NBA Rules History

What we verified before publishing

Fact-check status: passed

The following claims were verified through Perplexity Sonar before the questions were finalised. The host can reference any of them during play:

• Basketball was invented by doctor and teacher James Naismith in Springfield, Massachusetts in 1891.
• James Naismith created the 13 original rules for basketball, which were published on January 15, 1892.
• The original game of basketball did not allow dribbling, as it was introduced in 1901.
• Dribbling was originally limited to a single bounce, and players could not shoot after dribbling until the rule changed in 1909.
• Five players became the standard number of players per team on a court in 1897, replacing the earlier nine-player format.
• Substitutions were unlimited starting in 1945, after restrictions on players re-entering games were abolished.
• A player is disqualified after committing five personal fouls in most modern basketball games, a limit established in 1945.
• The 24-second shot clock was introduced by the NBA in 1954 to prevent stalling and force teams to attempt a field goal within that time.
• The three-second rule, prohibiting offensive players from staying in the lane for more than three seconds, was introduced in 1936.
• The NBA adopted the three-point line in 1979, though it was not part of James Naismith's original rules.
• The defensive three-second rule, illegalizing defenders from staying in the lane for over three seconds, was implemented alongside the legalization of zone defenses in 2001.
• Basketball is the only sport with a strictly United States origin.