source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/26/sports/olympics/26hoops.html
World Will Be More Like N.B.A.
By HOWARD BECK
Published: August 25, 2008
To reassert its global pre-eminence, the United States men’s basketball team overhauled its program, stuffed its roster with N.B.A. stars and did everything but rewrite the rules and restripe the courts. That last part is coming, though.
Winning Olympic gold in Beijing depended partly on Team USA’s ability to cope with the unfamiliar geometry of the international game: a trapezoidal lane, a shallow 3-point arc and a contorted array of driving lanes.
But in two years, the trapezoid will be dead, the arc will be a little deeper and the international game will be a bit closer in style to the N.B.A.’s. The lane will become a rectangle, emulating the United States model. The arc will move to 6.75 meters (22.1 feet) — closer to the N.B.A. standard of 22 feet 9 inches — from 6.25 meters (20.5 feet).
The changes were among several adopted, to little fanfare, by the International Basketball Federation, known as FIBA, in April. The new rules take effect after the world championships in 2010, so they will be in place for the 2012 Olympics in London.
The intent is to sharpen the international game and to make it more uniform from one hemisphere to another, at all levels of play. But the changes will undoubtedly provide a subtle lift to a United States team that probably needs no help.
“I think it’s going back to our roots and will be more of an advantage to us,” said Tony Ronzone, USA Basketball’s director of international player personnel. He added, “It will help us and our game in international competition.”
Geometry has never been a major concern for Americans. The trapezoid lane has been part of the international game since the 1950s and did not stop United States men’s teams from winning gold medals in nearly every Olympics since then. Nor was it the primary reason the team stumbled to a bronze in 2004.
But the adoption of a rectangular lane and a deeper 3-point arc will give the international game a decidedly American look and could change the way the world plays the game.
The N.B.A., with a 16-foot-wide lane, has long been dominated by burly 7-footers who play with their back to the basket and score from the low blocks. FIBA’s trapezoidal lane, which spans 19 feet 8 inches along the baseline, keeps those players far from the basket, diminishing their size advantage. The short 3-point arc also makes it easy for guards to double-team the post and still recover to the perimeter.
“Post-ups are a little bit harder,” Chris Bosh, a center on the United States team, said in Beijing. “In the N.B.A., you can be a little more patient. Here, if you get it in the post, you have to be aware of guards collapsing and trying to swipe down on you to steal the ball.”
The different rules have bred a severe contrast in styles. The best United States-born centers are generally in the Wilt Chamberlain mold: big, powerful and effective around the basket. The European big man is typified by Dirk Nowitzki of Germany, a sleek 7-footer who is more comfortable on the perimeter.
The rectangular lane can be expected to encourage players to develop a post-up game.
“This obviously is going to change kind of the style of game, and probably give more room to the post-up players,” said Zoran Radovic, the development director for FIBA who formerly starred for Yugoslavia. “Every winning team in the N.B.A. has a dominant center. In Europe, a dominant center is not that much of an effect under current rules.”
Basketball officials in the United States welcomed the changes, although they did not specifically push for them.
“It’s also probably an endorsement of our game and our rules,” said Jerry Colangelo, the managing director of the senior national team for USA Basketball.
Although it appears that the international game is moving toward the American model, “that is not the way the FIBA board who made the decision actually felt about it,” said Patrick Baumann, the secretary general for FIBA. The goals of the association’s board, he said, were much broader than merely standardizing the game.
In FIBA’s view, the 3-point shot has become too common. In 1984, when the arc was added in international play, only 14 percent of all field-goal attempts were 3-pointers, Baumann said. Now, he added, that number is 40 percent and players routinely make 38 to 40 percent of them.
“The board felt that’s no longer now an exceptional shot,” Baumann said. “It felt something needed to be done.”
The board stopped short of adopting the N.B.A.’s deeper 3-point line because FIBA also governs women’s and youth basketball leagues.
FIBA is looking for the combination of a deeper arc and a narrower lane to help open up the floor and allow more movement.
“The game was becoming a little bit too crowded under the basket,” Baumann said.
Of the 213 nations under FIBA’s jurisdiction, only the United States uses the rectangular lane. Baumann said uniformity in the game was merely “the cherry on the cake.”
Not everyone believes the changes will benefit the United States and other teams (notably China) with dominant post-up players.
“I don’t really see a difference,” Sasha Pavlovic of Serbia, who is a guard for the Cleveland Cavaliers, said of the rectangular lane.
Zydrunas Ilgauskas of Lithuania, a center for the Cavaliers, predicted that players around the world “will adjust pretty quickly” to the new lane.
Other rules differences mean that the style of the N.B.A. and the international game will remain distinct for a long time, Baumann said. Whatever advantages the United States may gain with these changes, he said, will be short-lived.
