Roadmap: Stage 1


Hi! First, let's go over the basics of basketball. Basketball is played with... you guessed it, a basketball! The point of the game is to put the ball ball into your opponent's net hoop while not allowing your opponent to put the ball into your net. The winner is the team with the most points. Each team has 5 players. As far as other rules are concerned, they are mostly the same all over the world. However, the "official" rules this site will lay out are those followed in the National Basketball Association (NBA) and Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA). There are three possible types of shots: a three-pointer, a regular 2-point shot, and a foul shot. A three-pointer is any shot made from behind the three-point line (marked in green on the diagram below).
Court
The three-point line is 23'9" away from the center of the hoop, as shown on the diagram by the teal dashed line. Any shot made from inside the line is a two-point shot. A special case is when a player is fouled. A foul is when a player is pushed, punched, elbowed, etc. (there are more precise definitions, which vary from league to league.) When a player is fouled in the act of shooting, he goes to the free-throw line, marked in purple on the diagram. He can then try to hit two uncontested shots from the line (or one, if the shot on which the player was fouled went in), which count for one point each.

Now that you know the general rules of the game, let's go over the most basic thing in basketball: passing!
The most common pass is the bounce pass, seen in this video(240K Quicktime). In a bounce pass, one player bounces the ball off the floor so that it bounces to another player. In this picture, Milton passes to Bradley. The ball leaves Milton's hands, bounces off the floor and lands in Bradley's hands. See how simple that was? Wouldn't it be interesting to find out why and how exactly this happens? Before we can explain it to you, you have to understand some basic facts about reflections. So come on, take the next step, take a look at the Reflections exploration!
NOTE: If I had my way, you'd be already engaged in an interesting exploration. However, due to browser bugs, there are a couple of things you should be aware of:

Exploration Guidelines

Although our explorations are made to be as easy to understand and use as possible, some problems still arise. There are several errors more common than any other:

* Zeros preceding decimals: enter ".32", not "0.32"
* Fractions: enter ".5", not "1/2"
* The pi symbol, ¶, is incorrectly displayed in some browsers. So, if you see this symbol: "¶", know that it is pi (about 3.14)

* The degree symbol, º, is incorrectly displayed in some browsers. So, if you see this symbol: "º", know that it is the "degree" symbol

* The "plus-or-minus" symbol, ±, is incorrectly displayed in some browsers. So, if you see this symbol: "±", know that it is the "plus-or-minus" symbol

Also, since the answer boxes are implemented using JavaScript, Netscape Navigator/Communicator should work fine, as well as Microsoft Internet Explorer. Other browsers, however, may or may not have problems, depending on their support of JavaScript. If you are using a browser that does not support JavaScript, write down your answers on paper and check them with the answer key.

Start roadmap Roadmap: Stage 1

Roadmap: Stage 1


Hi! First, let's go over the basics of basketball. Basketball is played with... you guessed it, a basketball! The point of the game is to put the ball ball into your opponent's net hoop while not allowing your opponent to put the ball into your net. The winner is the team with the most points. Each team has 5 players. As far as other rules are concerned, they are mostly the same all over the world. However, the "official" rules this site will lay out are those followed in the National Basketball Association (NBA) and Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA). There are three possible types of shots: a three-pointer, a regular 2-point shot, and a foul shot. A three-pointer is any shot made from behind the three-point line (marked in green on the diagram below).
Court
The three-point line is 23'9" away from the center of the hoop, as shown on the diagram by the teal dashed line. Any shot made from inside the line is a two-point shot. A special case is when a player is fouled. A foul is when a player is pushed, punched, elbowed, etc. (there are more precise definitions, which vary from league to league.) When a player is fouled in the act of shooting, he goes to the free-throw line, marked in purple on the diagram. He can then try to hit two uncontested shots from the line (or one, if the shot on which the player was fouled went in), which count for one point each.

Now that you know the general rules of the game, let's go over the most basic thing in basketball: passing!
The most common pass is the bounce pass, seen in this video(240K Quicktime). In a bounce pass, one player bounces the ball off the floor so that it bounces to another player. In this picture, Milton passes to Bradley. The ball leaves Milton's hands, bounces off the floor and lands in Bradley's hands. See how simple that was? Wouldn't it be interesting to find out why and how exactly this happens? Before we can explain it to you, you have to understand some basic facts about reflections. So come on, take the next step, take a look at the Reflections exploration!
NOTE: If I had my way, you'd be already engaged in an interesting exploration. However, due to browser bugs, there are a couple of things you should be aware of:

Exploration Guidelines

Although our explorations are made to be as easy to understand and use as possible, some problems still arise. There are several errors more common than any other:

* Zeros preceding decimals: enter ".32", not "0.32"
* Fractions: enter ".5", not "1/2"
* The pi symbol, ¶, is incorrectly displayed in some browsers. So, if you see this symbol: "¶", know that it is pi (about 3.14)

* The degree symbol, º, is incorrectly displayed in some browsers. So, if you see this symbol: "º", know that it is the "degree" symbol

* The "plus-or-minus" symbol, ±, is incorrectly displayed in some browsers. So, if you see this symbol: "±", know that it is the "plus-or-minus" symbol

Also, since the answer boxes are implemented using JavaScript, Netscape Navigator/Communicator should work fine, as well as Microsoft Internet Explorer. Other browsers, however, may or may not have problems, depending on their support of JavaScript. If you are using a browser that does not support JavaScript, write down your answers on paper and check them with the answer key.

Start roadmap