D E F I N I N G
F R E E D O M
11
We call it a
free throw
, but to get it you need
to absorb punishment. Miss your shot while getting whacked and you get two or three of them; make your shot and you get an extra one. If you’re good, it can help you make a team; if you’re bad, it can be why you’re cut. But shooting a free throw is the one time in basketball—it’s the one time in ball sports—that a player can score points with no defense and no time elapsing. Time stops. Everybody History
The free throw didn’t used to be a throw at all: When James Naismith created basketball, the original rules stated that two fouls in a row for one team equaled a basket for the other. Soon that shifted to a twenty-foot free shot, then a fifteen-foot one, worth a single point. Anybody on the team could shoot it, though in 1924 the rules changed so that the players fouled had to shoot their own free throws. BOUNCE: Top, Naismith as University of Kansas athletics director, c. 1920. Left, the original 1891 "Basket Ball" court in Springfield College. It used a peach basket attached to the wall.
36 www.dukemagazine.duke.edu
Wikipedia
has to stand still except the player with the ball. All the player at the line has to do is take a breath and put up a shot. The free throw, free or not, has played a large role in some of Duke’s most memorable games.
