 Basketball, the organized version of crumpling up a piece of paper and whipping it into a garbage can. In fact, it's gotten so organized and there are so many roles now that we're going to split it up into five parts. Even that won't cover everything, but it'll be a decent start. This is a basketball court. This is a half court line. This is a hoop. This is also a hoop. This is a backboard. This is a rim. This is America. This area is the key. This is a foul line. This is a three-point line. This is a sideline, and these are baselines. In basketball, if you step on the side of the baseline while holding the ball, you are considered out of bounds. In a basketball game, there are two teams. Each team has five players, and generally a team will be comprised of a point guard, shooting guard, small forward, power forward, and center. Do these positions really matter if you're just learning the game? Not really. Are you tired and need a break? One of your teammates can come into the game to replace you. Ready to play again? You can come back in. There are no sub limits, but subs only take place when play is stopped. If you shoot the ball from here, here, here, here, or here, it's worth two points. Shoot it with both feet behind the three-point line, and it's worth fourteen points. Just kidding. It's worth three points. If you get fouled, you get a free throw from behind the free throw line. The other players stand here and fight over the ball if you miss. Make a free throw basket, and your team gets one point. How do you get fouled? We'll come back to that later. In the beginning, there was the big bang. In the beginning of basketball, you could just get the ball and run around with it, but that was too rugby. So they said you have to bounce the ball if you want to move around. This is called dribbling. You want to run with the ball without dribbling? You can't. That's called traveling, and the other team gets the ball. You want to dribble, stop dribble, and then start dribbling again? You can't. That's called a double dribble, and the other team gets the ball. You want to dribble with two hands? Well, you can kind of do that. You bounce it once with both hands? That's fine. Bounce it twice with both hands? You can't. That's also called double dribble for some reason, and the other team gets the ball. Okay, so you've stopped dribbling. Either your right or your left foot must stay on the ground, but you can move the other one. The one that stays in the same spot is called your pivot foot. The only way your pivot foot can leave the ground is if you jump to shoot the ball or pass it to a teammate. Because if at any point you jump up with the ball and don't let it go before you land again, that's called up and down, and the other team gets the ball. Tired of the ball? Passed to a teammate. How can you? Lots of ways. Bounce pass, chest pass, overhead pass. Can you pretend to go bowling? Of course you can. Can the other team take the ball while you're trying to pass it? Yes. Be careful. Ready to shoot? This is a jump shot. This is a layup. Want to just skip the whole shot and put the ball directly into the hoop? That's called a slam dunk. Are you defending a shot? The ball has to go up in order for that to be legal. Blocked while going up, that's a block. Blocked while going down, that's called goal tending, and the shot counts. Someone misses a shot? Grab the ball. That's called a rebound. The exact rule is about what is a foul and what isn't changed from league to league, but typically you can't shove someone or hit them or trip them. If one of these violations occurs, the referees will call a foul. If the player was shooting when the foul occurred, they'll get to shoot free throws. If their player wasn't shooting when they got fouled, their team will get to pass the ball and bounce and continue playing. If one team fouls the other team a certain number of times, in college it's seven times and a half. The team getting fouled will get to shoot free throws even if they weren't shooting when they are fouled. This is called being in the bonus. At first they get to shoot one free throw, and if they make it, they get to try a second shot. This is called one and one. If the team gets fouled ten times and a half, then they're in the double bonus and they get to shoot two free throws. Time. As early as the 5th century BC, the Greek philosopher Antiphon was railing against it, saying it was an illusion, and we put it off as long as we can. But in basketball, we pretend the time matters. In college, games will consist of two 20-minute halves. In the Olympics, it's four 10-minute quarters, and when we get to the grown-ups in the NBA, it's four 12-minute quarters. Did you get the ball and just think you're going to stand there for the rest of the game and let time run out? Shot clock. In college games, it's 30 seconds. In most other leagues, it's 24 seconds. New team gets the ball. Shot clock reset. Ball is shot and hits the rim, but doesn't go in the hoop. Shot clock reset. Shot clock getting low in your foul while not shooting. Shot clock reset to 14 seconds. Your team has the ball, and you think you're just going to take your time running up the court? Nope. You must be across the half-court line in under eight seconds, or 10 for college. And once you get the ball across the half-court line, you can't go back. Remember the key? If you're on defense, you can only stand in the key for three seconds at a time, unless you are actively guarding a player. This rule is designed specifically to prevent the defense from erecting a wacky, waving, inflatable, unflailing tube man in front of the hoop. Okay, our last piece of time before we return to reality. If you're going to shoot the ball as the clock approaches zero, either at the end of a quarter or for the shot clock, the ball has to be out of your hand when the clock hits zero. In hand, shot doesn't count. Out of hand, shot will count. So what have we learned? Basketball is played between two teams of five players who try to shoot the ball through a hoop, thus giving their team two or three points depending on where they were standing when they let the ball go. The player with the ball must constantly bounce or dribble the ball while moving, but once they stop dribbling, they have to shoot or pass the ball. A team that gets the ball has a limited amount of time to shoot the ball, as stated by the shot clock. Players who have illegal things done to them can get a free shot with one point. The team with the most points at the end of the game wins. That's basketball.