Jason Kidd
Jason Frederick Kidd is an American professional basketball coach and former player. He most served as the head coach of the Milwaukee Bucks of the National Basketball Association. A point guard in the NBA, Kidd was a ten-time NBA All-Star, a five-time All-NBA First Team member, a nine-time NBA All-Defensive Team member, he won an NBA Championship in 2011 as a member of the Dallas Mavericks, was a two-time Olympic Gold Medal winner during his pro career, as part of Team USA in 2000 and 2008. He was inducted as a player into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Kidd played college basketball for the California Golden Bears and was drafted second overall by the Dallas Mavericks in the first round of the 1994 NBA draft, he was named co-NBA Rookie of the Year in his first season with the Mavericks. From 1996 to 2001, Kidd played for the Phoenix Suns and for the New Jersey Nets from 2001 to 2008, he led the Nets to two consecutive NBA Finals appearances in 2002 and 2003. In the middle of the 2007–08 season, Kidd was traded back to Dallas.
At age 38, Kidd won his only NBA championship. He finished his playing career in 2013 with the New York Knicks; the following season, he became the head coach of the Nets, who had relocated from New Jersey to Brooklyn. After one season, he was traded to the Milwaukee Bucks, where he coached for four seasons until he was fired mid-season in 2018. Kidd's ability to pass and rebound made him a regular triple-double threat, he retired ranked third all-time in the NBA for regular season triple-doubles with a career total of 107 and third in playoff triple-doubles with a career total of 11, he ranks second on the NBA all-time lists in career assists and steals and ninth in 3-point field goals made. Kidd was born in San Francisco, raised in an upper middle class section of Oakland, his father, was African-American, his mother, Anne, is Irish-American. As a youth, Kidd was scouted for AAU teams and tourneys, garnering various all-star and MVP awards, he attended the East Oakland Youth Development Center and frequented the city courts of Oakland, where he found himself pitted against future NBA Hall of Famer Gary Payton.
At St. Joseph Notre Dame High School in Alameda, under the guidance of coach Frank LaPorte, Kidd led the Pilots to consecutive state championships, averaging 25 points, 10 assists, 7 rebounds and 7 steals his senior season. During that year, he received a host of individual honors, including the Naismith Award as the nation's top high school player, was named Player of the Year by PARADE and USA Today; the all-time prep leader in assists and the state's seventh-highest career scorer, Kidd was voted California Player of the Year for the second time and a McDonald's All-American. On January 31, 2012, Kidd was honored. After a publicized recruiting process, Kidd shocked many fans and pundits alike by choosing to attend the nearby University of California, Berkeley—a school, coming off a 10–18 season and had not won a conference title since 1960—over a number of top-ranked collegiate programs including the University of Arizona, the University of Kentucky, the University of Kansas, Ohio State University.
In his first year playing for the Golden Bears, Kidd averaged 13.0 points, 7.7 assists, 4.9 rebounds, 3.8 steals per game which earned him national Freshman of the Year honors and a spot on the All-Pac-10 team. His 110 steals set an NCAA record for most steals by a freshman and set school record for most steals in a season, while his 220 assists that season was a school record, his play was a key factor in the resurgence of Cal basketball and helped the Golden Bears earn an NCAA Tournament bid, where they upset two-time defending national champion Duke in the second round of that tournament before losing to Kansas in the Sweet 16. Kidd continued his success as a sophomore, tallying averages of 16.7 points, 6.9 rebounds, 3.1 steals and 9.1 assists, breaking his previous school record for most assists in a season with 272, while leading the nation in that category. He was selected a First Team All-American, the first Cal player to be so named since 1968, as well as Pac-10 Player of the Year, becoming the first sophomore to receive that honor.
