the britannica guide to basketball

7/29/2019 The Britannica Guide to Basketball

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Published in 2011 by Britannica Educational Publishing(a trademark of Encyclopdia Britannica, Inc.)in association with Rosen Educational Services, LLC29 East 21st Street, New York, NY 10010.

Copyright 2011 Encyclopdia Britannica, Inc. Britannica, Encyclopdia Britannica,and the Thistle logo are registered trademarks of Encyclopdia Britannica, Inc. Al lrights reserved.

Rosen Educational Services materials copyright 2011 Rosen Educational Services, LLC.All rights reserved.

Distributed exclusively by Rosen Educational Services.For a listing of additional Britannica Educational Publishing titles, call toll free (800) 237-9932.

First Edition

Britannica Educational PublishingMichael I. Levy: Executive Editor

J.E. Luebering: Senior ManagerMarilyn L. Barton: Senior Coordinator, Production ControlSteven Bosco: Director, Editorial TechnologiesLisa S. Braucher: Senior Producer and Data EditorYvette Charboneau: Senior Copy EditorKathy Nakamura: Manager, Media AcquisitionAdam Augustyn, Assistant Editor and Assistant Manager, Sports

Rosen Educational ServicesJeanne Nagle: EditorNelson S: Art DirectorCindy Reiman: Photography ManagerKaren Huang: Photo ResearcherMatthew Cauli: Designer, Cover DesignIntroduction by Adam Augustyn

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

The Britannica guide to basketball / edited by Adam Augustyn.p. cm. (The world of sports)

In association with Britannica Educational Publishing, Rosen Educational Services.Includes bibliographical references and index.ISBN 978-1-61530-577-3 (eBook)1. BasketballJuvenile literature. I. Augustyn, Adam. II. Britannica EducationalPublishing. III. Title. IV. Series.GV885.1.B75 2012796.323dc22

2011008268

Cover, pp. 1, 23, 35, 46, 112, 145, 178, 201, 202, 212, 215, 217, back cover Shutterstock.com; back-ground image pp. v, vi, vii, viii www.istockphoto.com/Mark Stahl; pp. 8, 12, 18, 28, 38, 61, 104,122, 138, 149, 155, 162, 173, 185 www.istockphoto.com/Designs 4601 LLC; remaining interiorbackground image www.istockphoto.com/Jeremy Lewis


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Contents

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Introduction x

Chapter 1: The History of

Basketball 1

The Early Years 2

James A. Naismith 3

U.S. College Basketball 6

Changes to the Game 7

Hank Luisetti 9Coaching Strategies 10

Accounting for Height 11

The Advent of Televised Games 14

Tournament Play 14

March Madness 15

The Modern Age of NCAA Play 17

John Wooden 19

Collegiate Womens Play 20 Pat Summitt 21

Chapter 2: Professional Basketball in

the U.S. 23

Harlem Globetrotters 24

Early Professional Leagues 25

The NBA 26

Business and Development 29

The WNBA 29

Cynthia Cooper 32

International Competition 32

Phog Allen 33

Chapter 3: Play of the Game 35

Rules 35Common Basketball Terms 39

John Stockton 41

Principles of Play 42


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Offense 43

Defense 44

Chapter 4: The NationalBasketball Association 46

Eastern Conference 48

Atlantic Division 48

Bill Russell 51

Willis Reed 56

Central Division 60

Scottie Pippen 63 Isiah Thomas 68

Southeast Division 73

Bob Pettit 74

Elvin Hayes 80

Western Conference 81

Southwest Division 81

Hakeem Olajuwon 84

Northwest Division 88 Lenny Wilkens 93

Jerry Sloan 98

Pacic Division 100

Jerry West 106

Chapter 5: Selected Basketball

Hall of Famers, 1959 to 1993 112

George Mikan 112

Joe Lapchick 114

Red Auerbach 115

Bob Cousy 116

Dolph Schayes 118

Bill Sharman 119

Elgin Baylor 120

Wilt Chamberlain 121Jerry Lucas 124

Oscar Robertson 126

Bill Bradley 128


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Dean Smith 129

Jack Twyman 131

John Havlicek 132

Rick Barry 133Walt Frazier 135

Pete Maravich 136

Bob Knight 137

Al McGuire 140

Julius Erving 141

Bill Walton 143

Chapter 6: Selected Basketball

Hall of Famers, 1994 through

the Present 145

Carol Blazejowski 145

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 147

Anne Donovan 148

Cheryl Miller 151

Nancy Lieberman 153Larry Bird 154

Wayne Embry 156

Mike Krzyzewski 158

Moses Malone 160

Magic Johnson 161

Earl Lloyd 163

Geno Auriemma 165

Charles Barkley 166

Phil Jackson 168

Patrick Ewing 170

Michael Jordan 172

David Robinson 175

Karl Malone 176

Chapter 7: Other BasketballGreats 178

Carmelo Anthony 178

Kobe Bryant 179


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Tim Duncan 182

Teresa Edwards 183

Kevin Garnett 184

Allen Iverson 187LeBron James 189

Rebecca Lobo 191

Alonzo Mourning 192

Shaquille ONeal 194

Dennis Rodman 196

Sheryl Swoopes 198

Yao Ming 199

Epilogue 201

Appendix: Basketball

Championship Winners 202

NBA Championship 202

WNBA Championship 205

NCAA Mens Championship 205NCAA Womens Championship 208

FIBA Mens World Championship 209

FIBA Womens World

Championship 211

Glossary 212

Bibliography 215

Index 217

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IntroductIon


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xi

Basketball is a truly globalgame. Invented by a Canadianwho lived in the United States,it is one of the most popularspectator sports in Europe andis played extensively in China.People worldwide seem to likethe sport for its simplicity; only aat surface, a hoop, and a ball arerequired to play. Another attrac-

tion is the beauty inherent inbasketball. The individuals whoengage in the sport at its highestlevels display a grace and athleti-cism that is both unparalleled andoften enrapturing.

Basketball is rare among popu-

lar sports in that it has a discreteand well-documented origin.The game was created by JamesA. Naismith in December 1891,at a college in Springeld, Mass.,

where he was a physical educa-tion instructor. Tasked by his boss

to create an indoor activity forthe students that could be playedduring the winter, Naismithdeveloped a game that involvedshooting a soccer ball into twopeach baskets. (The rst basket-ball was introduced in 1894, and

an open basket with a net was

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adopted in 191213.) The rules of the sport initially did notallow players to dribble the ball. Instead, players remainedstationary when handling the ball until they passed itdown the court to a teammate. Early basketball courts

were often irregularly shaped. Players sometimes had toavoid stairways and pillars that were part of the eld ofplay, and baskets were frequently fastened to gymnasiumbalconies, which let spectators swat at the ball as it nearedthe goal.

The young game was not just mechanically different

from modern basketball, but stylistically different as well.The professional version of the sport played in the late 19thand early 20th century was a bruising and bloody affair,

with extremely low-scoring contests marred by a greatamount of on-court violence. As the game grew in popu-larity, members of the larger crowds began to get in on theact, grabbing and punching at players. Courts began to be

encased in chicken-wire cages to separate the participantsfrom the hostile fans. This type of enclosure gave rise topopular nickname cagers for basketball players.

Considering where the sport was invented, it is notsurprising that basketball rst caught on in Americancolleges. The University of Kansas was particularly impor-tant in the development of the game. From 1898 to 1937,

Naismith was the chairman of the schools physical educa-tion department, and he was also the coach of the Kansasbasketball team for 11 years. One of his players was PhogAllen, who returned to Kansas to serve as basketballcoach between 1920 and 1956. Allen became known asthe father of basketball coaching, for a great number ofsimilarly iconic future coaches, such as Dean Smith and

Adolph Rupp, played under him at Kansas. His coachingphilosophy was propagated throughout the sport, helpingdene basketball for generations.

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College basketball grew in national popularity in the1920s and 30s while the pro gamewhich was home tothe increasingly violent cagersstruggled for publicacceptance. Game play at this time left quite a bit to bedesired, with scores routinely kept below 30 points owingto the popular strategy of stalling the game by passing theball back and forth without attempting to score, in orderto run out the clock. A number of rules were institutedin the 1930s that sped up the game, notably the creationof a midcourt line that needed to be passed within 10

seconds of a possession and the rewarding of the ball tothe defensive team after a made basket. (Prior to that, a

jump ball had followed every score.) Another importantinnovation came courtesy of Stanford Universitys HankLuisetti, who popularized the running one-handed shot inthe late 1930s. The one-handed shot, which replaced thestatic two-handed shot, later evolved into the jump shot,

which resulted in a much more athletic game.The National Invitational Tournament (NIT), the

rst prestigious collegiate postseason tournament, beganin 1938. Organized by New York City basketball writersand played in New Yorks Madison Square Garden, theNIT brought media attention and glamour to the col-lege game. The National Collegiate Athletic Association

(NCAA)the organization that administrates intercol-legiate athletics in the United Statesstarted its ownchampionship tournament in 1939. The NCAA tourna-ment was overshadowed by the NIT until 1950, when thelatter was rocked by a gambling scandal. Consequently,the NCAA saw a tremendous rise in popularity. Today theNCAA tournamentcommonly referred to as March

Madnessis one of Americas most popular spectatorsporting events, as tens of millions of fans tune in to (andwager on) the tournament every year.

