31 Interesting Facts About Basketball

21-25 Basketball Facts

21. The owners of a professional basketball team that hasn’t played since 1976 are still receiving several million dollars from the NBA yearly. – Source

22. After the fall of the USSR, the Lithuanian Basketball team could not afford jerseys for the 1992 Summer Olympics. The Grateful Dead became their financiers. – Source

23. Kevin Durant wears jersey No. 35 in honor of his first basketball coach, Charles Craig, who was murdered at the age of 35 in a gang-related case of mistaken identity. – Source

24. At the 1936 Berlin Olympics, the US men’s basketball team beat Canada 19-8 to win the gold medal. The game was held outdoors on a dirt court in the pouring rain. The conditions prevented dribbling, which is why the score was so low. – Source

25. Because of its fierce resistance to British occupation in the Revolutionary War, British commander Lord Cornwallis referred to Charlotte, NC as “a veritable hornet’s nest of rebellion”. This is how the Charlotte Hornets basketball team got its name. – Source

26-31 Basketball Facts

26. 6-time NBA All-Star and 2003 Rookie of the Year Amar’e Stoudemire is Jewish and speaks Hebrew on the basketball court so no one can understand him. – Source

27. A convicted felon requested that his prison sentence is increased from 30 years to 33 years so that it would match the jersey number of basketball star Larry Bird. – Source

28. The meaning behind the Portland Trailblazers’ logo. It is a modern graphic interpretation of the game of basketball, five players from one side playing against five players from another. – Source

29. In basketball, the backboard was added to keep fans from interfering with the game. – Source

30. In a typical ice-rink-to basketball-court stadium conversion, the ice is not removed. It is simply covered with an insulating surface, and the wooden panels are placed over it. The basketball players stand 2-3 inches above the ice. – Source

31. It is possible to score a “quintuple double” in basketball. This has never happened in the NBA; only in Girls high-school play. – Source