The Golden Bears made the NCAA Tournament again as a fifth seed, but was upset in the first round by Dick Bennett's Wisconsin–Green Bay team 61–57. Kidd was named a finalist for both the Naismith and Wooden Awards as college basketball's top player and subsequently opted to enter the NBA draft in 1994. In 2004, Cal retired Kidd's number 5 jersey. Kidd was selected as the second pick overall by the Dallas Mavericks, behind Glenn Robinson of Purdue, just ahead of Duke's Grant Hill. In his first year, he averaged 11.7 points, 5.4 rebounds and 7.7 assists, led the NBA in triple doubles, sharing 1995 NBA Rookie of the Year honors with Hill of the Detroit Pistons. The year before the Mavericks drafted Kidd, they finished the season with the worst record in the NBA at 13–69. After Kidd's first season with the Mavericks, their record improved to 36–46, the largest improvement in the NBA. In the following season Kidd was voted a starter in the 1996 All-Star Game. In his first two years with the Mavericks, the move most people associated him with was "the baseball pass".
Kidd was a member of the "Three J's" in Dallas along with Jamal Mashburn. After promising beginnings, things turned sour among the trio. Mashburn's injury combined with deteriorated personal relations between the immature leaders of the team resulted in the Mavericks taking a step backwards instead of further development. Kidd's continued
Center (basketball)
The center known as the five, or the big man, is one of the five positions in a regular basketball game. The center is the tallest player on the team, has a great deal of strength and body mass as well. In the NBA, the center is 6 feet 10 inches or taller and weighs 240 pounds or more, they traditionally have played close to the basket in the low post. A center with the ability to shoot outside from three-point range is known as stretch five; the center is considered a necessary component for a successful team in professional leagues such as the NBA. Great centers have been the foundation for most of the dynasties in both the NBA and NCAA; the 6'10" George Mikan pioneered the Center position, shattering the held perception that tall players could not develop the agility and coordination to play basketball well, ushering in the role of the dominant big man. He led DePaul University to the NIT title after turning professional, won seven National Basketball League, Basketball Association of America and NBA Championships in his ten-year career, nine of them with the Minneapolis Lakers.
Using his height to dominate opposing players, Mikan invented the shot block. In the 1960s, Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain further transformed basketball by combining height with a greater level of athleticism than previous centers. Following the retirement of George Mikan, the rivalry of the two big men came to dominate the NBA. Between the two of them and Russell won nine of the eleven MVP awards in the eleven-year period between 1958 and 1969. Many of the records set by these two players have endured today. Most notably and Russell hold the top eighteen season averages for rebounds. Bill Russell led the University of San Francisco to two consecutive NCAA Championships, he joined the Boston Celtics and helped make them one of the greatest dynasties in NBA history, winning eleven championships over his thirteen-year career as well as five MVP awards. Russell revolutionized defensive strategy with his shot-blocking and physical man-to-man defense. While he was never the focal point of the Celtics offense, much of the team's scoring came when Russell grabbed defensive rebounds and initiated fast breaks with precision outlet passes to point guard Bob Cousy.
As the NBA's first African-American superstar, Russell struggled throughout his career with the racism he encountered from fans in Boston after the 1966–67 season, when he became the first African-American in any major sport to be named player-coach. His principal rival, Wilt Chamberlain, listed at 7'1", 275 pounds, lacked Russell's supporting cast. Chamberlain played college ball for the Kansas Jayhawks, leading them to the 1957 title game against the North Carolina Tar Heels. Although the Jayhawks lost by one point in triple overtime, Chamberlain was named the tournament's Most Outstanding Player. A member of the Harlem Globetrotters before joining the Philadelphia Warriors of the NBA in 1959, Chamberlain won two Championships, in 1967 with the Philadelphia 76ers and 1972 with the Los Angeles Lakers, although his teams were defeated by the Celtics in the Eastern Conference and NBA Finals, he won seven scoring titles, eleven rebounding titles, four regular season Most Valuable Player awards, including the distinction, in 1960, of being the first rookie to receive the award.
