teams of five became standard.
Professional basketball
Teams abounded throughout the
1920s. There were hundreds of men's professional basketball teams in towns and
cities all over the United States, and little organization of the professional
game. Players jumped from team to team and teams played in armories and smoky
dance halls. Leagues came and went. Barnstorming squads such as the Original
Celtics and two all-African American teams, the New York Renaissance Five
("Rens") and the (still existing) Harlem Globetrotters played up to
two hundred games a year on their national tours.
In 1946, the Basketball
Association of America (BAA) was formed. The first game was played in Toronto,
Ontario, Canada between the Toronto Huskies and New York Knickerbockers on
November 1, 1946. Three seasons later, in 1949, the BAA merged with the
National Basketball League to form the National Basketball Association (NBA).
By the 1950s, basketball had become a major college sport, thus paving the way
for a growth of interest in professional basketball. In 1959, a basketball hall of
fame was founded in Springfield, Massachusetts, site of the first game. Its
rosters include the names of great players, coaches, referees and people who
have contributed significantly to the development of the game. The hall of fame
has people who have accomplished many goals in their career in basketball. An
upstart organization, the American Basketball Association, emerged in 1967 and
briefly threatened the NBA's dominance until the ABA-NBA merger in 1976. Today
the NBA is the top professional basketball league in the world in terms of
popularity, salaries, talent, and level of competition.
The NBA has featured many famous
players, including George Mikan, the first dominating "big man";
ball-handling wizard Bob Cousy and defensive genius Bill Russell of the Boston
Celtics; Wilt Chamberlain, who originally played for the barnstorming Harlem
Globetrotters; all-around stars Oscar Robertson and Jerry West; more recent big
men Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Shaquille O'Neal and Karl Malone; playmaker John
Stockton; crowd-pleasing forward Julius Erving; European stars Dirk Nowitzki
and Dražen Petrović and the three players who many credit with ushering the
professional game to its highest level of popularity: Larry Bird, Earvin "Magic"
Johnson, and Michael Jordan. In 2001, the NBA formed a developmental league,
the NBDL. As of 2012, the league has 16 teams.
NBA
The National Basketball
Association (NBA) is the pre-eminent men's professional basketball league in
North America, and is widely considered to be the premier men's professional
basketball league in the world. It has thirty franchised member clubs (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada), and is an active
member of USA Basketball (USAB), which is recognized by FIBA (also known as the
International Basketball Federation) as the national governing body for
basketball in the United States. The NBA is one of the four major North
American professional sports leagues. NBA players are the world's best paid
sportsmen, by average annual salary per player.
The league was founded in New
York City on June 6, 1946, as the Basketball Association of America (BAA). The
league adopted the name National Basketball Association on August 3, 1949,
after absorbing the rival National Basketball League (NBL). The league's
several international as well as individual team offices are directed out of
its head offices located in the Olympic Tower at 645 Fifth Avenue in New York
City. NBA Entertainment and NBA TV studios are directed out of offices located
in Secaucus, New Jersey.
History
Basketball Association of
America
The Basketball Association of
America was founded in 1946 by owners of the major ice hockey arenas in the
Northeastern and Midwestern United States and Canada. On November 1, 1946, in Toronto, Ontario,
Canada, the Toronto Huskies hosted the New York Knickerbockers at Maple Leaf
Gardens, in a game the NBA now regards as the first played in its history. The
first basket was made by Ossie Schectman of the Knickerbockers. Although there had
been earlier attempts at professional basketball leagues, including the
American Basketball League and the NBL, the BAA was the first league to attempt
to play primarily in large arenas in major cities. During its early years, the
quality of play in the BAA was not significantly better than in competing
leagues or among leading independent clubs such as the Harlem Globetrotters.
For instance, the 1948 ABL finalist Baltimore Bullets moved to the BAA and won
that league's 1948 title, and the 1948 NBL champion Minneapolis Lakers won the
1949 BAA title.
The headquarters of the National
Basketball Association in the Olympic Tower at 645 Fifth Avenue, Midtown
Manhattan, New York City, USA.
