And finally I want to look at the third of the ‘big three’ sports in America and that’s basketball.   Another American invention, basketball is unique in that it is played by many other countries and has been for quite some time.  More relevantly to the overall point of this article series, it has been part of the Olympic program since nearly the beginning.

This allows me to look at the US both in terms of basketball locally in terms of its impact on American sports as a whole as well as the whole sporting dominance thing.  And trust me, you’re going to see  a new definition of dominance in today’s piece.   It’s also, mercifully, shorter than the previous two parts on football and basketball.  Giving nitpickers time to read this.

And with that out of the way, let’s play some Basketball.

How the Game is Played

Basketball is played on a court, generally wooden at most competition levels although many courts are invariably concrete.  The goals are at each end and are actually vertically hanging hoops that are about 10 feet off the ground with a backboard behind them and a net underneath; they are called baskets and peach baskets were actually used when the game was first being developed.  The design of the court is shown below and it’s worth mentioning that it is only 91 feet (27 meters) end to end.  Meaning that it doesn’t take up the space that football or baseball or many others sports do.

Like all ball games the goal is to score points and this is done by putting the basketball which is 29 inches in diameter into the hoop or basket which is 38 inches in diameter in various ways described below.  While the shot might seem impossible, note that the ball merely has to go through the hoop/net but how it does it is not relevant.  You can bounce the ball off the backboard, or catch the edge of the rim such that the ball rolls in or, if you can do it, shoot it so it doesn’t hit the rim at all which is called getting ‘nothing but net’.  It’s still highly skilled but it’s not as if you have to hit an exact space with the ball (as in baseball and the strike zone).  In any case, the layout of the basketball court is shown in the diagram below.

Continue reading Why the US Sucks at Olympic Lifting: Part 17