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Professional basketball in the United States took lon-ger to catch on than did the college game. This was due inpart to the peripatetic nature of early pro-league players,

who usually sold their services to the highest bidder on aper-game basis. As a result, teams had extremely volatilerosters, which would result in games of spotty quality andunreliable league nances.

One team that was an early sensation was the OriginalCeltics, a barnstorming club from New York City thatthrived in the years before World War I. In 1926 the all-

black team the Savoy Big Five was founded in Chicago.The team became known as the Harlem Globetrottersin 1930. The Globetrotters proceeded to establish them-selves as the most successful barnstorming club in thehistory of the sport. They continue to entertain crowdsaround the world with their comedy-infused basketball

games into the present day.

The rst basketball league to assume major leaguestatus was the Basketball Association of America (BAA),

which began play in 1946. The BAA put an emphasis onskilled play over the brawling of older leagues like theNational Basketball League (NBL). The BAA institutedplayer contracts with a reserve rule that prevented play-ers from hopping from team to team. The stable and

protable BAA merged with the NBL in 1949 to form theNational Basketball Association (NBA). The NBA insti-tuted a 24-second shot clock in the 195455 season, whichforced teams on offense to speed up their play and madethe sport vastly more appealing to casual fans.

The NBAs popularity was buoyed by the nationalattention given to the leagues most dominant dynasty,

the Boston Celtics of the 1950s and 60s. Led by cigar-chomping head coach Red Auerbach, the Celtics won 11of the 13 NBA championships between 1957 and 1969. The



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Boston teams of this era featured celebrated stars such aspoint guard Bob Cousy, guard-forward John Havlicek, andcentre Bill Russell, who served as the teams player-coachfor the last two championships over this period, becom-ing the leagues rst African American head coach in theprocess.

Throughout the 1960s, the Celtics frequently playedthe Los Angeles Lakers for the championship series.The two teams met in the NBA nals six times over thatdecade, with the Celtics winning on each occasion. These

Lakers squads also starred some of the best players in bas-ketball history, namely Elgin Baylor, Jerry West, and WiltChamberlain. Despite the fact that the Lakers lost eachof their Finals match-ups with Boston in the 1960s, theseeds were sown for an enduring bicoastal rivalry that hasresulted in 12 total championship face-offsand counting.

In 1967 the American Basketball Association (ABA)

was formed as a direct challenge to the NBAs basket-ball dominance. The ABA soon became famous for itsfreewheeling style of play and fan-friendly innovations,including the three-point shot and the slam dunk con-test. The new league also managed to draw talent equalto that playing in the NBA at the time, such as futureHall of Famers Connie Hawkins, David Thompson,

and Julius Dr. J Erving. In 1976 a lawsuit settlementresulted in the absorption of four ABA franchises bythe NBA and the dissolution of the remainder of theupstart league. Despite being short-lived, the ABA hada lasting impact on the sport, as it helped usher in anera of ashy individualism that was enormously popular

with basketball fans.

The NBA reached a new high-water mark in the early1980s as the Lakers and Celtics, led by Magic Johnson andLarry Bird, respectively, again emerged as the two best

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franchises in the league. Johnson and Bird had a ercebut friendly personal rivalry that dated back to theircollege days, when Johnsons Michigan State Universitytopped Birds Indiana State University in the 1979 NCAAchampionship game. At the professional level, the twocaptured the basketball worlds attention as fans every-

where chose to root for one of the vastly disparate yetequally beloved personas: Johnson, the charismatic andsmiling African American point guard who dazzled withhis pinpoint passes and unmatched court vision, and

Bird, the quiet and occasionally cantankerous Caucasianforward who possessed one of the keenest long-distanceshots in the games history. The pair met in the NBA nalsthree times in the 1980s, with Johnsons Lakers comingout on top twice.

Bird and Johnson were not the only talented playerswho thrived in the 1980s and 90s. Charles Barkley, Isiah

Thomas, Karl Malone, John Stockton, Patrick Ewing, andHakeem Olajuwon, among others, made names for them-selves as well. However popular any of these players were,the sports greatest global iconand, in the eyes of manyobservers, the single greatest athlete of all timewasMichael Jordan. Soon after getting drafted by the ChicagoBulls in 1984, Jordan established himself as one of the

most prolic scorers ever to step on a court. The charmingand talented Jordan became internationally known not

just for his basketball prowess, but for his unprecedentedprowess as a pitchman. His numerous endorsement dealsmade him an international brand. Known for his ercecompetitiveness and iron will, Jordan led the Bulls to sixchampionships in eight years.

At the dawning of the 21st century, basketball facedsomething of a crisis. Labour woes forced the cancella-tion of a large part of the 199899 season, and Jordans


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7Introduction 7

retirement in 1998 left the NBA without a transcendentsuperstar for the rst time in decades. Attendance andtelevision ratings fell, leading some to question if theleague was long for the upper ranks of professional sports.Such fears were eventually put to rest with the ascendanceof celebrated stars such as Shaquille ONeal, Kobe Bryant,Kevin Garnett, and LeBron James. The NBA broke yearlyleague-wide attendance records numerous times between2005 and 2011.

While other popular American sports such as base-

ball and gridiron football do not have proper professionalleagues for female athletes, women have played basketballat the highest level for decades (in addition to the promi-nence of the highly successful womens NCAA basketball).The most prosperous of these professional leagues is theWomens National Basketball Association (WNBA),

which began play in 1997. A very lucrative venture, the

WNBA has propelled players such as Sheryl Swoopes andCynthia Cooper to levels of fame on par with that of theirmale peers.

Basketball is the only major sport of a wholly Americanorigin, but that has not prevented it from being embracedaround the globe. The game has become second in popu-larity to soccer in a great number of countries, and many

professional leagues in Europe and South America haveteams that are nearly as skilled as those in the NBA. Thesport boasts two marquee international competitions, theOlympic Games and the Fdration Internationale deBasketball Amateur (FIBA) world championships. Theseevents put basketball at the forefront of the global sport-ing worlds consciousness every two years. The games

worldwide popularitywhich continues to grow eachyearensures that basketball will remain one of the mostuniversally beloved sports for the foreseeable future.


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chapter1the hIstoryof

BasketBall

B

asketball is a relatively simple game played betweentwo teams of ve players each on a rectangular court,

usually indoors. Each team tries to score by tossing theball through the opponents goal, an elevated horizontalhoop and net called a basket.

The only major sport strictly of U.S. origin, basket-ball was invented by James A. Naismith (18611939) on

1

James Naismith (middle right, in gray suit jacket), with members of therst basketball team, in Springeld, Mass. Hulton Archive/Getty Images


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or about Dec. 1, 1891, at the International Young MensChristian Association (YMCA) Training School (nowSpringeld College), Springeld, Mass., where Naismith

was an instructor in physical education.For that rst game of basketball in 1891, Naismith

used as goals two half-bushel peach baskets, which gavethe sport its name. The students were enthusiastic.After much running and shooting, William R. Chasemade a midcourt shotthe only score in that historiccontest. Word spread about the newly invented game,

and numerous associations wrote Naismith for a copyof the rules, which were published in the Jan. 15, 1892,issue of the Triangle, the YMCA Training Schools cam-pus paper.

While basketball is competitively a winter sport, it isplayed year-roundon summer playgrounds; in munici-pal, industrial, and church halls; in schoolyards and

family driveways; and in summer campsoften on aninformal basis between two or more contestants. Many

grammar schools, youth groups, municipal recreationcentres, churches, and other organizations conduct bas-ketball programs for youngsters of less than high schoolage. Jay Archer, of Scranton, Penn., introduced biddybasketball in 1950 for boys and girls under 12 years of age,

the court and equipment being adjusted for size.

