Day 14: Understanding the referee’s calls

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.

Tags: 30 Days, calls, official, officiating, referee, rules, signal