“You may feel it’s an advantage tomorrow,” he said, “but the day after tomorrow, all the teams will be on the same level, and the better will win.”
source: FIBA.com
PR N°25 - The FIBA Central Board approves historic rule changes
GENEVA (FIBA) – The FIBA Central Board, the highest executive body of the International Basketball Federation, met yesterday, Friday 25th April, and has continued its session today, Saturday 26th April, in Beijing, China. The meeting has been organized in cooperation with the Chinese Basketball Association.
An additional press release containing several important decisions of the FIBA Central Board will be issued in the next hours. However, this morning the Central Board has taken some major and historic decisions as with regards to the game rules.
Indeed, upon recommendation of the FIBA Technical Commission (a group of experts that deal with the game rules), the FIBA Central Board has approved today several amendments to the Official Basketball Rules.
The recommendations by the FIBA Technical Commission and the decisions taken by the Central Board were strived by the attempt to further unify all existing game rules and to have, in the future, only one set of rules for the game of basketball worldwide.
Please find below a summary of all approved rule changes, which include historic amendments like the extension of the 3-point line (in place since 1984) and the change of the trapezoid restricted area (in place since the 1950s) to a rectangular one:
OFFICIAL BASKETBALL RULES 2008:
All below-mentioned rules will come into effect as of 1st October 2008, i.e. after the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.
Art. 4.3 Uniforms
The provision that T-shirts may be worn by players under their game uniforms is not valid anymore.
Art. 25.2.3 Player falling on the floor
It is legal when a player falls and slides on the floor while holding the ball.
Art. 28.1.3 Ball goes into team’s frontcourt
The ball goes to the teams’ frontcourt when, during the dribble from backcourt to frontcourt, both feet of the dribbler and the ball are in contact with the frontcourt.
Art. 30.1.2 Ball returned to the backcourt
It will not be a violation anymore if a player, who jumps from his frontcourt, establishes a new team control while still airborne and then lands in his team’s backcourt.
Art. 31 Goaltending and interference
If a player reaches through the basket from below and touches the ball, it is an interference (and not a simple violation) with all the relevant rule consequences.
Art. 36.1.4 Unsportsmanlike foul
If a defensive player causes contact with an opponent from behind or laterally in an attempt to stop a fast break and there is no opponent between the offensive player and the opponents’ basket, then the contact shall be judged to be unsportsmanlike.
Art. 38.3.1 Technical foul
A technical foul can be called on a player for excessive swinging of elbows (without contact).
OFFICIAL BASKETBALL RULES 2010:
The below mentioned rule amendments will come into effect as follows:
• For high level competitions/Level 1 (main FIBA official competitions: i.e. Olympic Tournaments, World Championships for Men and Women, U19 and U17 World Championships for Men and Women and Zone/Continental Championships for Men and Women): as of 1st October 2010, i.e. after the 2010 FIBA World Championship.
• For medium level competitions/Level 2 (i.e. all other FIBA official competitions and the high level competitions of the national federations): as of 1st October 2012, i.e. after the London 2012 Olympic Games.
Art. 2.2.3 Free-throw lines and restricted areas
The restricted areas shall be the floor rectangle areas marked on the playing court.
The restricted (three-second) area shall be a rectangle (not anymore a trapezoid) as per Diagram 1 below.
Art. 2.2.4 Three-point field goal area
The distance of the three-point line shall be 6,75 m (and not 6,25 m as present).
Art. 2.2.6 Throw-in side lines
The two (2) small lines shall be marked outside the court, on the opposite side of the scorer’s table and the team bench areas, with the outer edge at the distance of 8,325 m from the inside edge of the end lines; in other words, level to the top of the three-point line.
During the last two (2) minutes of the game and of the extra period, following the time-out granted to the team that has been entitled to the possession of the ball from its backcourt, the subsequent throw-in will be taken on the opposite side of the scorer’s table from the “throw-in side line” and not as presently from the centre line extended.
Art. 2.2.7 No-charge semicircles
The no-charge semicircles shall be marked on the playing court, under the baskets. The distance of the inner edge of the semicircles shall be 1,25 m from the centre of the basket (on the floor).
A charging (offensive) foul should never be called if the contact by the offensive player is with the defensive player standing within the no-charge semicircle.
Art. 29 Twenty-four seconds
If the throw-in is to be administered in the backcourt, if required by the respective rules, the 24 second device shall be reset to 24 seconds.
If the throw-in is to be administered in the frontcourt, if required by the respective rules, the 24-second device shall be reset as follows:
- If 14 seconds or more are displayed on the 24-second device at the time the game was stopped, the 24-second device shall not be reset and shall remain the same.
- If 13 seconds or less are displayed on the 24-second device at the time the game was stopped, the 24-second device shall be reset to 14 seconds.
For a clearer visualization of the first four changes above, please refer to the Diagram 1.