In the sports early years the number of players on a teamvaried according to the number in the class and the sizeof the playing area. In 1894 teams began to play with ve

on a side when the playing area was less than 1,800 squarefeet (167.2 square metres); the number rose to seven whenthe gymnasium measured from 1,800 to 3,600 square feet


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JAMES A. NAISMITH(b. Nov. 6, 1861, Almonte, Ont., Can.d. Nov. 28, 1939, Lawrence, Kan., U.S.)

James A. Naismith was a Canadian-American physical education

director who, in December 1891, at the International Young Mens

Christian Association Training School, afterward Springeld (Mass.)

College, invented the game of basketball.

As a young man, Naismith (who had no middle name but adopted

the initial A) studied theology and excelled in various sports.

In the autumn of 1891 he was appointed an instructor by Luther

Halsey Gulick, Jr., head of the Physical Education Department atSpringeld College. Gulick asked Naismith and other instructors

to devise indoor games that could replace the exercises used at the

school during the winter. For his new game Naismith selected fea-

tures of soccer, American football, eld hockey, and other outdoor

sports but, in theory, eliminated body contact between players.

Because his physical education class at that time was composed of

18 men, basketball originally was played by nine on each side. This

number eventually was reduced to ve.

The rst games employed half-bushel peach baskets as targets,

so a stepladder was needed to retrieve the ball after infrequent goals.

Naismiths original rules, prohibiting walking or running with the ball

and limiting physical contact, are still the basis of a game that spread

throughout the world.

In 1898 Naismith received an M.D. from Gross Medical College,

Denver, Colo., afterward the University of Colorado School of

Medicine. From that year until 1937 he was chairman of the physical

education department at the University of Kansas, Lawrence, wherehe also coached basketball until 1908. In addition to basketball, he

is credited with inventing the protective helmet for football play-

ers. Incorporated in 1959, the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of

Fame in Springeld, Mass., was is named in his honour.

7The History of Basketball 7

(334.5 square metres) and up to nine when the playing area

exceeded that. In 1895 the number was occasionally setat ve by mutual consent; the rules stipulated ve play-ers two years later. This number has remained ever since.


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A basketball goal (metal rim without a net) hangs from a post near thebalcony of a Springfield, Mass., gymnasium in 1900. Hulton Archive/Getty Images

The courts often were of irregular shape with occasionalobstructions such as pillars, stairways, or ofces thatinterfered with play. In 1903 it was ruled that all bound-ary lines must be straight.

Originally, players wore one of three styles of uni-forms: knee-length football trousers; jersey tights, ascommonly worn by wrestlers; or short padded pants,

which were forerunners of todays uniforms, plus kneeguards. In 1893 the Narragansett Machinery Co. ofProvidence, R.I., marketed a hoop of iron with a ham-

mock style of basket. Originally a ladder, then a pole,and nally a chain fastened to the bottom of the net wasused to retrieve a ball after a goal had been scored. Nets


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open at the bottom were adopted in 191213. In 189596the points for making a basket (goal, or eld goal) werereduced from three to two, and the points for making afree throw (shot uncontested from a line in front of thebasket after a foul had been committed) were reducedfrom three to one.

Baskets were frequently attached to balconies, mak-ing it easy for spectators behind a basket to lean overthe railings and deect the ball to favour one side andhinder the other; in 1895 teams were urged to provide a

4-by-6-foot (1.2-by-1.8-metre) screen for the purpose ofeliminating interference. Soon after, wooden backboardsproved more suitable. Glass backboards were legalized bythe professionals in 190809 and by colleges in 190910.In 192021 the backboards were moved 2 feet (0.6 metre),and in 193940 they were moved 4 feet, in from the endlines to reduce frequent stepping out-of-bounds. Fan-

shaped backboards were made legal in 194041.A soccer ball (football) was used for the rst two years.

In 1894 the rst basketball was marketed. It was laced,measured close to 32 inches (81 cm), or about 4 inches(10 cm) larger than the soccer ball, in circumference, and

weighed less than 20 ounces (567 grams). By 194849,when the laceless molded ball was made ofcial, the size

had been set at 30 inches (76 cm).While basketball helped swell the membership of

YMCAs because of the availability of their gyms, withinve years the game was outlawed by various associationsbecause gyms that had been occupied by classes of 50 or60 members were now monopolized by only 10 to 18 play-ers. The banishment of the game induced many members

to terminate their YMCA membership and hire halls toplay the game, thus paving the way to the professionaliza-tion of the sport.



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Since Naismith and ve of his original players wereCanadian, it is not surprising that Canada was the rstcountry outside the United States to play the game.Basketball was introduced in France in 1893, in England in1894, in Australia, China, and India soon thereafter, and in

Japan in 1900.

The rst college to play the game was either Geneva

College (Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania) or the University ofIowa. C.O. Bemis heard about the new sport at Springeldand tried it out with his students at Geneva in 1892. AtIowa, H.F. Kallenberg, who had attended Springeld in1890, wrote Naismith for a copy of the rules and also pre-sented the game to his students.

At Springeld, Kallenberg met Amos Alonzo Stagg,

who became athletic director at the new University ofChicago in 1892. The rst college basketball game with veon a side was played between the University of Chicagoand the University of Iowa in Iowa City on Jan. 18, 1896.The University of Chicago won, 1512, with neither teamusing a substitute. Kallenberg refereed that gamea com-mon practice in that eraand some of the spectators took

exception to several of his decisions.The colleges formed their own rules committee in

1905. By 1913 there were at least ve sets of rules: colle-giate, YMCAAmateur Athletic Union, those used bystate militia groups, and two varieties of professionalrules. Teams often agreed to play under a different set foreach half of a game. To establish some measure of unifor-

mity, the colleges, Amateur Athletic Union, and YMCAformed the Joint Rules Committee in 1915. This group wasrenamed the National Basketball Committee (NBC) of


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the United States and Canada in 1936, which served as thegames sole amateur rule-making body.

In 1979, however, the colleges broke away to formtheir own rules committee. (In that same year, theNational Federation of State High School Associationslikewise assumed the task of establishing separate playingrules for the high schools.) Today the National CollegiateAthletic Association (NCAA) Rules Committee for menis a 12-member board representing all three NCAA divi-sions. It has six members from Division I schools and

three each from Divisions II and III. The committee hasjurisdiction over colleges, junior colleges, the NationalAssociation of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), andArmed Forces basketball. There is a similar body for

womens play.

Changes to the Game

Basketball at the college level developed from a struc-tured, rigid game in the early days to one that is oftenfast-paced and high-scoring. Individual skills improvedmarkedly, and, although basketball continued to beregarded as the ultimate team game, individualistic, one-on-one performers came to be not only accepted but

used as an effective means of winning games.In the early years games were frequently won with

point totals of less than 30, and the game, from thespectators viewpoint, was slow. Once a team acquired amodest lead, the popular tactic was to stall the game bypassing the ball without trying to score, in an attempt torun out the clock. The NBC, seeing the need to discour-

age such slowdown tactics, instituted a number of rulechanges. In 193233 a line was drawn at midcourt, and theoffensive team was required to advance the ball past it



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The addition of the shot clock, seen ticking down the time above the basketduring a 2009 Big Ten tournament contest, is considered a landmark change tothe college game. Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images


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within 10 seconds or lose possession. Five years later, in193738, the centre jump following each eld goal or freethrow was eliminated. Instead, the defending team waspermitted to inbound the ball from the out-of-boundsline underneath the basket.

Decades passed before another alteration of likemagnitude was made in the college game. After experi-mentation the NCAA Rules Committee installed a45-second shot clock in 1985 (reduced to 35 seconds in1993), restricting the time a team could control the ball

before shooting, and one year later it implemented athree-point shot rule for baskets made beyond a distanceof 19.75 feet (6.0 metres). In 2008 the three-point line

was moved to 20.75 feet (6.3 metres) from the basket.Stanford Universitys Hank Luisetti was the rst to

use and popularize the one-hand shot in the late 1930s.Until then the only outside attempts were two-handed

push shots. In the 1950s and 60s a shooting style evolvedfrom Luisettis push-off one hander to a jump shot, whichis released at the top of the jump. West Virginia University

guard Jerry West and Purdue Universitys Rick Mountwere two players who demonstrated the devastating effec-tiveness of this shot.


HANK LUISETTI(b. June 16, 1916, San Francisco, Calif., U.S.d. Dec. 17, 2002, San

Mateo, Calif.)

Hank Luisetti was a collegiate basketball player who revolutionized

the sport by introducing the one-handed shot.

