In basketball, the basketball court is the playing surface, consisting of a rectangular floor with tiles at either end. In professional or organized basketball, especially when played indoors, it is usually made out of a wood, often maple, and highly polished. Outdoor surfaces are generally made from standard paving materials such as concrete or asphalt (i.e. blacktop/tarmac).
The object of the game is to shoot the ball through the hoop at either end of the court. When the game was first invented, actual peach baskets were used. Dr. James Naismith's original rules specified that "A goal shall be made when the ball is thrown or batted from the grounds into the basket and stays there, providing those defending the goal do not touch or disturb the goal." However, because it proved to be inconvenient to continually retrieve the ball from the baskets, the baskets were soon replaced by metal rings (usually with dangling netting attached to direct the ball straight down.) The ring is attached to rectangular (or sometimes fanshaped) backboard made of either metal, fiberglass, acrylic, or tempered glass. The ball is usually made of composite leather.
Basketball courts come in different shapes and sizes and colors. In the NBA, the court is 94 feet by 50 ft (28.65m by 15.24m). Under International Basketball Federation (FIBA) rules, the court is minutely smaller, measuring exactly 28 m by 15 m (91'10.4" by 49'2.6"). A high school court is slightly smaller, at 84' by 50' and some elementary schools have courts measuring 74' x 42'. In amateur basketball, court sizes vary widely. The baskets are always 10' (3.05m) above the floor (except possibly in youth competition). Basketball courts have a three-point arc at both baskets. A basket made from behind this arc is worth three points; a basket made from within this line, or with a player's foot touching the line is worth two points. The free-throw line, where one stands while taking a foul shot, is located within the three-point arc.
Read more about Basketball Court: Diagram of Basketball Court and Backboard, Dimensions
Famous quotes containing the words basketball and/or court:
“Perhaps basketball and poetry have just a few things in common, but the most important is the possibility of transcendence. The opposite is labor. In writing, every writer knows when he or she is laboring to achieve an effect. You want to get from here to there, but find yourself willing it, forcing it. The equivalent in basketball is aiming your shot, a kind of strained and usually ineffective purposefulness. What you want is to be in some kind of flow, each next moment a discovery.”
—Stephen Dunn (b. 1939)
“The Twist was a guided missile, launched from the ghetto into the very heart of suburbia. The Twist succeeded, as politics, religion, and law could never do, in writing in the heart and soul what the Supreme Court could only write on the books.”
—Eldridge Cleaver (b. 1935)