Stronger than any player of his era, he was capable of scoring and rebounding at will. Although he was the target of constant double- and triple-teaming, as well as fouling tactics designed to take advantage of his poor free-throw shooting, he set a number of records that have never been broken. Most notably, Chamberlain is the only player in NBA history to average more than 50 points in a season and score 100 points in a single game, he holds the NBA's all-time records for rebounding average, rebounds in a single game, career rebounds. A lesser-known center of the era was Nate Thurmond, who played the forward position opposite Wilt Chamberlain for the San Francisco Warriors but moved to center after Chamberlain was traded to the new Philadelphia franchise. Although he never won a Championship, Thurmond was known as the best screen setter in the league, his averages of 21.3 and 22.0 rebounds per game in 1966–67 and 1967–68, are exceeded only by Chamberlain and Russell. In contrast to the Celtics dynasty of the 1960s, the 1970s were a decade of parity in the NBA, with eight different champions and no back-to-back winners.
At the college level, the UCLA Bruins, under Coach John Wooden, built the greatest dynasty in NCAA basketball history, winning seven consecutive titles between 1967 and 1973. UCLA had won two consecutive titles in 1964 and 1965 with teams that pressed and emphasized guard play. After not winning in 1966, Wooden's teams changed their style, he led UCLA to three championships-in 1967, 68' and 69'-while winning the first Naismith College Player of the Year Award. During his college career, the NCAA enacted a ban on dunking because of Alcindor's dominant use of the shot, his entrance into the NBA with the Milwaukee Bucks in 1969 was timely, as Bill Russell had just retired and Wilt Chamberlain was 33 years old and plagued by injuries. After leading the Bucks to the 1971 NBA championship, te
Jerry Lucas
Jerry Ray Lucas is an American former basketball great and noted memory education expert. He was a nationally-awarded high school player, national college star at Ohio State, 1960 gold medal Olympian and international player before starring as a professional player in the National Basketball Association; as a collegian, Lucas led the Ohio State Buckeyes to the 1960 college national championship and three straight NCAA finals. He remains today the only three-time Big Ten Player of the Year, was twice named NCAA Player of the Year; as a professional, Lucas was named All-NBA First Team three times, an NBA All-Star seven times, was 1964 NBA Rookie of the Year, was named Most Valuable Player of the 1965 NBA All-Star Game among other honors and awards. He was inducted to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1980. After his basketball career ended in the mid-1970s, Lucas took to becoming a teacher and writer in the area of image-based memory education, his book written with Harry Lorayne, The Memory Book, was a national best-seller.
Lucas has conducted seminars demonstrating memory techniques, has written 30 books and educational products and games for children. Lucas was born in a community of 30,000 + halfway between Dayton and Cincinnati. Middletown called itself " The Basketball Capital of Ohio", based on the success of the basketball teams from the town's one high school; the Middies had won five Ohio state high school championships, 1945–55, before Lucas played at Middletown High. Local support for the team was remarkably high in the mid-1950s. A tall youth, Lucas was encouraged to take up the game and soon dedicated himself to the town's game. In addition to strong local support for Middletown High basketball, the city was home to a remarkable summer outdoor basketball scene that had developed at Sunset Park. Previous Middletown players who had gone on to play at the college level had recruited other college players to play there in the summer. By the time Lucas was age 15 in 1955, Sunset Park was one of the best summer basketball scenes in the region.
By Lucas had grown to 6'7" and had the opportunity to scrimmage against these college players, advancing his game greatly. Lucas was, in fact, outplaying college-level big men before he played his first game for Middletown High; the budding basketball star had, by also started to display a remarkable, if unusual intelligence. A straight-A student with a penchant for memorizing his school work, Lucas had started to develop memory games for himself as early as age nine. One trick he would be known for was his ability to take words apart and reassemble them in alphabetical order. "Basketball" became "aabbekllst". He applied his intelligence to his coaching in the game. Lucas started play at Middletown as a sophomore in the 1955–56 season, his coach, Paul Walker, had led three Ohio state champions, Lucas found himself surrounded by a strong team and teammates at Middletown. Still just 15 years old, Lucas focused on a game of rebounding and passing but still became a scoring star anyway, his fame as a player spread across Ohio as early as January, 1956.