Angelo Enrico Luisetti honed his running one-handed shot

(technically not a jump shot, as he kept his feet on the ground)on the playgrounds of his native San Francisco. The 6-foot-2-inch

(1.88-metre) Luisetti played at Stanford University from 1935 to


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Coaching Strategies

Coaching strategy changed appreciably over the years.Frank W. Keaney, coach at the University of RhodeIsland from 1921 to 1948, is credited with introducing theconcept of fast break basketball, in which the offensiveteam rushes the ball upcourt hoping to get a good shot

before the defense can get set. Another man who con-tributed to a quicker pace of play, particularly throughthe use of the pressure defense, was Adolph Rupp, whobecame the University of Kentuckys coach in 1931 andturned its program into one of the most storied in bas-ketball history.

Defensive coaching philosophy, similarly, has under-

gone change. Whereas pioneer coaches such as HenryIba of Oklahoma A&M University (now Oklahoma StateUniversity) or Long Island Universitys Clair Bee taught

1938. When his one-handed shot debuted on the national stage at a

highly publicized 1936 game in Madison Square Garden, it was metwith skepticism by the basketball establishment. Over time, how-

ever, it grew in popularity and eventually led to the replacement

of the static game of two-handed set shots with more scoring and

action. Luisetti was also innovative in his dribbling and behind-the-

back passing.

A three-time All-American, Luisetti was the rst collegiate

player to score 50 points in a game; his career total points were 1,596

in four years. In addition to winning three Pacic Conference cham-pionships, Luisettis team popularized the fast-break offense and a

combination of man-to-man and zone defense.

After his collegiate career ended, Luisetti was a member of a

number of nationally known amateur teams, but he never played pro-

fessionally. He was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall

of Fame in 1959.


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strictly a man-to-man defense, the zone defense, devel-oped by Cam Henderson of Marshall University in WestVirginia, later became an integral part of the game.

Accounting for Height

Over the years one of the rule-makers chief concernswas to neutralize the advantage of taller players. At6 feet 5 inches (1.96 metres) Joe Lapchick was consid-ered very tall when he played for the Original Celtics

in the 1920s but, as even taller players appeared, ruleswere changed in response. To prevent tall players fromstationing themselves near the basket, a rule was insti-tuted in 193233 prohibiting the player with the ball fromstanding inside the foul lane with his back to the basketfor more than three seconds. The three-second rule laterapplied to any attacking player in the foul lane. In 1937

38 a new rule forbade any player from touching the ballwhen it was in the basket or on its rim (basket interfer-ence), and in 194445 it became illegal for any defendingplayer to touch the ball on its downward ight towardthe basket (goaltending).

Nevertheless, with each passing decade, the teamswith the tallest players tended to dominate. Bob Kurland

(7 feet [2.13 metres]) led Oklahoma A&M to two NCAAchampionships in the 1940s and led the nation in scor-ing in 194546. In the same era George Mikan (6 feet10 inches [2.08 metres]) scored more than 550 pointsin each of his final two seasons at DePaul Universitybefore going on to play nine professional seasons in

which he scored more than 11,000 points. Mikan was

an outstanding player, not only because of his size butbecause of his ability to shoot sweeping hook shots withboth hands.



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DeMarcus Cousins of the University of Kentucky Wildcats dunks during the

2010 NCAA tournament. Dunking was temporarily banned beginning in1967 because ofcials believed the shot gave taller players an unfair advan-tage.Jim McIsaac/Getty Images


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In the 1950s Bill Russell (6 feet 9 inches [2.06 metres])led the University of San Francisco to two NCAAchampionships before going on to become one of the

greatest centres in professional basketball history. WiltChamberlain (7 feet 1 inch [2.16 metres]) played at theUniversity of Kansas before turning professional in thelate 1950s. He is regarded as the greatest all-around bigman ever to play. It remained, however, for Lew Alcindor(who later changed his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar),also 7 feet 1 inch, to most inuence the rules. After his

sophomore year (196667) at the University of Californiaat Los Angeles (UCLA), the dunk shot was banned fromcollegiate basketball, ostensibly because the rules com-mittee felt, again, that the big men had too great anadvantage. The rule was rescinded beginning with the197677 season, and the dunk shot became an importantpart of the game, electrifying both fans and players.

So too have other players who were not as tallaffected the games development. Bob Cousy, playing atHoly Cross College and later for the Boston Celtics, wasregarded as one of the games rst great playmakers. He

was among the rst to use the behind-the-back pass andbetween-the-legs dribble as effective offensive maneu-

vers. Later such smaller players as Providence Colleges

Ernie DiGregorio, the University of North Carolinas PhilFord, and Indianas Isiah Thomas proved the importanceof their role. Between those two extremes are playerssuch as Louisiana State Universitys Pete Maravich, whoset an all-time collegiate scoring record of 44.5 points per

game in the 196970 season; Magic Johnson, the pointguard who led Michigan State University to a cham-

pionship in 1979 and the Los Angeles Lakers to severalNBA championships; Oscar Robertson, a dominatingperformer for the University of Cincinnati in the late



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1950s and for the Milwaukee Bucks in the 1970s; LarryBird of Indiana State University, a forward of exceptional

versatility who led the Boston Celtics to several cham-pionships; and Michael Jordan, a great all-around player

with the University of North Carolina in the 1980s whois widely considered the best professional player in thehistory of the sport.

The Advent of Televised Games

Nothing inuenced the college games growth more thantelevision, however. The NCAA championship games

were televised nationally from 1963, and by the 1980s allthree major television networks were telecasting inter-sectional college games during the November-to-Marchseason. Rights fees for these games soared from a few mil-lion dollars to well over $50 million by the late 1980s. As

for broadcasting the NCAA nals, a television contractthat began in 2003 gave the NCAA an average of $545million per year for the television rights. This exponen-tial growth in broadcast fees reected the importance ofthese games to both networks and advertisers.

Prots such as these inevitably attract gamblers, andin the evolution of college basketball the darkest hours

have been related to gambling scandals. But, as the gamebegan to draw more attention and generate more income,the pressure to win intensied, resulting in an outbreak ofrules violations, especially with regard to recruitment ofstar players.

Tournament Play

The most identiable phase of college basketballin America is the postseason tournament held in


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MARCH MADNESS

March Madness is an informal term that refers to the NCAA

Division I mens and womens basketball championship tournaments

and the attendant fan interest inand media coverage ofthe

events. The single-elimination tournaments begin each March and

consist of elds of 64 (for the womens tournament) and 68 (for the

mens) teams that qualify either by winning their conference title

or by being chosen as an at-large entry by the NCAAs selection

committee.

The rst mens tournament was held in 1939, but it was overshad-

owed for most of the rst two decades of its existence by the NIT,which was considered more prestigious and usually featured the best

teams in the country. The NCAA tournament gradually began to draw

the top teams and more television revenue. By the time the University

of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) began its record run of seven con-

secutive titles in 1967, the tournament was rmly established as the

premier college basketball postseason championship series in the

United States.

The size of the tournament eld increased incrementally fromeight teams in 1939 to 64 teams in 1985. A 65th team and correspond-

ing play-in game were added in 2001, when a new conference with


Marchpopularly known as March Madness. Interestin the NCAA tournament paralleled the growth of the

game. The rst basketball tournament was staged bythe Amateur Athletic Union in 1897 and was won byNew York Citys 23rd Street YMCA, later to becomea traveling professional team known as the New YorkWanderers. Although the YMCA was prominentlyidentied with the game in its early years, it did nothold its rst national tournament until 1923 (the eventtook place until 1962). The rst national tournament

for colleges was held in 1937 and was conducted byan organization in Kansas City, Mo., that later becamethe NAIA.


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an automatically qualifying champion was created and the NCAA

did not want to lower the number of high-prole at-large schoolsit could invite to the tournament. In 2011 the NCAA added three

additional opening-round games to the eld, bringing the eld to

68 teams. The rst womens tournament was a 32-team event held in

1982, and it expanded to its current eld of 64 in 1994.

The tournament format (not including the play-in games)

consists of four subsets known as regions, each of which contains

16 teams that are seeded number 1 to number 16 by the selection

committee and then matched up according to seed, with the No.1 seed playing number 16, No. 2 playing No. 15, and so on. (The

selection committee generally comprises university athletic direc-

tors and conference commissioners.) Two of the four rst-round

games pit the four lowest-seeded teamsoften the champions

of the smallest conferences in the NCAAagainst each other

to determine two of the 16 seeds, while the other two rst-round

games feature the nal four at-large teams, which are tradition-

ally 11 or 12 seeds. The second- and third-round games take place

later in the rst week of the tournament at eight geographically

dispersed sites.

Having won both their rst- and second-round games, 16 teams,

referred to as the Sweet Sixteen, move on to the second week of

play. These remaining teams then proceed to four regional sites and

are further winnowed to an Elite Eight and a Final Four, the last

of which advances to yet another location for the national semi-

nals and nals in the third week of the competition. The sizable

eld often produces pairings of large schools from highly regardedconferences with smaller automatic qualiers. First-round upsets,

where the smaller qualier wins, can lead to underdogs, known as

Cinderella teams, advancing far in the tournament.

