Well, howdy there, folks! Let’s chitchat about somethin’ I heard the young’uns yappin’ about the other day – them basketball hoops them fellas be jumpin’ and throwin’ balls at. Heard ’em askin’ “how high is an nba basketball hoop“, so I figured I’d share what I know, even if it ain’t much.
Now, from what I gather, these NBA fellas, they got their hoops set up pretty high. Real high. Like, higher than my clothesline, and that’s sayin’ somethin’. They told me it’s a whole ten feet up in the air. Ten whole feet! Can you believe that? That’s like standin’ on three milk crates stacked on top of each other, maybe even four!
That’s a long ways up, I tell ya. I reckon that’s why them players be so tall and jumpy. Gotta be, to get that ball up that high. Ten feet, they say. That’s the same whether you’re talkin’ about the fellas in the NBA or those ladies in the WNBA, or even them fellas playin’ all over the world. Seems like everyone agreed on that ten-foot thing.
Makes sense, I guess. Keeps things fair and square, so nobody’s got an unfair advantage. Like, imagine if one team had a hoop at eight feet and the other had one at twelve. Wouldn’t be much of a game, would it? Nope. Ten feet it is, and ten feet it’s been for a long, long time.
They told me that ten-foot rule been around since, well, forever! Since the very first NBA game way back when, in 1946, they said. That’s before I was even born! And it ain’t just the NBA, seems like everyone uses that same height. From junior high kids all the way up to the fancy professionals – 10 feet seems like the magic number.
- Ten feet is the standard. No matter where you go, if it’s serious basketball, that hoop’s gonna be ten feet high.
- That’s the same in inches, too, they told me. That’s 120 inches, if you’re countin’ those. A whole bunch of inches!
- And for them fancy folks who like that other kind of measurin’, the kind with the meters and such, it’s about 3.05 meters. Or 3.048, somethin’ like that. Sounds complicated to me, but it’s all the same thing – ten feet!
Now, some little kids, they play on shorter hoops. That makes sense, I reckon. Little tikes can’t be jumpin’ ten feet in the air, that’s for sure. But once they get bigger and start playin’ in junior high and high school, they go to that ten-foot hoop. It’s kind of like learnin’ to ride a bike with training wheels, then takin’ ’em off when you’re ready for the big time.
I heard tell this fella, James Naismith, he’s the one who come up with this whole basketball idea in the first place. And seems like he figured ten feet was just right, way back then. And nobody’s seen fit to change it since, so it must be a pretty good height. He must have been a smart fella, that James.
So there you have it. Not too complicated, is it? Ten feet. That’s how high an NBA basketball hoop is. And a WNBA hoop, too. And pretty much any basketball hoop you see, unless it’s for them little kids. Ten feet. Remember that, and you’ll sound smart next time them young’uns start talkin’ basketball. You can just say, “Yep, that hoop’s ten feet high, just like they use in the NBA.” They’ll be impressed, you betcha.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I gotta go check on my biscuits. All this talk about jumpin’ and hoops has made me hungry!