On August 3, 1949, the BAA agreed
to absorb the NBL, creating the new National Basketball Association. The new
league had seventeen franchises located in a mix of large and small cities, as
well as large arenas and smaller gymnasiums and armories. In 1950, the NBA
consolidated to eleven franchises, a process that continued until 1953–54, when
the league reached its smallest size of eight franchises, all of which are
still in the league (the New York Knicks, Boston Celtics, Golden State
Warriors, Los Angeles Lakers, Royals/Kings, Detroit Pistons, Atlanta Hawks, and
Nationals/76ers). The process of contraction saw the league's smaller-city
franchises move to larger cities. The Hawks shifted from "Tri-Cities"
(the area now known as the Quad Cities) to Milwaukee (in 1951) and then to St.
Louis, Missouri (in 1955); the Royals from Rochester, New York to Cincinnati
(in 1957); and the Pistons from Fort Wayne, Indiana to Detroit (in 1957).
Although Japanese-American Wataru
Misaka technically broke the NBA color barrier in the 1947–48 season when he
played for the New York Knicks, 1950 is recognized as the year the NBA
integrated. On April 26, 1950, Harold Hunter signed with the Washington
Capitols, becoming the first African American to sign a contract with any NBA
team in history. Hunter was cut from the team during training camp, but several
African American players did play in the league later that year, including
Chuck Cooper with the Celtics, Nathaniel "Sweetwater" Clifton with
the Knicks, and Earl Lloyd with the Washington Capitols. During this period,
the Minneapolis Lakers, led by center George Mikan, won five NBA Championships
and established themselves as the league's first dynasty. To encourage shooting
and discourage stalling, the league introduced the 24-second shot clock in
1954. If a team does not attempt to score a field goal (or the ball fails to
make contact with the rim) within 24 seconds of obtaining the ball, play is
stopped and the ball given to its opponent.
List of current NBA team
rosters:
Eastern Conference
·
Atlantic Division
o
Boston Celtics
o
Brooklyn Nets
o
New York Knicks
o
Philadelphia 76ers
o
Toronto Raptors
·
Central Division
o
Chicago Bulls
o
Cleveland Cavaliers
o
Detroit Pistons
o
Indiana Pacers
o
Milwaukee Bucks
·
Southeast Division
o
Atlanta Hawks
o
Charlotte Bobcats
o
Miami Heat
o
Orlando Magic
o
Washington Wizards
Western Conference
·
Southwest Division
o
Dallas Mavericks
o
Houston Rockets
o
Memphis Grizzlies
o
New Orleans Pelicans
o
San Antonio Spurs
·
Northwest Division
o
Denver Nuggets
o
Minnesota Timberwolves
o
Portland Trail Blazers
o
Oklahoma City Thunder
o
Utah Jazz
·
Pacific Division
o
Golden State Warriors
o
Los Angeles Clippers
o
Los Angeles Lakers
o
Phoenix Suns
o
Sacramento Kings
The 50 Greatest Players in National Basketball Association History
The 50 Greatest Players in
National Basketball Association History (also referred to as NBA's 50th Anniversary
All-Time Team or NBA's Top 50) were chosen in 1996 to honor the fiftieth
anniversary of the founding of the National Basketball Association (NBA). These
fifty players were selected through a vote by a panel of media members, former
players and coaches, and current and former general managers. In addition, the
top ten head coaches and top ten single-season teams in NBA history were
selected by media members as part of the celebration. The fifty players had to
have played at least a portion of their careers in the NBA and were selected
irrespective of position played.
The list was announced by NBA
commissioner David Stern on October 29, 1996, at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New
York City, the former site of the Commodore Hotel, where the original NBA charter
was signed on June 6, 1946. The announcement marked the beginning of a
season-long celebration of the league's anniversary. Forty-seven of the fifty
players were later assembled in Cleveland, Ohio, during the halftime ceremony
of the 1997 All-Star Game. Three players were absent: Pete Maravich, who had
died in 1988, at forty; Shaquille O'Neal, who was recovering from a knee
injury; and Jerry West, who was scheduled to have surgery for an ear infection
and could not fly. At the time of the announcement, eleven players were active.
O'Neal was the last to be active in the NBA, retiring at the end of the 2010–11
season.
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