It is a common practice for fans to ll out tournament brack-

ets with their predictions before the event begins and to enter their

brackets into ofce pools (or on the Internet) with friends and

coworkers. Studies have shown that American workers become less

productive during March Madness, as large numbers of basketballfans frequently monitor the status of their brackets or discuss the

tournament (or even watch the games) while on the job.


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New York City basketball writers organized the rstNational Invitation Tournament (NIT) in 1938, but a yearlater the New York City colleges took control of the event.Until the early 1950s the NIT was considered the mostprestigious American tournament, but, with the growthof the college-run NCAA championship, the NIT becamea consolation event for teams that failed to make theNCAA selections.

The rst NCAA tournament was played in 1939.From there, NCAA play grew in stages. The rst era

ran through 1964, when it was essentially a tournamentfor champions of various conferences. There were justeight teams in the 1939 eld. By 1963, that number hadexpanded to 25 teams, all champions of their respectiveconferences, plus several successful independent teams.The most outstanding teams of the 1940s and 50s par-ticipated in both the NCAA and NIT tournaments.

After the gambling scandals that followed the 1950 NITchampionship, a rule was passed prohibiting a team fromplaying in both. Afterward the NCAA tournament pro-

gressively outgrew the NIT.

The Modern Age of NCAA Play

In 1964 the second era dawned as the UCLA Bruins,coached by John Wooden, began a period of domina-tion over the NCAA eld. From that season until 1975Wooden led his teams to 10 NCAA championships.Only championships won by Texas Western University(now University of Texas at El Paso) in 1966 and NorthCarolina State in 1974 interrupted UCLAs reign. In the

eyes of many, the UCLA dynastic period probably had aregressive effect on the games growth; a sport with suchhigh predictability lost some of its attractiveness.


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UCLA coach John Wooden (back row, far right) with his 1969 NCAA-title-winning team, which was led by centre Lew Alcindor (front row,second from left). Rich Clarkson/Sports Illustrated/Getty Images


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The third growth stage came with the end of UCLAsdominance. Champions began to emerge from all sec-tions of the country, with a notable accumulation of titlesin the state of North Carolina, home to modern collegebasketball powers Duke University and the Universityof North Carolina. As the third stage progressed, MarchMadness became a sporting event now comparable in gen-eral public interest and media attention to the Super Bowland the World Series. Championships at the Division II,Division III, and NAIA levels also continued to grow in

interest, reaping some of the fallout from the popularityof Division I.


JOHN WOODEN

(b. Oct. 14, 1910, Hall, Ind., U.S.d. June 4, 2010, Los Angeles, Calif.)

By directing teams of the University of California at Los Angeles to

10 NCAA championships in 12 seasons (196465, 196773, 1975), John

Wooden established himself as one of the greatest college basketball

coaches of all time. Several of his UCLA players became professional

basketball stars, notably Lew Alcindor (afterward Kareem Abdul-

Jabbar), Bill Walton, and Gail Goodrich.

At Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., Wooden, a guard,

gained All-America honours as a basketball player for three seasons

(193032) and won a Western Conference (Big Ten) medal for ath-

letic and scholastic excellence. He coached high school basketball in

Kentucky and Indiana before entering the U.S. Navy in 1943, where

he served as a physical education instructor. After his World War

II service, he was the head basketball coach and athletic director

at Indiana State Teachers College (now Indiana State University)

in Terre Haute from 1946 to 1948. He was appointed head coach at

UCLA in 1948 and retired in 1975, with a record of 620 wins and 147

losses, for an .808 percentage, which earned him the nickname theWizard of Westwood (Westwood being the Los Angeles neigh-

bourhood in which UCLA is located). His 40-year record was 885

wins and 203 losses, a percentage of .813. Among Woodens most


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Collegiate Womens Play

Clara Baer, who introduced basketball at the H. SophieNewcomb College for Women in New Orleans, inuenced

the womens style of play with her set of womens rules,published in 1895. On receiving a diagram of the courtfrom Naismith, Baer mistook dotted lines, indicating theareas in which players might best execute team play, to berestraining lines, with the result that the forwards, centres,and guards were conned to specied areas. This seemedappropriate because many felt that the mens game was

too strenuous for women.Womens rules over the years frequently have been

modied. Until 1971 there were six players on a team, andthe court was so divided that the three forwards playedin the frontcourt and did all the scoring while the three

guards covered the backcourt. Senda Berenson stagedthe rst womens college basketball game in 1893 when

her freshman and sophomore Smith College womenplayed against one another. In April 1895 the women ofthe University of California (Berkeley) played StanfordUniversity. Despite a multitude of hindrances (such as

notable accomplishments at UCLA are two record-winning streaks:

88 consecutive games (over the course of four seasons) and 38 con-secutive NCAA tournament games. He was named the NCAAs

College Basketball Coach of the Year on six occasions (1964, 1967,

196970, 197273). Wooden was the rst person to be elected to the

Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as both a player (1960)

and a coach (1973). The John R. Wooden Award annually honours

the nations outstanding player as chosen by a media poll.

Wooden, with Steve Jamison, wrote two books on lessons from

his experience as a coach: Wooden: A Lifetime of Observations andReections on and off the Court(1997) and Wooden on Leadership (2005).


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PAT SUMMITT(b. June 14, 1952, Henrietta, Tenn., U.S.)

As womens basketball coach at the University of Tennessee (1974 ),

Pat Summitt became the winningest coach in the history of NCAA

basketball.

Patricia Head grew up on a dairy farm, where she developed the

toughness that would become her trademark. She rst played bas-

ketball in a hayloft, and her aggressive and instinctive play at the

University of Tennessee at Martin earned her spots on national teams.

In 1975 she won gold at the Pan-American Games and the followingyear overcame a serious knee injury to cocaptain the U.S. Olympic

team to a silver medal in Montreal. Soon afterward she retired as a

player to concentrate on coaching.

Named head coach of the Lady Vols at the University of

Tennessee at Knoxville in 1974, she posted a 16 8 record in her inau-

gural season. (In 1980 she married R.B. Summitt; the couple divorced

in 2008.) Driven and uncompromising, Summitt demanded the best

from her players and was known for her strenuous practices and the

legendary look that would send athletes for cover. In 1987, months

Pat Summitt(far right) and members of the University of Tennessees womensbasketball team posing with Secretary of the Army Pete Geren, 2008. StaffSgt. Christina M. OConnell/U.S. Army



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being thought unladylike), womens basketball graduallysecured a foothold. In 1971, when womens rules werechanged to reduce the number on a team from six playersto ve and women were freed from the limits imposed by

the half-court game, the level of individual skills and com-petition quickly rose.

In the early 1980s control of the womens collegegame was shifted from the Association for IntercollegiateAthletics for Women (AIAW) to the NCAA, a move thatnot only streamlined the operation and made it moreefcient but also added to the visibility of womens bas-

ketball. The womens NCAA championship tournamentruns concurrently with the mens, and many of the gamesare nationally televised. Womens basketball became anOlympic sport in 1976.

after earning her 300th win, she guided the Lady Vols to their rst

NCAA championship. With Summitt at the helm, the team wenton to claim seven more titles (1989, 1991, 199698, and 200708).

In 1996 Summitt notched her 600th victory, becoming only the sec-

ond woman to tally that many wins on the court. Two years later she

led Tennessee to an unprecedented third consecutive NCAA cham-

pionship, capping a perfect season (390). The title came just days

after she received the Associated Presss Coach of the Year award.

In 2005 she earned her 880th victory, breaking Dean Smiths record.

Four years later she became the rst NCAA basketball coach to reg-ister 1,000 career wins.

In addition to collegiate basketball, Summitt also coached on

the international level, leading the U.S. womens team to gold at the

1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. A noted motivator, she released two

self-help books, Reach for the Summit and Raise the Roof (each with

Sally Jenkins), in 1998. Summitt was the recipient of numerous hon-

ours, and in 2000 she was named Naismith College Coach of the

Century. That year she was also inducted into the Naismith Memorial

Basketball Hall of Fame.


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The professional game rst prospered largely in theMiddle Atlantic and New England states. Trenton(New Jersey) and the New York Wanderers were the rst

great professional clubs, followed by the Buffalo (NewYork) Germans, who started out in 1895 as 14-year-oldmembers of the Buffalo YMCA and, with occasionalnew members, continued for 44 years, winning 792 out

of 878 games.A group of basketball stylists who never received

the acclaim they deserved (because in their heydaythey played for various towns) consisted of Edward andLew Wachter, Jimmy Williamson, Jack Inglis, and BillHardman. They introduced the bounce pass and longpass as offensive weapons and championed the rule

(adopted 192324) that made each player, when fouled,shoot his own free throw.

