Portal:Basketball/Selected article archive
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[edit] July 23, 2006 to March 3, 2007
A three-point field goal (colloquially, three-pointer or three) is a field goal—almost always scored off a jump shot—taken from behind a semi-ellipsoid arc radiating from the basket, often equidistant therefrom at a given distance, the making of which earns a team three points, one more than does a traditional field goal and two more than does a free throw.
The three-point rule was first employed in the United States in 1945 for a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) game between Columbia and Fordham Universities, but, as regards permanent usage, was first adopted by several professional leagues. The American Basketball League, having, by Abe Saperstein upon his being denied ownership of the Minneapolis Lakers franchise, been founded in 1961 as an alternative to the National Basketball Association (NBA), and desiring publicity, adopted, at the urging of Saperstein and after consultation with Paul Cohen, who brought his Washington Tapers (National Alliance of Basketball Leagues) and George Steinbrenner, who brought his Cleveland Pipers (Amateur Athletic Union), a three-point rule, but the league collapsed in 1963, midway through its second season.
A more prominent league, the Eastern Professional Basketball League, introduced the three-point shot in 1963—the league, subsequently operated as the Eastern Basketball Association and the Continental Basketball Association, is the longest consecutive user of the three-point rule—and the rule became widely known in 1968, when the American Basketball Association (ABA), in an effort to differentiate itself from the NBA, introduced, concomitant to rules extending the shot clock to 30 seconds, permitting the slam dunk, and requiring a tricolor ball, a three-point field goal rule, which was formally adopted by the NBA before its 1978-79 season, subsequent to its merger with the ABA; the international sports authority, Fédération Internationale de Basketball, three-point line pictured, followed suit six years thence and the NCAA, having employed the rule in several conferences since 1980, one year later.
Various considerations—including of league rules with respect to man-to-man and zone defenses and of league desires for offensive performance, especially in the context of comebacks and buzzer beaters—have led governing bodies to adopt different distances away from the basket at which to place the three-point arc, almost always between 19.75 feet (6.02 metres) and 23.75 feet (7.24 meters), and different regulations as to whether the distance from the basket is uniform or diminishes proximate to the baselines, but leagues categorically require that a shooter's feet remain behind the three-point line until the time he jumps and begins his shot and do not touch inside the line prior to his releasing the ball, lest the shot, if good, should be worth just two points.
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[edit] July 4 to July 23, 2006
A pick-and-roll is an offensive basketball maneuever in which one player–most often a forward–applies a screen (or pick) upon the defender assigned to a teammate–most often a point or shooting guard–blocking the path of the defender in order that the teammate should free himself and then pass the ball to the screening player, who rolls behind the defender; although typically employed against a man-to-man defense, the technique can be used against a zone defense as well.
The play begins with a ballhandler's, usually positioned on the court external to the three-point (semi-ellipsoid) arc and most frequently proximate to the free throw line and separated from the basket by a defender, moving in the direction of a teammate, who obstructs the defender with his static body (or, impermissibly, with his arms or legs or whilst moving), providing the teammate with open space.
Should the obstructed defender elect to pursue the ballhandler, the player applying the pick pivots (rolls) parallel to the ballhandler and in the direction of the basket, behind the defender, forcing the defender to choose whom to guard and creating extra offensive space even if the defender of the player applying the screen returns to guard the former; should the defender elect to guard the player applying the pick, the ballhandler either shoots, from distance or in a layup, before another defender can rotate to him or passes to an unguarded player.
Image:JohnStocktonBronze.jpg Image:KarlMaloneBronze.JPG
A larger player typically applies the pick so that a mismatch–either of a smaller, ostensibly faster player against a the picker's larger defender or a tall player against the ballhandler's undersized defender–is created. Contemporary professional practitioners of the maneuver have used that formulation, most prominently the Utah Jazz of the mid-1990s, who advanced to the 1997 and 1998 NBA Finals behind power forward Karl Malone and point guard John Stockton, whom statutes outside Salt Lake City's Delta Center, pictured, left and right, respectively, honor, and the 2004-05 Phoenix Suns, who finished with the league's best record behind point guard Steve Nash and power forward/center Amaré Stoudemire.
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[edit] May 28 to July 4, 2006
The Euroleague is a high-caliber professional basketball league comprising teams from teams from 12 European nations and Israel.
Established in 1958 by the International Basketball Federation (FIBA), the league operated under the auspices of FIBA until July 2000 when the Union of European Leagues of Basketball (ULEB), funded by the richest club teams in Europe, convinced most top teams to leave the FIBA Euroleague and to join that sponsored by ULEB (Euroleague was not trademarked and the name was appropriated by the ULEB league). For the 2000-2001 season, two elite European basketball leagues, ULEB's Euroleague and FIBA's renamed Suproleague, held competitions, and Europe's top teams were evenly divided between the two; Maccabi Tel Aviv, Élan Béarnais Pau-Orthez, and Partizan played in the Suproleague while FC Barcelona, AEK Athens, and Saski Baskonia (TAU Cerámica) played in the Euroleague.
After the season, a merger between the ULEB and FIBA leagues was effected, such that ULEB runs club-level competitions, including the Euroleague Final Four and the Korać Cup, while FIBA runs country-level competitions, including Eurobasket.
The Euroleague is contested in four phases: a 14-game regular season in which teams, divided into three groups of eight, intra-group play double round-robin schedules, after which a total of eight teams are eliminated; an additional double round-robin round, a top 16, in which the final 16 teams are divided into four groups of four; a quarterfinal round, in which a first-place top 16 team is matched against a second-place team from another group in a best-of-three-games series, with the first-place team's holding home court advantage; and a Final Four, in which two games, each between two quarterfinal winners are held, with the winners of those games playing in a championship game and the losers playing for third place.
[edit] February 22 to May 28, 2006
Michael Jordan
Michael Jeffrey Jordan (born February 17, 1963) is an American former NBA player, and is considered by many to be the greatest basketball player of all time.
A remarkable force at both ends of the floor, "M.J." ended a career of 15 full seasons with a regular-season scoring average of 30.12 points per game, the highest in NBA history. He won six NBA championships with the Chicago Bulls, notched up 10 scoring titles, and was league MVP five times. He was named to the All-Defensive First Team nine times, and led the league in steals three times. Since 1983, he has appeared on the front cover of Sports Illustrated a record 49 times, and was named the magazine's "Sportsman of the Year" in 1991. In 1999, he was named "the greatest North American athlete of the 20th century" by ESPN, and placed second on the Associated Press list of top athletes of the century. His leaping ability, vividly illustrated by dunking from the foul line and other feats, earned him the nicknames "Air Jordan" and "His Airness." (more...)
