Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Basketball |
BasketballNoun1. A game played on a court by two opposing teams of 5 players; points are scored by throwing the basketball through an elevated horizontal hoop. 2. An inflated ball used in playing basketball. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "basketball" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1980. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
Sports & Leisure | The ball used to play the game of basketball. Source: European Union. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Basketball is a ball sport played by two teams of five players on a side. It is highly suited to viewing by spectators as an indoor sport with a relatively small court with only ten players. The ball is large and easy to follow, and the lack of protective gear makes it possible to see the reactions of players. It is one of the most popular sports in the United States and is also reasonably popular in other parts of the world such as southern Europe and in the former Soviet Union.
A diagram of a basketball court. Larger Version.
The backboard and basket. Larger VersionThe goal of each team is to throw the ball through their basket, whilst preventing their opponents from doing so. Teams score two points for putting the ball in the basket, three points for long-range shots, and one point for foul shots.
Basketball goal (hoop)Naturally, it's easier to score a basket when close to the basket than when farther away; however, offensive players in basketball may not tuck the ball under their arm and run with it. Instead, they must constantly bounce ("dribble") the ball as they advance to the basket; every dribble represents a chance for the ball to be mishandled or stolen.
Defensive players may not tackle an offensive player, and those who push, shove or impede their opponents risk getting called for a foul. Players who are fouled get either the ball or -- if they're in the act of shooting -- "free throw" shots from a line 15 feet from the basket for one point each. This was important to Dr. Naismith, who disliked the brutal blocking and tackling of American football. He wanted his game to be good clean exercise.
If a player commits five fouls in one game (six in some professional leagues) he is disqualified from the rest of the game, and a reserve player must take his place. It is also called fouling out. Arguing with a referee, fighting with another player, or interfering with a ball after it falls through the basket are grounds for a technical foul. Any player or coach with two technical fouls is disqualified from the game. Savvy defensive players use a wide array of legal and extra-legal techniques to hamper and frustrate the players they guard.
Each player occupies one of three positions: a team typically has two guards, two forwards, and one center. Any number of player substitutions are allowed during the game, though subs can only come onto the floor after a stoppage of play.
Male players wear shorts and a sleeveless top, and high-top sneakers that provide extra support to the ankles. Female players have worn shirts and skirts in the past, but most female players now wear uniforms identical to those worn by men. Some professional women's teams have switched to lycra bodysuits.
Being tall is a clear advantage in basketball. Very few professional players stand less than six feet (1.83 m). In men's professional leagues, guards tend to be the smallest players, though they can occasionally be taller, such as Magic Johnson (6'9"/2.06 m) and Toni Kukoc (6'11"/2.11 m). Forwards in the men's professional leagues are almost all 6'6" (1.98 m) or taller; the smallest centers are about 6'9" (2.06 m). Many centers, and a few forwards, are over 7 feet (2.13 m).
Similar games
Spin-offs from basketball seem to be korfball, netball and ringboll.Street basketball is another very popular game.
See also: List of defunct sports leagues
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Basketball."
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
This was the year of the Berlin Olympics and it was the first year that basketball became a recognized Olympic sport. In the finals, the United States' undefeated team beat Canada 19-8 under abysmal conditions. The contest was played outdoors, on a dirt court in a driving rain. Due to the quagmire the teams could not dribble and the score was held to a minimum. High scorer in the game was Joe Fortenbury for the U.S. with 7 points. Also, there were no seats for spectators and the nearly 1,000 in attendance had to stand in the rain through the entire game.Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Basketball at the 1936 Summer Olympics."
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
The United States, coached by Henry Iba of Oklahoma State University, went 9-0. Their gold medal game was against Yugoslavia, 65-50.
Gold medalists
Mike Barrett, John Clawson, Don Dee, Calvin Fowler, Spencer Haywood, Bill Hosket, Jim King, Glynn Saulters, Charlie Scott, Mike Silliman, Ken Spain, and Jo Jo White.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Basketball at the 1968 Summer Olympics."
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
These are the Olympic medalists in basketball. See Olympic medalists for medalists in other sports.
Men Year Gold Silver Bronze 1936 United States Canada Mexico 1948 United States France Brazil 1952 United States Soviet Union Uruguay 1956 United States Soviet Union Uruguay 1960 United States Soviet Union Brazil 1964 United States Soviet Union Brazil 1968 United States Yugoslavia Soviet Union 1972 Soviet Union United States Cuba 1976 United States Yugoslavia Soviet Union 1980 Yugoslavia Italy Soviet Union 1984 United States Spain Yugoslavia 1988 Soviet Union Yugoslavia United States 1992 United States Croatia Lithuania 1996 United States Yugoslavia Lithuania 2000 United States France Lithuania
Women Year Gold Silver Bronze 1976 Soviet Union United States Bulgaria 1980 Soviet Union Bulgaria Yugoslavia 1984 United States South Korea People's Republic of China 1988 United States Yugoslavia Soviet Union 1992 Unified Team People's Republic of China United States 1996 United States Brazil Australia 2000 United States Australia Brazil Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Olympic medalists in basketball."
