Basketball fundamentals and what makes them work

Basketball was born in the United States in 1891. The sport was invented by James Naismith, a Canadian PE teacher at an American college, so that football and baseball players could keep training through the winter, when the cold forced them indoors.

The idea came to him while tossing a paper ball into a wastebasket: he nailed two closed-bottom baskets (basket, which gave the sport its name) to the opposite balconies of the gym and set a few simple rules, playing with a leather ball. The first game ended with a single basket scored, and a ladder was needed to get the ball back.

At the start, the number of players and the size of the court were decided game by game. Then, in 1897, the rules settled it: five players on the court.

In Italy basketball spread over the first twenty years of the 1900s, and the first championship was played in 1920. At the 1936 Berlin Olympics, basketball became an Olympic discipline.

| SOME BASKETBALL RULES

The game is played by two teams of five players each. Every team also has a set of substitutes, from 5 to 7 depending on the league, who can replace the starters without limits and be substituted in turn.

The goal of each team is to score points by putting the ball through the opponent's rim (offense) and to stop the other team from doing the same (defense).

Every game lasts 40 minutes, split into 4 periods of 10 minutes each. The winning team is the one with the most points at the end of the 4th period.

| THE FUNDAMENTALS

Some moves in basketball are called fundamentals, and they're what the whole game is built on. In the strict definition there are 4 of them: dribbling, passing, shooting and defensive movement.

DRIBBLING

In basketball, the player bringing the ball up has to dribble, always, from the moment he takes his first step. You dribble with one hand only, pushing the ball toward the floor so it bounces back into your hand, continuously and without stopping.

If the player stops the dribble, he can only move one foot, never lifting the other one (the pivot foot) off the floor. Once the dribble is dead he can't start again (double dribble violation) and has only two options: pass to a teammate or shoot. The dribble has to be hard and low, so the ball comes straight back to your hand and it's harder for an opponent to steal it, especially when you change direction to beat him.

PASSING

Passing the ball to a teammate matters enormously. The defense will try to intercept it by fronting the players without the ball, to make the catch difficult. Depending on the situation you can pass it flat to the chest, bounce it off the floor, lob it, or go for something flashier, like behind the back. The give-and-go is one of the classic two-man plays built on the pass: you pass the ball and cut to the basket to get it back.

SHOOTING

The shot is the most important offensive fundamental. Usually you shoot off the jump: you leave the floor and release the ball while you're in the air, so the defender can't interfere. A jump shot takes good technique and coordination. The alternative is the set shot, taken with your feet on the ground or on the way up in the jump.

Practical note: the higher you get off the floor, the more time you have to release the ball and the less a defender can bother you. That's why the jump shot is an athletic question too, not just a technical one — here you can measure how high you get right now.

DEFENSE

Defense in basketball is a key technical tool for winning games, and it shows how mature a player is. Technically it splits into three areas: defending the ball handler, defending the player without the ball, and rebound defense. On top of that, a team can play man-to-man or zone, with or without pressing or trapping the ball handler.

More on this: tips and techniques to improve your defense in basketball.

| THE MOST SIGNIFICANT MOVES IN BASKETBALL

Other moves that aren't fundamentals in the strict sense are still some of the most significant parts of the game: the rebound, the screen, the block and others. Almost all of them have one thing in common: they're won in the air.

THE DUNK

It's easily the most spectacular finish in basketball. No surprise that the players who stood out for their dunks are the ones everyone still remembers (Michael "Air" Jordan above all). After a dunk the player can't hang on the rim, unless it's to avoid landing on another player, otherwise he gets called for a technical foul. For the sake of the show, referees often let it go and only whistle when a player overdoes the hanging.

If your goal is to get to the rim, read how to jump higher and dunk a basketball.

THE REBOUND

It means grabbing the ball as it comes off the rim after a missed shot. Positioning for the rebound is a must for a good player, and the box out is essential: you get in front of your opponent and keep him behind you, stopping him from jumping for the rebound and beating him to it.

THE SCREEN

It's a play where a teammate sets himself behind an opposing defender to open up the attack for the ball handler.

THE BLOCK

The block is the extreme defensive act, the last protection of the rim. You can only block a shot while the ball is still rising or at the top of its arc, and you can't touch the ball once it has hit the backboard.

THE LAY-UP

The running shot, commonly called the lay-up, is a technique for finishing as you move toward the opponent's basket. It's made of two steps (the first two beats) and a jump (the third beat), and during the jump you lay the ball off the backboard or straight into the hoop. It's the only case where you're allowed to take more than one step without dribbling.

THE ALLEY OOP

It's an extremely spectacular play, and it takes good coordination, athleticism and chemistry between two teammates. One player throws a high pass toward the rim while a teammate jumps, catches the ball in mid-air and dunks it or lays it in.

THE TAP-IN

If a player jumps for the rebound and, while he's still in the air, tips the ball into the basket, that's a tap-in.

THE TAP-OUT

It's a move similar to the tap-in, where the ball, after bouncing off the rim, gets pushed away from the hoop by a player who jumped for the rebound.

THE PICK AND ROLL

It's a classic two-man game and it starts from a screen set for the ball handler. The player who sets the screen turns toward the middle and calls for the ball. The defense usually doesn't cover that pass because it's busy with the ball handler. The variation where the screener steps out away from the basket to shoot from outside is called the pick and pop. The move was taken to the highest level by the famous Utah Jazz pair of John Stockton and Karl Malone.

THE KICK-OUT

When a player drives, the defenders collapse to help in the middle of the paint: that leaves some teammates open, ready to receive the kick-out, a sudden pass that puts whoever catches it in position to finish without pressure.

THE CUT

It's the move a player without the ball makes toward the basket, to receive an assist and score easily. You try to get in front of your defender, beating him to the spot and getting free.

| ATHLETIC PREPARATION FOR BASKETBALL

Read the list above again: jump shot, dunk, rebound, block, alley oop, tap-in, lay-up. Seven items out of eleven are played with your feet off the floor. You learn the fundamentals by repetition, but how high you get while you execute them is a matter of explosive strength, and that gets trained separately.

How high do you jump right now?

Before you start any program, get your starting number. With the JHP jump test you upload a two-second video of yourself jumping and get the height in centimeters, calculated from flight time. It's free, you don't need any app, and the video never leaves your phone.

➡️ Measure your vertical jump, free

Then train what the test just showed you

The JHP subscription gets you 13 programs with day-by-day plans and a video for every exercise, at €99 a year. For basketball players the most useful ones are:

• Jump Higher Program — 10 weeks of bodyweight jump work, if you don't have a gym (€60)
• JHP Gym Edition — 16 weeks in the weight room on maximal strength and power (€60)
• Jumping Monster — 14 days of intensive plyometrics (€40)
• Knee Power — stronger knees and jumper's knee prevention (€40)
• Basket Advanced — the package built for basketball players (€80)

If you already know what you need you can buy the courses one at a time. From two up, the subscription is the better deal.

You might also like: training explosive strength to level up in basketball and how high NBA players jump.