Before World War II the most widely heralded pro-fessional team was the Original Celtics, which startedout in 1915 as a group of youngsters from New York City,kept adding better players in the early 1920s, and becameso invincible that the team disbanded in 1928, only to

regroup in the early 1930s as the New York Celtics. Theynally retired in 1936. The Celtics played every nightof the week, twice on Sundays, and largely on the road.During the 192223 season they won 204 of 215 games.

professIonal

BasketBallIn

the u.s.

23


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HARLEM GLOBETROTTERSThe Harlem Globetrotters are a predominantly black professional

U.S. basketball team that plays exhibition games all over the world,drawing crowds as large as 75,000 to see the players spectacular ball

handling and humorous antics.

The team was organized in Chicago in 1926 as the all-black

Savoy Big Five. Sports promoter Abe Saperstein acquired the

team soon after and owned it until his death in 1966. In January

1927 the team debuted in Hinckley, Ill., under the name New

York Globetrotters. The name was changed in 1930 to Harlem

Globetrotters to capitalize on the cultural notoriety of one ofNew Yorks African American neighbourhoods. The barnstorm-

ing team amassed an impressive record over the next decade and

in 1939 participated in the rst professional basketball champion-

ship, losing to the Harlem Rens in the nal game. The next year the

Globetrotters won the tournament.

Members of the Harlem Globetrotters warming up before a 2005 game.Denis Doyle/Getty Images


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It was about this time that they rst experimented with add-

ing comedy to their games. Inman Jackson was the rst to assumethe role of clown prince on the team. As the National Basketball

Association became racially integrated in the 1950s, the opportuni-

ties for competitive games on the barnstorming circuit dried up. As a

result, the team made comedic entertainment its central focus. Some

outstanding Globetrotters were Reece Goose Tatum, Marques

Haynes, Clarence Wilson, Meadowlark Lemon, Wilt the Stilt

Chamberlain, Herb Geese Ausbie, and Lynette Woodard, the rst

woman to play for the team.Mannie Jackson, a former player, purchased the team in 1993. In

2000 the team returned to competitive play with a series of exhibition

games against top collegiate teams. In 2002 the team was enshrined in

the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

Another formidable aggregation was the New York

Renaissance (the Rens), organized by Robert Douglas in1923 and regarded as the strongest all-black team of alltime. During the 192526 campaign they split a six-gameseries with the Original Celtics. During the 193233 seasonthe Rens won 88 consecutive games. In 1939 they defeatedthe Harlem Globetrotters and the Oshkosh All Stars in the

world championship pro tournament in Chicago. Among

the great professional clubs were the teams of Fond du Lac,Wisconsin, and East Liverpool, Ohio, as well as the NewYork Nationals, the Paterson (New Jersey) Crescents, andthe South Philadelphia Hebrew All Starsbetter knownas the Sphas.

The rst professional league was the National BasketballLeague (NBL), formed in 1898. Its game differed from

7Professional Basketball in the U.S. 7


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the college game in that a chicken-wire cage typicallysurrounded the court, separating players from oftenhostile fans. (Basketball players were long referred to ascagers.) The chicken wire was soon replaced with a ropenetting, off which the players bounced like prizeghtersin a boxing ring. The cage also kept the ball from goingout-of-bounds, thus quickening the pace of play. In theseearly days players were also permitted to resume drib-bling after halting. Despite the lively action of the game,the NBL and other early leagues were short-lived, mostly

because of the frequent movement of players, who soldtheir services on a per-game basis. With players perform-ing for several cities or clubs within the same season, theleagues suffered games of unreliable quality and manynancially unstable franchises.

The Great Depression of the 1930s hurt profes-sional basketball, and a new NBL was organized in 1937

in and around the upper Midwest. Professional basketballassumed major league status with the organization of thenew Basketball Association of America (BAA) in 1946under the guidance of Walter A. Brown, president of theBoston Garden. Brown contended that professional bas-ketball would succeed only if there were sufcient nancialsupport to nurse the league over the early lean years, if the

game emphasized skill instead of brawling, and if all playerswere restricted to contracts with a reserve rule protectingeach team from raiding by another club. Following a costlytwo-year feud, the BAA and the NBL merged in 1949 toform the National Basketball Association (NBA).

To help equalize the strength of the teams, the NBAestablished an annual college draft permitting each club


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to select a college senior in inverse order to the nal stand-ings in the previous years competition, thus enabling thelower-standing clubs to select the more talented colle-

gians. In addition, the game was altered through threeradical rule changes in the 195455 season:

1. A team must shoot for a basket within 24seconds after acquiring possession of the ball.

2. A bonus free throw is awarded to a playeranytime the opposing team commits more

than six (later ve, now four) personal fouls ina quarter or more than two personal fouls in anovertime period.

3. Two free throws are granted for any back-court foul.

After a struggle to survive, including some large

financial losses and several short-lived franchises, theNBA took its place as the major professional basketballleague in the United States. A rival 11-team AmericanBasketball Association (ABA), with George Mikan ascommissioner, was launched in the 196768 season, anda bitter feud developed with the NBA for the top col-legiate talent each season. In 1976 the ABA disbanded,

and four of its teams were taken into the NBA. TheNBA grew increasingly popular through the 1980s.Attendance records were broken in that decade bymost of the franchises, a growth pattern stimulated atleast in part by the increased coverage by cabletelevision.

The NBA play-offs follow the traditional 82-game

schedule, involving 16 teams and beginning in late April.Played as a best-of-seven series, the nal pairings stretchinto late June.



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Amir Johnson was the last NBA player drafted straight out of high school.Since 2005 players must be out of high school for at least one year before being

drafted. Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images


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Although basketball is traditionally a winter game, theNBA still lls its arenas and attracts a national televisionaudience in late spring and early summer. As the popu-larity of the league grew, player salaries rose to an annualaverage of more than $5 million by the mid-2000s, andsome superstars earned more than $20 million yearly.The NBA has a salary cap that limits (at least theoreti-cally, as loopholes allow many teams to exceed the cap)

the total amount a team can spend on salaries in anygiven season.

In 2001 the NBA launched the National BasketballDevelopment League (NBDL). The league served as a kindof farm system for the NBA. Through its rst 50 yearsthe NBA did not have an ofcial system of player develop-ment or a true minor league system for bringing up young

and inexperienced players such as exists in Major LeagueBaseball. College basketball has been the area from whichthe NBA did the vast majority of its recruiting. By 2000this had begun to change somewhat, as players began tobe drafted straight out of high school with increasing fre-quency. In 2005 the NBA instituted a rule stipulating thatdomestic players must be at least age 19 and have been

out of high school for one year to be eligible for the draft,which in effect required players to spend at least one yearin college or on an international professional team beforecoming to the NBA.

Individual women stars have been heavily recruited bycolleges since the games early years, but the players fre-quently found that there was no opportunity for them



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Team members from the original WNBA franchises pose for a 1997 public-ity photo in Brazil. 2003 NBA Entertainment. Photo by JenniferPottheiser/NBAE/Getty Images

to play beyond the college level. Leagues were occasion-ally formed, such as the Womens Professional BasketballLeague (WPBL); begun in 1978, the WPBL lasted onlythree years. Eventually lling the void was the WomensNational Basketball Association (WNBA).

The WNBA was created in 1997 by the NBA Boardof Governors as a womens analogue to the NBA. Each of

the rst eight WNBA franchises was located in a city thatwas also home to an NBA team, often with nicknamesand uniform colours that were evocative of their mens


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counterparts. The NBA owned each of the franchisesuntil 2002, when it began allowing the sale of franchises toownership groups in cities that did not have NBA teamsand to groups in NBA cities that were unafliated withthose NBA teams.

The rst four WNBA titles were won by the HoustonComets, with teams that featured two of the leaguesrst superstars in Cynthia Cooper and Sheryl Swoopes.Helped by the dissolution of the rival AmericanBasketball League in 1999, the WNBA grew in the early

years of the 21st century to become the most success-ful American womens professional sports league ever,helped along by the popularity of outstanding playerssuch as Rebecca Lobo, Lisa Leslie, and Lauren Jackson.

