Basketball: A Bit Deeper into the Basics

Although basketball is the most watched high school sports few people understand how the sport works. Some things that many don’t know are penalties, the court layout, and positions.  

   Penalties are a disadvantage or handicap imposed on a player or team, typically for infringement of rules; in basketball there are two groups of two that spin out into several types of penalties. The first type is technical fouls, and the second type is personal fouls. Technical foul is any infraction of the rules penalized as a foul which does not involve physical contact during a game between opposing players on the court, or is a foul by a non-player; these fouls consist of Excessive Timeouts, Delay-of-Game, Number of Players, Basket Ring, Backboard or Support, Conduct, Fighting Fouls, Fines. A personal foul is a breach of the rules that concerns illegal personal contact with an opponent; these fouls consist of Types, By Dribbler, By Screening, Flagrant Foul, Free Throw Penalty Situations, Double Fouls, Offensive Fouls, Loose Ball Fouls, Punching Fouls, Away-From-The-Play Foul.  

     There are five main positions in basketball point guard, center, shooting guard, power forward, and small forward. The center is the tallest player on each team, playing near the basket, the power forward does many of the things a center does; playing near the basket and rebounding or defending taller players, the small forward plays against small and large players while roaming the around the court, the point guard defends the opponent’s point guard and tries to steal the ball, and the shooting guard can make shots from long distance. 

   Another thing that is very overlooked in basketball by audiences is the layout of the court. You have the sidelines, the three-point line, free throw line, center circle, midcourt line, base line, the free throw lane (the red square). The sidelines are the two boundaries lines running the length of the court, the three-point line is a line on a basketball court forming an arc at a set distance (such as 22 feet) from the basket beyond which a field goal counts for three points, the free throw line is the free throw line (also known as the foul line or the charity stripe) is a line situated at the end of the restricted area, the center circle is the circle marked at the center of a playing surface where a center jump takes place, the midcourt is the area near the center of a court, the base line is the boundary at the end of both sides of the court and is the out of bounds line behind each basket that extends out to the sidelines, and the free throw lane is a lane on a basketball court that extends from underneath the goal to a line 15 feet in front of the backboard and that players may not enter during a free throw. 

     Basketball can be an extremely complicated sport; a lot of detail goes into playing the sport from the layout of the court to the positions and plays. This article was a quick explanation to help you better understand this sport.