by

D.N. Seppala-Holtzman
St. Joseph’s College

faculty.sjcny.edu/~holtzman
Analysis of the Basketball Free Throw
 To be published in the College Mathematics Journal of
the Mathematical Association of America
 This presentation is for a general audience
The Free Throw
 Player stands behind free throw line and, un-
encumbered by opponents and unassisted by team-
mates, attempts to throw ball into basket
 There are two main components under the player’s
control:
 The angle of elevation of the shot,
 The initial velocity of the shot, v0
The Problem
 Neither the angle of elevation of the shot nor the
initial velocity of the ball can be completely and
accurately controlled
 Errors will occur
 The problem we set ourselves was to find the “most
forgiving shot”
 That is, we seek the shot that will not only succeed but
will be maximally tolerant of error
 This notion of maximal tolerance is not well defined
 We will address this deficiency below
A Model
 Whenever one attempts to solve a real-world problem
with mathematics, the first requirement is to make a
model
 We seek to capture the essential features of the real
situation while suppressing those whose absence aids
the cause of simplicity without unduly sacrificing
accuracy
Our Model
 No air, no friction, no spin
 The center of the ball will be confined to the plane that
is perpendicular to the backboard and passes through
the center of the basket
 Thus, we are disallowing shooting from the side and
disregarding azimuthal error
 We will call this plane the trajectory plane
 We prohibit any contact with the rim
 We limit ourselves, initially, to the “swish shot”
 Nothing but net!
The Set-Up
 In addition to the constraints set out in our model, we
will use parameters designated by letters to denote the
dimensions of the court
 This will allow us to make general observations not
limited to one set of values for these parameters
The Set-Up
 Here is our list of parameters:
 R = radius of rim
 H = height of rim from floor
 d = horizontal distance from point of launch to front
end of rim
 r = radius of ball
 h = height of point of launch from floor
 All units are in inches
The Set-Up
The Set-Up
 We will endow the trajectory plane (the previous
picture) with a coordinate system
 We will take the origin to be the point of launch
 Thus, the x-axis will be parallel to the floor but h units
above it
 The y-axis will be the vertical line through the point of
launch
 In this coordinate system, for any choice of angle and
initial velocity, the trajectory of the center of the ball
will have the following equation
Equation of the Trajectory

 192  2
y 2  x  tan( ) x
 v0 cos ( ) 
2
Important Observations
 Recall y   192  x2  tan( ) x
 2 
 0
v cos 2
( ) 

