From mini-basketball to basketball: the impact of the current regulations on the technical execution of free throw shot

Abstract

The ultimate aim of this essay is to contribute to the process of adapting this sport (basketball) for children. At the age of 12-13, children, having previously played under mini-basketball rules, suddenly find themselves thrown into the youth category, participating in full-blown basketball in the same conditions -same-sized court, hoop and ball- as top Spanish professional players in the ACB league. This article, using the technical criteria for taking a free throw -a key and representative shot- as a starting point, aims to analyse how suitable the current regulations are in terms of issues related to adaptation and transition, through a descriptive and inferential analysis and by identifying temporal patterns. The article concludes that mini- basketball is a suitably adapted form of the sport while the move up into the youth version of the game disrupts the technical patterns interiorised by players while still juniors, leading them to adopt new, non-technically correct methods of executing the free throw shot.