MyBasketball

This article is part of the series “30 days to being a better basketball player“.

"Jump Ball" by Michael Rajzman, via flickr

Have you ever tried to communicate with someone who didn’t speak your language? I’m sure you’ll agree that it’s not easy to do.

That pretty much explains why it’s so important to understand what the ref’s are “saying” out on the court. After all, you don’t want to be the only one standing out there having to ask everyone else what the call was because you didn’t understand it.

For today, the challenge is to learn as many of these as you can so that you don’t feel like everything on the court gets lost in translation.

I’m sure you know what most, if not all of the referee signals and calls are by now, but just in case, here they are (a useful picture, source unknown):

Referee calls for basketball

Click on the image to see a larger version

Happy translating, um, I mean playing.

Darren spent many years playing basketball in Pretoria, searching out every possible way to gain extra inches on his vertical in order to disprove the theory that white men can't jump. After being distracted by the corporate world for several years, Darren returned to the game he loves to contribute in some way to its' future. Darren firmly believes we will see basketball in its rightful place as one of the top sports in South Africa, and that one of the keys to doing so is seeing information about the game made easily accessible to everyone. This is why he is now part of the MyBasketball team.

Darren Gorton

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Other articles you might enjoy

• Back to basics – basketball officiating
• Day 27: Rules of engagement
• Day 30: Putting the lessons into practice