At this young age, Lucas was a remarkable athlete who could play above the rim. Middletown's schedule featured strong teams from Cincinnati and Columbus and remained undefeated. A February game held at Cincinnati Gardens against rival Hamilton, itself a nearby former state champion, drew over 13,000 at a time in the game's history when crowd sizes of that kind were uncommon at any level of the game; the two state powers repeated that feat there in 1958. In addition to a rare ability to rebound the ball, Lucas made 60% of his shots from the floor and 75% of his many free throws. Wearing the number #13, he would be compared to Wilt Chamberlain during his Middletown years; the 1955-56 Middletown team went undefeated, winning the state championship, the 1956-57 team did too. He suffered just one loss as a senior. But, after a state-record 76 straight wins over three years that saw Lucas and Middletown elevated to a remarkable level of fame within the state. Though he did not shoot Lucas carried a 34-point scoring through his high school years, received national press when he surpassed Chamberlain's high school total in points.
As Middletown played top prep teams from around the state, the fame of Lucas and Middletown spread through each stop. At Cleveland Arena, over 12,000 saw him score 53 as his Middies topped an undefeated Cleveland East Tech team there in the 1956 state playoffs. In 1957, over 15,000 saw his team top Toledo Macomber in another state playoff game at Saint John Arena the home floor of the collegiate Ohio State Buckeyes; these and other performances led Lucas to receive scholarship offers from more than 150 colleges, a remarkable total within the condition of the game at that time. He was considered the most publicized high school player in America to his time when he graduated from Middletown High in 1958, having won a number of national awards, he was state champion in the discus in 1958, a member of the National Honor Society as a student. Lucas was the subject of considerable recruiting interest while at Middletown, to such a degree that measures were taken to protect the privacy of Lucas and his family.
When he announced for Ohio State, he became the center of a legendary recruiting class in 1958 that included two more future Hall of Famers in player John Havlicek and future coach Bob Knight. Mel Nowell join the group as well, giving the group three future NBA players s well with Lucas and Havlicek. Buckeyes freshman coach Fred Taylor helped all four feel comfortable with coming to Ohio Stat
Basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball through the defender's hoop while preventing the opposing team from shooting through their own hoop. A field goal is worth two points, unless made from behind the three-point line, when it is worth three. After a foul, timed play stops and the player fouled or designated to shoot a technical foul is given one or more one-point free throws; the team with the most points at the end of the game wins, but if regulation play expires with the score tied, an additional period of play is mandated. Players advance the ball by bouncing it while walking or running or by passing it to a teammate, both of which require considerable skill. On offense, players may use a variety of shots -- a dunk, it is a violation to lift or drag one's pivot foot without dribbling the ball, to carry it, or to hold the ball with both hands resume dribbling.
The five players on each side at a time fall into five playing positions: the tallest player is the center, the tallest and strongest is the power forward, a shorter but more agile big man is the small forward, the shortest players or the best ball handlers are the shooting guard and the point guard, who implements the coach's game plan by managing the execution of offensive and defensive plays. Informally, players may play three-on-three, two-on-two, one-on-one. Invented in 1891 by Canadian-American gym teacher James Naismith in Springfield, United States, basketball has evolved to become one of the world's most popular and viewed sports; the National Basketball Association is the most significant professional basketball league in the world in terms of popularity, salaries and level of competition. Outside North America, the top clubs from national leagues qualify to continental championships such as the Euroleague and FIBA Americas League; the FIBA Basketball World Cup and Men's Olympic Basketball Tournament are the major international events of the sport and attract top national teams from around the world.
Each continent hosts regional competitions for national teams, like FIBA AmeriCup. The FIBA Women's Basketball World Cup and Women's Olympic Basketball Tournament feature top national teams from continental championships; the main North American league is the WNBA, whereas strongest European clubs participate in the EuroLeague Women. In early December 1891, Canadian James Naismith, a physical education professor and instructor at the International Young Men's Christian Association Training School in Springfield, was trying to keep his gym class active on a rainy day, he sought a vigorous indoor game to keep his students occupied and at proper levels of fitness during the long New England winters. After rejecting other ideas as either too rough or poorly suited to walled-in gymnasiums, he wrote the basic rules and nailed a peach basket onto a 10-foot elevated track. In contrast with modern basketball nets, this peach basket retained its bottom, balls had to be retrieved manually after each "basket" or point scored.