Synonym: BasketballSynonym: basketball game (n). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Amusement | Athletic sports, gymnastics; archery, rifle shooting; tournament, pugilism; (contention); sports; horse racing, the turf; aquatics; skating, sliding; cricket, tennis, lawn tennis; hockey, football, baseball, soccer, ice hockey, basketball; rackets, fives, trap bat and ball, la grace; pall-mall, tipcat, croquet, golf, curling, pallone, polo, water polo; tent pegging; tilting at the ring, quintain; greasy pole; quoits, horseshoes, discus; rounders, lacrosse; tobogganing, water polo; knurr and spell. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | I guess there's a few things I could do instead of basketball I could be a farmer I could be a missionary and go back to the jungle again (Space Jam; writing credit: Leonardo Benvenuti; Steve Rudnick) Welcome to Indiana basketball. (Hoosiers; writing credit: Angelo Pizzo) Yeah, I've always been good at football, and basketball, and every other sport I've tried (The Faculty; writing credit: David Wechter; Bruce Kimmel) You can't destroy Basketball! Basketball's a peaceful planet (Hardware Wars; writing credit: Ernie Fosselius) After a long day of crime fighting, I like to play a little basketball. (The Toxic Avenger, Part II; writing credit: Fumio Furuya; Lloyd Kaufman) | |
Lyrics | While you watching all the brothers on the basketball court (Around the Way Girl; performing artist: L.L. Cool J) A girl that likes to play basketball (Girl Next Door; performing artist: Musiq Soulchild) The Knicks play basketball. Hear me talk about ("Rapper's Delight"; performing artist: Sugarhill Gang) | |
Movie/TV Titles | Basketball Headliners (1956) King Basketball (1952) Mister Basketball (1951) Basketball Headliners of 1951 (1951) The Basketball Fix (1951) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title | ||
Books |
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Periodicals |
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Theater & Movies | |||
Music |
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High Tech |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
 | "Basketball" (movie) by Michael Parker. |  | For the athletically inclined, a basketball court for a little one-on-one. Credit: Paths Less Taken - NOAA at the Ends of the Earth. |
 | The basketball and volleyball facilities at the Wildwood Recreation Site. Credit: T. Hogervorst. |  | Edison Club men's basketball team;11/02/13;{10.111/3}. |
 | Ship's basketball team, circa 1938. Credit: NAVY. |  | Bedknobs and Broomsticks]. [Ostrich dressed as a basketball player. Credit: Library of Congress. |
 | The Lowell High School Girls' Basketball Team--New England Champions. Credit: Library of Congress. |  | Five girls lying on mat in gymnasium in front of basketball scoreboard, Western High School, Washington, D.C. Credit: Library of Congress. |
 | Basketball game at the annual field day of the FSA (Farm Security Administration) farmworkers community, Yuma, Arizona. Credit: Library of Congress. |  | Timekeepers and scorekeepers at basketball game at Eufaula, Oklahoma. Credit: Library of Congress. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
 |  |
| "Bball" by Jeffrey Lingmont Commentary: "Basketball." | "020615_002" by | Mwolfe | Commentary: "A rimless basketball hoop in galesburg, mi." |
Source: photographs selected by the editor, with permission from the photographers. | |
| Play | Caption |
 | Basketball shot that bounces off the rim of the basket. |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Health | Former basketball star Kareem Abdul-Jabbar remembers experiencing his first migraine at age 14. The pain was unlike the discomfort of his previous mild headaches. (references) | |
Business | Shalimar Sports is the largest distributor of Spalding and Mikasa basketball equipment. (references) | |
The Filipino basketball enthusiast will forego everything to watch a basketball game on television. (references) | ||
Basketball enjoys the strongest popularity with the general populace, regardless of economic strata. (references) | ||
Worker Rights | Indonesia | They live in isolation on the sea on platforms the size of basketball courts, work 12 to 20 hours per day in dangerous conditions, and sleep in the workspace with no access to sanitary facilities or schooling. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| Speaker | Phrase(s) |
Dean Cain | This artist is known for creating the most amazing visual illusions. Because believe it or not, what looks like a basketball is actually a belly. Finally able to take a good look at her new bedazzling belly, this future mom is amazed of the results. |
Rudy Giuliani | I use analogies to sports quite a bit, because I've learned a lot from playing baseball and watching baseball and football and basketball and boxing. It's taught me a lot about leadership. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| "Basketball" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 99.38% of the time. "Basketball" is used about 161 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 99.38% | 160 | 24,760 |
| Noun (proper) | 0.62% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Total | 100.00% | 161 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "basketball": basketball backboard ♦ basketball clinic ♦ basketball coach ♦ basketball court ♦ basketball game ♦ basketball hoop ♦ basketball league ♦ basketball net ♦ basketball play ♦ basketball player ♦ basketball score ♦ basketball season ♦ basketball shoes ♦ basketball shot ♦ basketball team ♦ professional basketball. Additional references. | |