World Will Be More Like N.B.A.
By HOWARD BECK
Published: August 25, 2008
To reassert its global pre-eminence, the United States men’s basketball team overhauled its program, stuffed its roster with N.B.A. stars and did everything but rewrite the rules and restripe the courts. That last part is coming, though.
Winning Olympic gold in Beijing depended partly on Team USA’s ability to cope with the unfamiliar geometry of the international game: a trapezoidal lane, a shallow 3-point arc and a contorted array of driving lanes.
But in two years, the trapezoid will be dead, the arc will be a little deeper and the international game will be a bit closer in style to the N.B.A.’s. The lane will become a rectangle, emulating the United States model. The arc will move to 6.75 meters (22.1 feet) — closer to the N.B.A. standard of 22 feet 9 inches — from 6.25 meters (20.5 feet).
The changes were among several adopted, to little fanfare, by the International Basketball Federation, known as FIBA, in April. The new rules take effect after the world championships in 2010, so they will be in place for the 2012 Olympics in London.
The intent is to sharpen the international game and to make it more uniform from one hemisphere to another, at all levels of play. But the changes will undoubtedly provide a subtle lift to a United States team that probably needs no help.
“I think it’s going back to our roots and will be more of an advantage to us,” said Tony Ronzone, USA Basketball’s director of international player personnel. He added, “It will help us and our game in international competition.”
Geometry has never been a major concern for Americans. The trapezoid lane has been part of the international game since the 1950s and did not stop United States men’s teams from winning gold medals in nearly every Olympics since then. Nor was it the primary reason the team stumbled to a bronze in 2004.
But the adoption of a rectangular lane and a deeper 3-point arc will give the international game a decidedly American look and could change the way the world plays the game.
The N.B.A., with a 16-foot-wide lane, has long been dominated by burly 7-footers who play with their back to the basket and score from the low blocks. FIBA’s trapezoidal lane, which spans 19 feet 8 inches along the baseline, keeps those players far from the basket, diminishing their size advantage. The short 3-point arc also makes it easy for guards to double-team the post and still recover to the perimeter.
“Post-ups are a little bit harder,” Chris Bosh, a center on the United States team, said in Beijing. “In the N.B.A., you can be a little more patient. Here, if you get it in the post, you have to be aware of guards collapsing and trying to swipe down on you to steal the ball.”
The different rules have bred a severe contrast in styles. The best United States-born centers are generally in the Wilt Chamberlain mold: big, powerful and effective around the basket. The European big man is typified by Dirk Nowitzki of Germany, a sleek 7-footer who is more comfortable on the perimeter.
The rectangular lane can be expected to encourage players to develop a post-up game.
“This obviously is going to change kind of the style of game, and probably give more room to the post-up players,” said Zoran Radovic, the development director for FIBA who formerly starred for Yugoslavia. “Every winning team in the N.B.A. has a dominant center. In Europe, a dominant center is not that much of an effect under current rules.”
Basketball officials in the United States welcomed the changes, although they did not specifically push for them.
“It’s also probably an endorsement of our game and our rules,” said Jerry Colangelo, the managing director of the senior national team for USA Basketball.
Although it appears that the international game is moving toward the American model, “that is not the way the FIBA board who made the decision actually felt about it,” said Patrick Baumann, the secretary general for FIBA. The goals of the association’s board, he said, were much broader than merely standardizing the game.
In FIBA’s view, the 3-point shot has become too common. In 1984, when the arc was added in international play, only 14 percent of all field-goal attempts were 3-pointers, Baumann said. Now, he added, that number is 40 percent and players routinely make 38 to 40 percent of them.
“The board felt that’s no longer now an exceptional shot,” Baumann said. “It felt something needed to be done.”
The board stopped short of adopting the N.B.A.’s deeper 3-point line because FIBA also governs women’s and youth basketball leagues.
FIBA is looking for the combination of a deeper arc and a narrower lane to help open up the floor and allow more movement.
“The game was becoming a little bit too crowded under the basket,” Baumann said.
Of the 213 nations under FIBA’s jurisdiction, only the United States uses the rectangular lane. Baumann said uniformity in the game was merely “the cherry on the cake.”
Not everyone believes the changes will benefit the United States and other teams (notably China) with dominant post-up players.
“I don’t really see a difference,” Sasha Pavlovic of Serbia, who is a guard for the Cleveland Cavaliers, said of the rectangular lane.
Zydrunas Ilgauskas of Lithuania, a center for the Cavaliers, predicted that players around the world “will adjust pretty quickly” to the new lane.
Other rules differences mean that the style of the N.B.A. and the international game will remain distinct for a long time, Baumann said. Whatever advantages the United States may gain with these changes, he said, will be short-lived.
“You may feel it’s an advantage tomorrow,” he said, “but the day after tomorrow, all the teams will be on the same level, and the better will win.”