 Note that if  is held fixed and v0 is increased the

graph of y as a function of x will be elevated in the
plane
 Similarly, for fixed , decreasing v0 will serve to lower
the graph in the plane
 This agrees with one’s intuition
Higher and Lower Trajectories
 In the following slide, two trajectories are plotted
 They both have the same angle of elevation of about 54
degrees (0.95 radians)
 The blue trajectory (the one on top) was determined
by an initial velocity value of 320 inches per second
 The lower red trajectory was determined by an initial
velocity of 300 inches per second
Higher and Lower Trajectories
The Configuration Plane
 The equation for the trajectory of the center of the ball
depends upon selecting values for  and for v0
 For each choice, we get a specific trajectory
 The plane determined by a horizontal axis indicating
the value of  and vertical axis indicating the value of
v0 will be called the configuration plane.
 Each point in the configuration plane will be an
ordered pair (, v0 ) which determines a unique
trajectory
The Legal Region
 Each point in the configuration plane determines a
trajectory
 Some of these trajectories will yield legal swish shots
 Others will not
 We will call the set of points in the configuration plane
that correspond to proper swish shots, the legal
region
Determining the Legal Region
 To determine this region, we shall compute a lower
bound curve and an upper bound curve in the
configuration plane
The Lower Bound
 For each choice of angle, , we will start with values of
the initial velocity, v0, that are too low and thus result
in the ball hitting the front edge of the rim
 We continuously increase the value of initial velocity
until we just succeed in going over the front edge of
the rim
 Recording this boundary value of v0 from illegal to
legal for each choice of angle produces a formula for
the lower bound curve
Lower Bound
 We compute this by observing that the trajectories
that are just on the cusp between illegal and legal are
those that are tangent to the upper right-hand
quadrant of the circle of radius r (the radius of the
ball) with center the leading edge of the rim
Trajectory Tangent to Circle about
Front Edge of Rim
The Upper Bound
 Similar to the lower bound function, we compute the
upper bound function that finds, for each choice of
angle, , the precise value of v0 that just succeeds in
making it below the back edge of the rim
 This will coincide with the set of trajectories that are
precisely tangent to the lower left-hand quadrant of
the circle of radius r about the back edge of the rim
Trajectory Tangent to Circle about
Back Edge of Rim
The Legal Region
 Armed with the upper and lower bound curves, we can
now graph the legal region in the configuration plane
 This will necessitate our filling in specific values for
the parameter letters we assigned at the beginning
 We will choose the standard NBA values: R = 9, r = 4.7,
d = 156, H= 120
 There is no standard value for h, the height of the
point of launch, as this will vary from player to player
 We shall take h = 72
The Legal Region with Standard
Values
Varying the Parameters
 The reason that we chose general parameters rather
than specific values was so that we could examine the
effects of changing them, one at a time
 In what follows, we plot the new legal regions that
result from letting h, d and r get larger, one at a time
 In each case, we plot the standard legal region with
dotted boundary for purposes of comparison
Legal Region with h = 84
Letting h Get Larger
 Increasing the value of h, the point of launch, from 72
to 84 inches moves the legal region lower in the
configuration plane
 For each value of , far less force is needed to sink a
swish shot
 As force and control have an mutually antagonistic
relationship, we see that the shot is much easier for a
taller player than a shorter one
 Once again, mathematics confirms the obvious!
Legal Region with d = 186
Letting d Get Larger
 Increasing d, the horizontal distance from the point of
launch to the front edge of the rim, from 156 to 186
moves the legal region up in the configuration plane
 Clearly this means that much more force will be
required for each value of , making the shot much
harder to achieve
 Once again the obvious is confirmed
Legal Region with r = 7
Letting r Get Larger
 Letting r, the radius of the ball, increase from 4.7 to 7
inches, we see that the new legal region is strictly
contained in the old one
 This, too, is obvious as any legal shot with a larger ball
would clearly have been legal had the ball been
smaller but not conversely
The Least Forgiving Shot
 Observe that the upper and lower bound curves meet
at a point
 This point must represent a trajectory that is,
simultaneously, tangent to the circles of radius r about
both the front and the back edge of the rim
 This shot is the least forgiving shot as any increase or
decrease in the value of v0 will result in a failed shot
 No error, whatsoever, can be tolerated
Least Forgiving Shot
We Seek the Most Forgiving Shot
 In order to make clear what we mean by the most
forgiving shot, we shall need some definitions
 For any point in the legal region of the configuration
plane, consider the distances, left and right of that
point to the two bounding curves
 We shall call the lesser of these two values (and their
common value if they are equal) the θ-tolerance of
the point
Θ-Tolerance
v0 - Tolerance
 Similarly, for any point in the configuration plane, we
find the vertical distances, up and down from the
point, to the bounding curves
 We call the smaller of the two distances (and their
common value if they are equal) the v0 – tolerance of
the point
v0 - Tolerance
Inscribed Rectangle
 Inscribe a rectangle in the legal region and draw the
vertical line that lies midway between the sides of the
rectangle
 Now draw the horizontal line that lies midway
between the top and bottom
 The point where these lines meet is the center of the
rectangle
Inscribed Rectangle with Lines
Tolerances within the Rectangle
 Observe that every point on the vertical mid-line has θ-tolerance
that is at least half the width of the rectangle and nearly all
points on it have much greater θ-tolerance
 Similarly, every point on the horizontal mid-line has v0-tolerance
that is at least half the height of the rectangle and nearly all of
the points have much greater v0-tolerance
Inscribed Rectangle with Lines
Most Forgiving Shot
 We will define the most forgiving swish shot to be the
shot determined by the center of the inscribed
rectangle of maximal area
 Thus, we are seeking to maximize the product of the
smallest θ and v0 - tolerances
Most Forgiving Shot
 With the aid of a computer program written in Maple,
I was able to determine that the values for the most
forgiving swish shot to be θ = 0.943 radians (about 54
degrees) and v0 = 290.85 inches per second
Most Forgiving Swish Shot
The Bounce Shot
 So far, we have concentrated on the swish shot. But
what about the shot that bounces off the backboard
and then goes cleanly into the basket without touching
the rim?
 It turns out that this shot is equivalent to the swish
shot that passes through the “phantom basket” that is
the reflection of the real basket in the “mirror” of the
backboard
The Bounce Shot
The Bounce Shot
 It turns out that the leading edge of the “phantom
basket” is 186 inches horizontally from the point of
launch
 We have already seen the legal region for this value of
d in a previous slide
 Recall that the legal region for d = 186 was much
higher than that for the NBA standard d = 156 and
thus, the shot was much, much harder to achieve
 Once again, the obvious is confirmed
Legal Region with d = 186
Conclusion
 We conclude with the admission that this project was
an exercise in mathematical analysis. Its purpose was
not that of utility
 For those who find themselves aggrieved by this
admission, I am prepared to accept the referee’s call of
“foul” and offer, by way of recompense, one free throw
 Thank you