The WNBA is divided into two divisions that eachconsist of six teams and are aligned as follows:

Eastern Conference

Atlanta Dream Chicago Sky Connecticut Sun Indiana Fever New York Liberty

Washington Mystics

Western Conference

Los Angeles Sparks Minnesota Lynx Phoenix Mercury

San Antonio Silver Stars Seattle Storm Tulsa Shock



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CNTHIA COOPER(b. April 14, 1963, Chicago, Ill., U.S.)

Cynthia Cooper was the rst Most Valuable Player (MVP) of the

WNBA. In the WNBAs inaugural season (1997), Cooper led the

league in scoring while leading her team, the Houston Comets, to the

championship. She was named MVP of both the regular season and

the play-offs that year.

Cooper was raised in the Watts section of Los Angeles. She began

playing organized basketball at age 16 and quickly took to the sport.

She earned a scholarship to the University of Southern California,where she played in the shadow of Cheryl Miller while helping the

team to national championships in 1983 and 1984. After college Cooper

played professionally in Europe, primarily for a team in Parma, Italy,

where she blossomed into a potent scorer and a tenacious defender.

She was a member of the 1988 U.S. national team that won the gold

medal at the Olympic Games in Seoul, S.Kor.

By the end of the WNBAs inaugural season, Cooper had

established herself as the leagues rst great player. Along with star

teammates Sheryl Swoopes and Tina Thompson, Cooper led the

Comets to titles in 1998, 1999, and 2000, each time being recog-

nized as the MVP of the play-offs. She was named the league MVP

for the second time in 1998. Cooper retired in 2000 and became the

head coach of the WNBAs Phoenix Mercury the following year. She

returned to playing basketball in 2003 and permanently retired from

the game in 2004 with WNBA career per-game averages of 21 points,

4.9 assists, 3.3 rebounds, and 1.56 steals. Cooper was named the wom-

ens basketball head coach at Prairie View (Texas) A&M Universityin 2005. She was selected for induction into the Naismith Memorial

Basketball Hall of Fame in 2010.

The success of international basketball was greatlyadvanced by Forrest C. (Phog) Allen, a Naismith dis-ciple and a former coach at the University of Kansas, wholed the movement for the inclusion of basketball in the


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PHOG ALLEN(b. Nov. 15, 1885, Jamesport, Mo., U.S.d. Sept. 16, 1974, Lawrence, Kan.)

Regarded as the rst great basketball coach, Phog Allen was also

instrumental in making basketball an Olympic sport.

From 1905 to 1907 at the University of Kansas in Lawrence,

Forrest Clare Allen played for James Naismith, who invented bas-

ketball. Allen coached the team during his nal two years on campus

(190709). After graduating he pursued a degree in osteopathic medi-

cine and later gained a national reputation for his skillful treatment

of athletic injuries. After stints as a baseball umpire (during which heearned his nickname because of his foghorn voice) and as a coach of all

sports at Warrensburg Teachers College (now Central Missouri State

University), Allen returned to the University of Kansas in 1920 as ath-

letic director, football coach, and basketball coach.

Allens Kansas Jayhawk basketball teams of 192056 won 771

games and lost 233; his 195152 team won the championship of the

NCAA. In 1936 the Helms Foundation retroactively awarded the

1922 and 1923 national championships to Allens Jayhawks. His teams

won 24 Big Eight Conference championships (known as the Big Six

Conference from 1929 to 1947 and now known as the Big 12). He

retired as the winningest coach in college basketball.

Regarded as the father of basketball coaching, Allen played a key

role in establishing the National Association of Basketball Coaches in

1927 and developed the talents of many successful coaches, including

Adolph Rupp, Dutch Lonborg, and Dean Smith. He was instrumental

in adding basketball to the Olympic Games program in 1936, and in

1952 he coached the American team that won the Olympic gold medalin Helsinki. He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball

Hall of Fame in 1959. The University of Kansas Jayhawks have played

basketball at the Forrest C. Phog Allen Fieldhouse since 1955.

Olympic Games in 1936 and thereafter. Basketball has also

been played in the Pan-American Games since their inau-guration in 1951.The international game is governed by the Fdration

Internationale de Basketball Amateur (FIBA). World



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championships began in 1950 for men and in 1953 forwomen. Under international rules the court differs inthat there is no frontcourt or backcourt, and the freethrow lanes form a modied wedge shape. There aresome differences in rules, including those governingsubstitutions, technical and personal fouls, free throws,intermissions, and time-outs. Outside the United Statesthere are few places that strictly separate amateur fromprofessional athletes.

Basketball has caught on particularly well in Italy.

The Italian professional basketball league (Lega Basket)is highly regarded and popular in that country. Spain alsohas several basketball leagues, the main one being theACB (Asociacin de Clubes de Baloncesto). The othermajor centre of European basketball is eastern Europe,particularly the Balkans. Although the European leaguesare not formally aligned with the American NBA, there

are links between European and American basketball. Itis not uncommon for European players to be drafted bythe NBA, nor is it uncommon for American players toplay in Europe. American players in the European leaguestend to be older players who have nished successfulNBA careers in the United States or younger players whohave not yet been drafted into the NBA.


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chapter3playofthe Game

The standard American basketball court is in theshape of a rectangle 50 feet (15.2 metres) by 94 feet(28.7 metres); high school courts may be slightly smaller.There are various markings on the court, including a cen-tre circle, free throw lanes, and a three-point line, that

help regulate play. A goal, or basket, 18 inches (46 cm) indiameter is suspended from a backboard at each end of thecourt. The metal rim of the basket is 10 feet (3.0 metres)above the oor. In the professional game the backboard isa rectangle, 6 feet (1.8 metres) wide and 3.5 feet (1.1 metres)high, made of a transparent material, usually glass; it maybe 4 feet (1.2 metres) high in college. The international

court varies somewhat in size and markings. The spheri-cal inated ball measures 29.5 to 30 inches (74.9 to 76 cm)in circumference and weighs 20 to 22 ounces (567 to 624

grams). Its covering is leather or composition.

The rules governing play of the game are based onNaismiths ve principles: use of a large, light ball, handled

with the hands; no running with the ball; no player beingrestricted from getting the ball when it is in play; no per-sonal contact; and a horizontal, elevated goal. The rulesare spelled out in specic detail by the governing bodiesof the several branches of the sport and cover the play-

ing court and equipment, ofcials, players, scoring andtiming, fouls, violations, and other matters. The ofcialsinclude a referee and two umpires in college play (two ref-erees and a crew chief in NBA play), two timers, and two


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A section of the original 1891 rules to the game of basketball, written byJames Naismith. The rules manuscript fetched more than $4 million at a 2010Southebys auction. Chris Hondros/Getty Images

scorekeepers. One player on each team acts as captain andspeaks for the team on all matters involving the ofcials,such as interpretation of rules. Professional, international,and high school games are divided into four periods, col-lege games into two.

Since the 189596 season, a eld goal has scored two

points and a free throw one point. When the ABA wasfounded in 1967, it allowed three points for shots madefrom outside a boundary line set 25 feet (7.6 metres) fromthe basket. With varying distances, the change was adoptedofcially by the NBA in 1979 and, in 1985, by colleges.

Basketball is a rough sport, although it is ofcially anoncontact game. A player may pass or bounce (dribble)

the ball to a position whereby he or a teammate maytry for a basket. A foul is committed whenever a playermakes such contact with an opponent as to put him at a


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disadvantage. For the 200102 season the NBA approveda rule change that eliminated touch fouls, meaning briefcontact initiated by a defensive player is allowable if itdoes not impede the progress of the offensive player.

If a player is fouled while shooting and the shot isgood, the basket counts and he or she is awarded one freethrow (an unhindered throw for a goal from behind thefree throw, or foul, line, which is 15 feet [4.6 metres] fromthe backboard). If the shot misses, the player gets a sec-ond free throw. If a foul is committed against a player who

is not shooting, then the fouled players team is awardedeither the possession of the ball or a free throw if theother team is in a penalty situation. A team is in a penaltysituation when it has been called for a set number of foulsin one period (ve in one quarter in professional and inter-national play, and seven in one half in the college game). Incollege basketball, penalty free throws are one-and-one

in natureconsisting of one free throw that, if made, isfollowed by a seconduntil the opposing team commitsa 10th foul in a half. At that point, a double bonus situa-tion is created where all fouls automatically result in twofree throws. A pair of penalty free throws are immediatelyearned when teams enter the penalty situation in both theNBA and international play.

