A Short Summary: The Sport Of Basketball

If you ever wanted to watch or participate in basketball, you might already know that your chances of making a shot off the backboard are higher in certain areas on the court, even when staying the same distance from the hoop. Ever wondered why this happens?

The sport of basketball was invented by a Canadian by the name of Dr. James Naismith in 1891. Dr. Naismith was a versatile athlete, theologian and physical instructor who envisioned “ the time when Christian people would recongnize the true value of athletics”. In Massachusetts, they had very harsh cold winters, so Naismith wanted a sport to play in all seasons not just summer or spring-like soccer. The game started with two peach baskets one on each side of the court and a soccer ball.

One of which is the angle of incidence, this is the angle between the path of the ball as it approaches a surface and the line perpendicular to the surface. Another angle is the angle of reflection. This represents the angle between the path of the ball as it bounces back from a surface and the line perpendicular to the surface. Assuming the ball has no spin on it, a projectile motion will show the true direction of the ball.

Finally, the last major role in this is triangles. We use triangles in everyday life, even if we do not realize. The Pythagorean theorem is probably one of the first things that come to mind when thinking of triangles. It is valid in right triangles and states that the square of the hypotenuse length equals the sum of the squares of the length of the other two sides. Also, remember the special properties of the 30-60-90 and the 45-45-90 triangles? A 30-60-90 triangle is a triangle with 30°, 60°, and 90° angles. One side of this triangle has a length exactly half of the length of the hypotenuse.

In conclusion, I have found that when using all key factors, the end result is that a bank shot can be made from almost any angle of the court. However, each angle shot is different based on speed, velocity and