Basketball was played with a soccer ball. These round balls from "association football" were made, at the time, with a set of laces to close off the hole needed for inserting the inflatable bladder after the other sewn-together segments of the ball's cover had been flipped outside-in; these laces could dribbling to be unpredictable. A lace-free ball construction method was invented, this change to the game was endorsed by Naismith; the first balls made for basketball were brown, it was only in the late 1950s that Tony Hinkle, searching for a ball that would be more visible to players and spectators alike, introduced the orange ball, now in common use. Dribbling was not part of the original game except for the "bounce pass" to teammates. Passing the ball was the primary means of ball movement. Dribbling was introduced but limited by the asymmetric shape of early balls. Dribbling was common by 1896, with a rule against the double dribble by 1898; the peach baskets were used until 1906 when they were replaced by metal hoops with backboards.
A further change was soon made, so the ball passed through. Whenever a person got the ball in the basket, his team would gain a point. Whichever team got; the baskets were nailed to the mezzanine balcony of the playing court, but this proved impractical when spectators in the balcony began to interfere with shots. The backboard was introduced to prevent this interference. Naismith's handwritten diaries, discovered by his granddaughter in early 2006, indicate that he was nervous about the new game he had invented, which incorporated rules from a children's game called duck on a rock, as many had failed before it. Frank Mahan, one of the players from the original
Chicago Public High School League
The Chicago Public High School Athletic Association known as the Chicago Public League, is the interscholastic competition arm of the Chicago Public Schools. The governance of the CPL is set through the Department of Sports Administration and Facilities of CPS. Origins of the Chicago Public League can be traced back to its predecessor, the Cook County High School League, which started during 1889-90; some of the schools that participated in the Cook County League still exist today: Crane, Lincoln Park, Hyde Park, Calumet, Austin and Lake View. Three other schools from this League have since gone to other leagues around the area: University High, which plays in the Independent League, Lyons Township High of LaGrange and Oak Park High, both of which now play in the West Suburban Conference; the Chicago Public High School League was formed in the summer of 1913, when the Cook County High School League broke apart as a result of the Chicago Board of Education desire to be responsible for a league in which all the schools would be under its jurisdiction.
The suburban schools joined by University High formed the Suburban League. In the first 15 years of the Public league's history a full plethora of sports were offered; the dominant powers were such traditional powers as Hyde Park, Lane Tech, Crane Tech, joined by new powers Senn, Lindblom and Tilden Tech. The mid-1920s saw the adoption of such exotic sports as gymnastics, rifle marksmanship, indoor golf, speed skating, but none of these sports attracted more than a small percentage of the schools. During the 1920s, the Chicago Public League, which had unofficially abided by the Illinois High School Athletic Association ban on all girls interscholastic contests, began to relax its strictures against interscholastic sports for girls; the league in 1922 began sponsoring tennis and swimming competition, became lax in its ban on the other sports, so that the girls began interschool competition in basketball and softball. However, when the CPL schools began joining the IHSAA in 1926 the league ended its sponsorship of girls' golf and swimming, cracked down on girls' interscholastic contests in the other sports.
The CPL did not return to girls' interscholastics until the early 1970s, with the passage of Title IX by the federal government in 1972. Beginning with the Great Migration coming in the 1920s, a number of schools became predominantly African American, notably Phillips, DuSable, Forrestville, Carver; the advent of charter schools in the late 1990s and early 2000s yet saw another expansion of the league as schools such as CICS, Noble Network of Charter Schools, ACE Technical Charter High School were included. The CPL as it stands today is diverse with nearly every major nationality and race represented in all sports; the CPL is headed by the Director of Sports Administration and Facilities of the Chicago Public Schools. Calvin Davis holds this position. Davis, who has 25 years of teaching and administrative experience in the Chicago Public Schools took over in 2003 after being selected by CEO Arne Duncan to replace Dr. J. W. Smith who retired that year. Under the Director are the City Wide Sport Coordinators, who govern competition in the sports that they are assigned.
