In home gyms, parks, and garages around the world, basketball hoops are almost always 10 feet off the ground. Some little leagues play shorter hoops, but from high schools to professional leagues, the sport is played with hoops on the standard height of 3 meters.
The origin of height
The reason is surprisingly simple. When James Naismith invented the sport in 1891, he hung some fruit baskets that served as the first basketball hoops on the railing of the YMCA gymnasium in Springfield. Coincidentally, the railing was 3 meters above the ground. Naismith’s impromptu decision to mount the baskets on the railing is one of the few features of the first game that endures to this day.
Originally, basketball was played with nine people per side (as opposed to five today); they used a soccer ball, since the basketball had not yet been invented; and the players could not bounce the ball, but had to be still when they had it.
However, the hoop remained 10 feet off the ground, even after the inconvenient fruit baskets (which required a ladder to retrieve the ball when a shot was made) were replaced by iron hoops. As the sport, and the players, grew over the years, there were occasionally proposals to increase the height of the hoops at more advanced levels of basketball to make shooting more difficult.
Can the height be increased?
The average height of players in the National Basketball Association (NBA) in 1947 was only 1.87 meters, while in 2015 the average height was just over 2 meters. This increase in height, combined with better training and a general increase in athletic talent over the years, created the high-flying sport above the rim that modern NBA fans never tire of.
So while the sport is technically easier for today’s players, it is doubtful there will be any serious effort to change the height of the hoops. Many prefer to enjoy the beautiful way of playing modern basketball. Also, putting the basket higher would make it bounces will increase and the game was less offensive.
In Spain they also measure three meters, 3.05 meters to be more exact. It is a universal measure that does not change depending on the country. In this way, any basketball player can practice his favorite sport without worrying about the height of the hoop. Of course, the taller we are, the easier it will be to score a free throw or hang from the basket to show off.