Infractions such as unsportsmanlike conduct or grasp-ing the basket rim are technical fouls, which award to theopposition a free throw and possession of the ball. Overly

violent fouls are called agrant fouls and also result infree throws and possession for the opposition. Players areallowed a set number of personal fouls per game (six in theNBA, ve in most other competitions) and are removed

from the game when the foul limit is reached.Other common infractions occur when a player (withthe ball) takes an excessive number of steps or slides;

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Flagrant fouls, like the one committed by the Milwaukee Bucks Charlieilaneau (left), are obvious and unnecessarily physical infractions against

an opponent.Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images


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fails to advance the ball within ve seconds while beingclosely guarded; causes the ball to go out-of-bounds;steps over the foul line while shooting a free throw; stepsover the end line or sideline while tossing the ball in to ateammate, or fails to pass the ball in within ve seconds;runs with, kicks, or strikes the ball with his st; dribblesa second time after having once concluded his dribble(double dribble); remains more than three seconds in hisfree throw lane while he or his team has the ball; causesthe ball to go into the backcourt; retains the ball in the

backcourt more than 10 seconds (changed in the NBA to8 seconds for 200102); or fails to shoot within the timeallotted by the shot clock (24 seconds in the NBA andinternational play, 30 in the WNBA, and 35 in college).The penalty is loss of the ball. Opponents throw the ballin from the side.

There are a number of terms used to describe the actionon a basketball court. Some of the most common are listedin this section.

Blocking: Any illegal personal contact that impedes theprogress of an opponent who does not have the ball.

Dribble: Ball movement by bouncing the ball. A dribbleends when a player touches the ball with both hands simul-taneously or does not continue his dribble.

Field goal: Any shot made from the the eld of playother than a free throw. One of the main eld goals isthe layup, in which the shooter, while close to the basket,

jumps and lays the ball against the backboard so it will

rebound into the basket or just lays it over the rim. Awayfrom the basket, players use a one-hand push shot from astride, jump, or standing position and a hook shot, which

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is overhead. Some players can dunk or slam-dunk the ball,jamming the ball down into the basket.

Held ball: Called when two opponents have one or twohands so rmly upon the ball that neither can gain pos-session without undue roughness. It also is called when aplayer in the frontcourt is so closely guarded that he can-not pass or try for a goal or is obviously withholding theball from play.

Jump ball: A method of putting the ball into play. Thereferee tosses the ball up between two opponents who

try to tap it to a teammate. The jump ball is used to begingames and, in the professional game, when the ball is pos-sessed by two opposing players at the same time.

Pass: Throwing, batting, or rolling the ball to anotherplayer. The main types are (1) the chest pass, in whichthe ball is released from a position in front of the chest,(2) the bounce pass, in which the ball is bounced on the

oor to get it past a defensive opponent, (3) the roll passon the oor, (4) the hook pass (side or overhead), and (5)the baseball pass, in which the ball is thrown a longerdistance with one hand in a manner similar to a baseballthrow. A pass that precedes a made eld goal is calledan assist.

Pivot:A movement in which a player with the ball steps

once or more in any direction with the same foot while theother foot (pivot foot) is kept at its point of contact withthe oor.

Pivot player: Another term for centre; also called a postplayer. He may begin the offensive set from a position justabove the free throw line.

Rebounding: Both teams attempting to gain pos-

session of the ball after any try for a basket that isunsuccessful, but the ball does not go out-of-bounds andremains in play.


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JOHN STOCKTON(b. March 26, 1962, Spokane, Wash., U.S.)

John Stockton is considered one of the greatest point guards ever to

play the sport. In his 19-year career with the Utah Jazz, he set NBA

records for most career assists (15,806) and steals (3,265).

Stockton played collegiate basketball at Gonzaga University in

his hometown of Spokane, Wash., where he became the schools all-

time leader in assists and steals. He was selected by the Jazz in the rst

round of the 1984 NBA draft. Stockton became the teams starting

point guard in his fourth season, and he promptly led the league inassists in his rst year leading the Jazz offense. That 198788 season

was the rst of nine consecutive seasons in which Stockton was the

NBAs assist leader; he achieved a single-season record of 1,164 assists

in 199091. A great number of his assists came on passes to power

forward Karl Malone, with whom Stockton formed one of the most

effective pick-and-roll combinations in NBA history. At 6 feet 1 inch

(1.85 metres) tall, Stockton made up for his lack of height with his

tenacious, high-energy play that was sometimes viewed as dirty by his

opponents. A particularly energetic on-ball defender, he twice led the

NBA in steals (198889, 199192).

Stockton never missed the play-offs in his nearly two decades

playing for the Jazz, butdespite leading the team to a ve conference

nals appearances and two berths in the NBA nals (1997, 1998)he

retired in 2003 having never won an NBA championship. He won two

Olympic gold medals as a member of the U.S. mens national basket-

ball team (1992, 1996). Stockton garnered 10 career All-Star Game

selections and was named rst-team All-NBA twice (199394, 199495). He was honoured as one of the 50 greatest players in NBA history

in 1996 and was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall

of Fame in 2009.

Screen, or pick: Legal action of a player who, withoutcausing more than incidental contact, delays or prevents

an opponent from reaching his desired position.Traveling: Progressing in any direction in excess of theprescribed limits, normally two steps, while holding the ball.

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Turnover: Loss of possession of the ball by a teamthrough error or a rule violation.

Each team of five players consists of two forwards,two guards, and a centre, usually the tallest man on theteam. At the beginning of the first period of a game,the ball is put into play by a jump ball at centre court;i.e., the referee tosses the ball up between the oppos-

ing centres, higher than either can jump, and when itdescends each tries to tap it to one of his teammates,

who must remain outside the centre circle until the ballis tapped. Subsequent periods of professional and col-lege games begin with a throw in from out-of-bounds.

Jump balls are also signaled by the officials when oppos-ing players share possession of the ball (held ball) or

simultaneously cause it to go out-of-bounds. In U.S.college games the alternate-possession rule is invokedin jump ball situations, with teams taking turns gettingpossession.

After each successful basket (eld goal) the ball isput back in play by the team that is scored on, by oneplayer passing the ball in from behind the end line where

the score was made. The ball is put in play in the samemanner after a successful free throw or, if two have beenawarded, after the second if it is successful. After non-shooting violations the ball is awarded to the opposingteam to be passed inbounds from a point designated byan ofcial.

A player who takes possession of the ball must pass

or shoot before taking two steps or must start dribblingbefore taking his second step. When the dribble stops, theplayer must stop his movement and pass or shoot the ball.


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The ball may be tapped or batted with the hands, passed,bounced, or rolled in any direction.

Offense

As basketball has progressed, various coaches and play-ers have devised intricate plays and offensive maneuvers.Some systems emphasize speed, deft ball handling, andhigh scoring; others stress ball control, slower patternedmovement, and lower scoring. A strategy based on speed

is called the fast break. When fast-break players recoverpossession of the ball in their backcourt, as by gettingthe rebound from an opponents missed shot, they raceupcourt using a combination of speed and passing andtry to make a eld goal before their opponents have timeto set up a defense.

Some teams, either while following an overall game

plan or as an alternative when they do not have theopportunity for a fast break, employ a more deliberatestyle of offense. A guard brings the ball down the courttoward the basket, and the team maintains possessionof the ball in the frontcourt by passing and dribbling.The team in possession of the ball then screens oppo-nents in an effort to set up a play that will free a player

for an open shot. Set patterns of offense generally useone or two pivot, or post, players who play near the freethrow area at low post positions (within a few feet ofthe basket) or high post positions (near the free throwline). Pivot players are usually the taller players on theteam and are in position to receive passes, make passesto teammates, shoot, screen for teammates, and tip in or

rebound (recover) missed shots. All the players on theteam are constantly on the move, executing patternsdesigned to give one player a favourable shot and, at the

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The Minnesota Timberwolves (in white) set up a zone defense during a2004 game against the Cleveland Cavaliers. David E. Klutho/SportsIllustrated/Getty Images

same time, place one or more teammates in a good posi-tion to tip in or rebound if that player misses.

Defense

Systems of defense also have developed over the years.One of the major strategies is known as man-to-man. Inthis system each player guards a specic opponent, except

when switching with a teammate when he is screenedor in order to guard another player in a more threatening

scoring position. Another major strategy is the zone, orve-man, defense. In this system each player has a specicarea to guard irrespective of which opponent plays in thatarea. The zone is designed to keep the offense from driv-ing in to the basket and to force the offense into takinglong shots.

A great many variations and combinations have been

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and zone defensive strategies. The press, which can beeither man-to-man or zone, is used by a team to guard itsopponent so thoroughly that the opposition is forced tohurry its movements and especially to commit errors thatresult in turnovers. A full-court press applies this pressuredefense from the moment the opposition takes posses-sion of the ball at one end of the court. Well-coachedteams are able to modify both their offensive and defen-sive strategies according to the shifting circumstances ofthe game and in response to their opponent

the britannica guide to basketball

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