| Hyphenated Usage | |
Beginning with "basketball": basketball-playing. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day | Expression | Frequency per Day |
basketball | 14,979 | basketball tip | 471 |
basketball camp | 1,526 | basketball drill | 459 |
basketball shoes | 1,482 | basketball equipment | 420 |
basketball jersey | 941 | basketball odds | 389 |
basketball hoop | 878 | basketball court dimension | 387 |
college basketball | 743 | basketball uniform | 377 |
history of basketball | 709 | basketball hall of fame | 371 |
basketball training | 685 | nike basketball shoes | 360 |
basketball picture | 668 | high school basketball | 351 |
national basketball association | 654 | ncaa basketball | 328 |
basketball slime | 633 | fantasy basketball | 310 |
basketball rule | 618 | nike basketball | 308 |
basketball and video | 610 | basketball clipart | 305 |
basketball game | 607 | duke basketball | 302 |
basketball nba | 598 | basketball betting line | 302 |
basketball card | 563 | basketball and gear | 260 |
basketball goal | 546 | basketball move | 249 |
aau basketball | 542 | basketball pick | 243 |
basketball court | 536 | coaching basketball | 241 |
basketball play | 536 | basketball player | 233 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Language | Translations for "basketball"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Afrikaans | basketbal. (various references) | |
Albanian | basketboll, top basketbolli. (various references) | |
Arabic | كرة السلة. (various references) | |
Asturian | baloncesto. (various references) | |
Bulgarian | баскетбол. (various references) | |
Cebuano | basketbol. (various references) | |
Chinese | 籃球 , 篮球. (various references) | |
Czech | basketball, košíková (basket ball). (various references) | |
Dutch | basket-ball, basketball, basketbal, korfbal. (various references) | |
Esperanto | basketbalo, korbopilko. (various references) | |
Faeroese | kurvabóltur. (various references) | |
Farsi | بازی بسکتبال . (various references) | |
French | basket-ball, basketball, ballon basket. (various references) | |
Frisian | basketbal. (various references) | |
German | Korbball (net ball, netball). (various references) | |
Greek | καλαθοσφαίρα, μπάσκετ (basket ball). (various references) | |
Hebrew | כדורסל. (various references) | |
Hungarian | kosárlabda. (various references) | |
Indonesian | bola basket. (various references) | |
Inuktitut | aqsaqtut matitautimut. (various references) | |
Italian | pallacanestro. (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 籠球 , バスに乗る (bask, basket, Basque, bass-treble, bastard fake bunt, bath buzzer, bath towel, bathrobe, bathroom, bathtub, birth control, bus lane, bus stop, bust, bust pad, bustline, bypass capacitor, the way a bra fits, to take the bus). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | バスケットボール , ろうきゅう (decrepitude, superannuated). (various references) | |
Korean | 농구. (various references) | |
Macedonian | kosharka. (various references) | |
Manx | bluckan bascaidagh. (various references) | |
Papiamen | basketbòl. (various references) | |
Pig Latin | asketballbay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | bola ao cesto, basquetebol, basquete. (various references) | |
Provencal | basquet. (various references) | |
Russian | баскетбол (basket-ball). (various references) | |
Sepedi | kgwele ya diatla. (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | košarka. (various references) | |
Spanish | baloncesto (netball). (various references) | |
Swedish | basketboll, korgboll (netball). (various references) | |
Turkish | basketbol. (various references) | |
Ukrainian | баскетбол. (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "basketball": basketballs. (additional references) | |
| |
"Basketball" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: backetball, baskerball, basketballers, basketbally, basketbqall, basktball. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "basketball" (pronounced ba"skutbô'l) |
| 6 | -k u t b ô' l | racquetball. |
| 4 | -t b ô' l | fastball, football, spitball, meatball, softball. |
| 3 | -b ô' l | blackball, butterball, cannonball, eyeball, fireball, handball, hardball, softball, stickball, mothball, oddball, pinball, screwball, snowball, trackball, volleyball. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-a-b-b-e-k-l-l-s-t" | |
-2 letters: baseball, slakable, talkable. | |
-3 letters: ablates, ballast, ballets, salable, takable. | |
-4 letters: abates, ablate, ablest, akelas, alates, babels, babkas, ballet, basalt, basket, bleaks, bleats, kababs, kebabs, labels, latkes, sabbat, sallet, stable, stella, tablas, tables. | |
-5 letters: abase, abate, abbas, abbes, abets, ables, akela, alate, albas, atlas, baals, babas, babel, babes, babka, bakes, balas, bales, balks, balls, balsa. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-a-b-b-e-k-l-l-s-t" | |
+1 letter: basketballs. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Images: Slideshow 7. Images: Photo Album 8. Images: Digital Art | 9. Sounds 10. Quotations: Non-fiction 11. Quotations: Spoken 12. Usage Frequency | 13. Expressions 14. Expressions: Internet 15. Translations: Modern 16. Derivations | 17. Rhymes 18. Anagrams 19. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