______________________________________________
source: FIBA.com
PR N°25 - The FIBA Central Board approves historic rule changes
GENEVA (FIBA) – The FIBA Central Board, the highest executive body of the International Basketball Federation, met yesterday, Friday 25th April, and has continued its session today, Saturday 26th April, in Beijing, China. The meeting has been organized in cooperation with the Chinese Basketball Association.
An additional press release containing several important decisions of the FIBA Central Board will be issued in the next hours. However, this morning the Central Board has taken some major and historic decisions as with regards to the game rules.
Indeed, upon recommendation of the FIBA Technical Commission (a group of experts that deal with the game rules), the FIBA Central Board has approved today several amendments to the Official Basketball Rules.
The recommendations by the FIBA Technical Commission and the decisions taken by the Central Board were strived by the attempt to further unify all existing game rules and to have, in the future, only one set of rules for the game of basketball worldwide.
Please find below a summary of all approved rule changes, which include historic amendments like the extension of the 3-point line (in place since 1984) and the change of the trapezoid restricted area (in place since the 1950s) to a rectangular one:
OFFICIAL BASKETBALL RULES 2008:
All below-mentioned rules will come into effect as of 1st October 2008, i.e. after the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.
Art. 4.3 Uniforms
The provision that T-shirts may be worn by players under their game uniforms is not valid anymore.
Art. 25.2.3 Player falling on the floor
It is legal when a player falls and slides on the floor while holding the ball.
Art. 28.1.3 Ball goes into team’s frontcourt
The ball goes to the teams’ frontcourt when, during the dribble from backcourt to frontcourt, both feet of the dribbler and the ball are in contact with the frontcourt.
Art. 30.1.2 Ball returned to the backcourt
It will not be a violation anymore if a player, who jumps from his frontcourt, establishes a new team control while still airborne and then lands in his team’s backcourt.
Art. 31 Goaltending and interference
If a player reaches through the basket from below and touches the ball, it is an interference (and not a simple violation) with all the relevant rule consequences.
Art. 36.1.4 Unsportsmanlike foul
If a defensive player causes contact with an opponent from behind or laterally in an attempt to stop a fast break and there is no opponent between the offensive player and the opponents’ basket, then the contact shall be judged to be unsportsmanlike.
Art. 38.3.1 Technical foul
A technical foul can be called on a player for excessive swinging of elbows (without contact).
OFFICIAL BASKETBALL RULES 2010:
The below mentioned rule amendments will come into effect as follows:
• For high level competitions/Level 1 (main FIBA official competitions: i.e. Olympic Tournaments, World Championships for Men and Women, U19 and U17 World Championships for Men and Women and Zone/Continental Championships for Men and Women): as of 1st October 2010, i.e. after the 2010 FIBA World Championship.
• For medium level competitions/Level 2 (i.e. all other FIBA official competitions and the high level competitions of the national federations): as of 1st October 2012, i.e. after the London 2012 Olympic Games.
Art. 2.2.3 Free-throw lines and restricted areas
The restricted areas shall be the floor rectangle areas marked on the playing court.
The restricted (three-second) area shall be a rectangle (not anymore a trapezoid) as per Diagram 1 below.
Art. 2.2.4 Three-point field goal area
The distance of the three-point line shall be 6,75 m (and not 6,25 m as present).
Art. 2.2.6 Throw-in side lines
The two (2) small lines shall be marked outside the court, on the opposite side of the scorer’s table and the team bench areas, with the outer edge at the distance of 8,325 m from the inside edge of the end lines; in other words, level to the top of the three-point line.
During the last two (2) minutes of the game and of the extra period, following the time-out granted to the team that has been entitled to the possession of the ball from its backcourt, the subsequent throw-in will be taken on the opposite side of the scorer’s table from the “throw-in side line” and not as presently from the centre line extended.
Art. 2.2.7 No-charge semicircles
The no-charge semicircles shall be marked on the playing court, under the baskets. The distance of the inner edge of the semicircles shall be 1,25 m from the centre of the basket (on the floor).
A charging (offensive) foul should never be called if the contact by the offensive player is with the defensive player standing within the no-charge semicircle.
Art. 29 Twenty-four seconds
If the throw-in is to be administered in the backcourt, if required by the respective rules, the 24 second device shall be reset to 24 seconds.
If the throw-in is to be administered in the frontcourt, if required by the respective rules, the 24-second device shall be reset as follows:
- If 14 seconds or more are displayed on the 24-second device at the time the game was stopped, the 24-second device shall not be reset and shall remain the same.
- If 13 seconds or less are displayed on the 24-second device at the time the game was stopped, the 24-second device shall be reset to 14 seconds.
For a clearer visualization of the first four changes above, please refer to the Diagram 1.