Some coordinators handle multiple sports: one example is Mickey Pruitt, a graduate of Robeson and former member of the Chicago Bears. Pruitt governs competition in football and lacrosse. Nearly every sport has four playing levels: Varsity, Sophomore and Elementary. Incoming freshmen can ` play-up' to either varsity levels; the elementary school sports program which offers 17 sports for girls and boys in grades five through eight for 500 schools was developed in the late 1990s by the league as a way to close the athletic gap between the CPL and its parochial counterpart, the Chicago Catholic League/Girls Catholic Athletic Conference. Today, coaches in the high school sector of the CPL recruit the elementary division to fill their ranks, as opposed to earlier years where most kids came into the high school athletic arena with little or no experience; the championship trophy of the CPL is noted by "The Shield". A school holding one of these trophies is recognized as having beaten a large field of competitors for the city title.
Until 2004, the trophy was made of wood with either a gold or silver plate notating champion or runner-up finish. Since 2004, it is now made of black marble with gold trimming and plated with a silver sculpture of the sport the trophy was earned in. Between 1972 and 2002, the holder of The Shield gained automatic entry into the Illinois State Finals in most sports. Since the city championship has been decided prior to the start of the state tournament. Another reason schools play for The Shield is the venues; every year The Shield is contested in a number of major college stadiums. Over the years they have included Soldier Field, the UIC Pavilion, United Center, International Amphitheater, Chicago Coliseum, Chicago Stadium, Wrigley Field, Comiskey Park-US Cellular Field, Loyola University Chicago, Chicago State University, Northeastern Illinois University, DePaul University. With the exception of s
Basketball (ball)
A basketball is a spherical ball used in basketball games. Basketballs range in size from small promotional items only a few inches in diameter to extra large balls nearly a foot in diameter used in training exercises. For example, a youth basketball could be 27 inches in circumference, while a National Collegiate Athletic Association men's ball would be a maximum of 30 inches and an NCAA women's ball would be a maximum of 29 inches; the standard for a basketball in the National Basketball Association is 29.5 inches in circumference and for the Women's National Basketball Association, a maximum circumference of 29 inches. High school and junior leagues use NCAA, NBA or WNBA sized balls. Aside from the court and the baskets, the basketball is the only piece of equipment necessary to play the game of basketball. During the game, the ball must be bounced continuously, thrown through the air to other players or thrown towards the basket. Therefore, the ball must be durable and easy to hold on to.
The ball is used to perform tricks, the most common of which are spinning the ball on the tip of one's index finger, dribbling in complex patterns, rolling the ball over one's shoulder, or performing aerobatic maneuvers with the ball while executing a slam dunk, most notably in the context of a slam dunk contest. Nearly all basketballs have an inflatable inner rubber bladder wrapped in layers of fiber and covered with a surface made either from leather, rubber, or a synthetic composite; as in most inflatable balls, there is a small opening that allows the pressure to be increased or decreased. The surface of the ball is nearly always divided by "ribs" that are recessed below the surface of the ball in a variety of configurations and are a contrasting color. A brownish surface with black ribs and a possible logo is the traditional color scheme of basketballs but they are sold in various colors. Balls are designated for indoor, or all-surface use. Indoor balls tend to be more expensive than all-surface balls due to cost of materials.
In addition, brand new all-leather indoor balls must be "broken in" first to achieve optimal grip before use in competition. The abrasiveness of asphalt and the dirt and moisture present in an outdoor setting will ruin an indoor ball within a short period of time, why an indoor/outdoor ball is recommended for recreational players. Outdoor balls are made from rubber to cope with rougher conditions, they need to be filled with more air to retain a suitable level of air pressure in colder weather. Different sizes are used for different age groups; the common standards are: Note that the ball used for all competitions in the formalized halfcourt game of 3x3 combines characteristics of the size 6 and size 7 balls. Its circumference is that of a size 6 ball, but its weight is that of a size 7. In early December 1891, the chairman of the physical education department at the School for Christian Workers in Springfield, instructed physical education teacher James Naismith, to invent a new game to entertain the school's athletes in the winter season.
