Basketball scorekeeping

History

The first method of basketball scorekeeping came about in 1891 when James Naismith, the inventor of basketball, published his original 13 rules of the game.^[2] According to Rule 13, the winning team was decided by who scored the most number of goals.^[3] The very first basketball game ended with a score of 1–0, equating a single point to each goal.^[4] By 1896, the scoring system changed, representing a goal—now called a field goal—as 2 points, and free throws as 1 point.^[5]

Decades later, the three-pointer emerged into a professional league in 1961, awarding the shotmaker an apt 3 points, when the American Basketball League (ABL) painted the first official three-point line.^[6] After the ABL folded in 1962, years passed before the NBA finally gave it a one-year trial in 1979, which they ultimately kept.^[7] By 1986, the NCAA adopted it, but each major conference had different distances for their three-point lines.^[8] And a year later, in 1987, the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) implemented the three-point line across high schools.^[9]

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Scoring

Summarize

Perspective

When a player successfully shoots the basketball through the opponents hoop, their team is awarded between 1 and 3 points. This point value is determined by three primary shot types:

Free Throw (or Foul Shot)

1 point is scored for a team when its player makes an unguarded shot from the free throw line. Free throws are awarded from shooting fouls, personal fouls that exceed the team foul limit, or technical and flagrant fouls committed against a player.^[10] Referees are solely responsible for calling fouls that can result in free throw opportunities, during which the game clock is stopped. It should also be noted that a free throw is not a field goal.^[11] Typically, free throws are tracked as a separate statistic in official scorekeeping.^[12]

Two-point Field Goal

2 points are scored for a team when its player makes a field goal from anywhere inside the three-point line.^[1] Layups, slam dunks, post shots, and mid-range jump shots all award the same amount of points despite their differences in distance and difficulty. Unlike free throws, the game clock does not stop when a field goal is scored, as the ball is consider in play.^[13] Additionally, if the scoring player is fouled in the act of shooting, a made free throw turns the two-point field goal into a three-point play.^[14]

Three-point Field Goal

3 points are scored for a team when its player makes a field goal from anywhere outside the three-point line.^[1] This shot is worth an extra point compared to a standard two-point field goal because it is generally more difficult to convert and relatively less common to shoot.^[15] The shooter must not be touching the three-point line before when attempting the shot. They are often recorded as their own statistic on the scoresheet, while also contributing to the overall field goal totals.^[16] Additionally, if the scoring player is fouled in the act of shooting, a made free throw turns the field goal into a four-point play.^[17]