Naismith assembled his class of 18 young men, appointed captains of two nine-player teams, set in motion the first basketball game, played with a soccer ball and two peach baskets tacked to either end of the gymnasium. The first purpose-built basketballs were made from panels of leather stitched together with a rubber bladder inside. A cloth lining was added to the leather for uniformity. A molded version of the early basketball was invented in 1942. For many years, leather was the material of choice for basketball coverings, however in the late 1990s, synthetic composite materials were put forth and have gained acceptance in most leagues. From 1967 through 1976, the American Basketball Association used a distinctive red and blue basketball, still seen from time to time. List of inflatable manufactured goods
Layup
A layup in basketball is a two-point shot attempt made by leaping from below, laying the ball up near the basket, using one hand to bounce it off the backboard and into the basket. The motion and one-handed reach distinguish it from a jump shot; the layup is considered the most basic shot in basketball. When doing a layup, the player lifts the outside foot, or the foot away from the basket, it is a foul if, during your layup, you hold the other person's hand or push it away to avoid him or her from defending. On the other hand, it is considered a foul if the defender jumps in front of you in the middle of nowhere and you both crash, in this case the defender causes a foul. A layup is handy and to defend it, you just need to stand in front of the opponent with your arms stretched out. An undefended layup is a high percentage shot; the main obstacle is getting near the rim and avoiding blocks by taller defenders who stand near the basket. Common layup strategies are to create spaces, release the ball from a different spot, or use alternate hands.
A player able to reach over the rim might choose to perform a more spectacular and higher percentage slam dunk instead. As the game has evolved through the years, so has the layup. Several different versions of the layup are around today. Layups can be broadly categorized into two types: the overarm; the underarm layup involves using most of the wrist and the fingers to'lay' the ball into the net or off the board. This layup is more known as the finger roll. George Gervin was one of the early practitioners of a showy finger roll layup. Notable past NBA players who rely on the underarm finger roll are Mike Bibby and Allen Iverson. Finger rolls today have many forms, including the "Around the World" which involves a complete circle around the player before the layup and a variety of faking in the approach to the rim. A classic example is a play by Jason Williams during his time with Sacramento, in which Williams brought the ball behind his back with his right hand, in a fake of a back pass, brought it front again with the same hand for the finish.
The other layup is the overhand shot, similar to a jump shot but from a close range. Overhand layups nearly always involve the action of the backboard. Players like Scottie Pippen and Karl Malone have used this move to great effect; the Reverse Layup is a more stylish method of making the ball from close. You fake the defender into defending a regular layup on the near side and jump to the far side of the basket before shooting. One notable Reverse Layup was that of Michael Jordan, his Reverse Layup consisted of him staying on the same side of the hoop while doing the Reverse Layup. It is common for players to create room for a layup by making use of the allotted two steps before the layup attempt. Variations and improvisations exist, yet the most common form is the'Euro-Step'. So called as it was introduced to the NBA by European players, it has been adopted by guards and forwardsas it relies on agility and footwork to avoid larger defenders, although bigger players such as Joel Embiid have been seen making use of the move.
The Euro-Step itself involves picking up one's dribble while dribbling, taking one step in one direction quickly taking a step in the other direction to avoid the defender to create room for a layup attempt. To make use of the move efficiently, it is best to dribble in aggressively take two broad steps in different directions while bringing the ball over one's head in the direction one is stepping for maximum evasion and protection while drawing a foul. Michael Carter-Williams has not made a layup in an actual NBA Game, he is the only player that made none. Information on Layup and Variants "How to do a Reverse Layup in Basketball". Wikihow.com. Retrieved 11 Feb 2014. Layups and Dunks
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