How Much Is There A Force Without Forces In Basketball

Every aspect of basketball has some type of force working upon it. For example, without friction a basketball player would be unable to stop because inertia states that objects in motion tend to stay in motion. Without friction acting upon the player, there is no force to stop him, until he hits a wall that is. With this information you can come to the conclusion that without forces, there would be no game of basketball. However, what exactly is a force? Webster's dictionary defines force as a push or pull that can change the speed or direction of an object (Merriam-Webster). At any point in a game the most prevalent force acting upon both the player and the ball is gravity. Gravity can be seen influencing anything from a passed basketball
to a player jumping. One of the most obvious parts of basketball that gravity affects is the shot. Shooting a basketball requires accurately calculating how much force is needed to overcome gravity, and at what angle to direct the force. The higher the angle of your shot, the “wider” the goal becomes. When the ball comes straight down on the basket, it is less likely to hit the rim and thus more likely to go in (Fontanella 2006). With this information you could guess that shooting at as high an angle as possible would be the best shot possible. On paper this seems correct, however when we take a shot we can not pre-load our arm with exact calculations needed to accurately steer a ball given that much force. We simply use muscle memory and give it our best estimation. The higher you send the ball, the more force was needed to propel the ball that high. The more force you put on the ball, the more control you lose because the estimations of force have a higher room for error. Another factor you need to put into effect is the gravitational force being put on the ball. The higher you shoot the ball the more gravity will speed up the ball on the return to the basket. This means if the ball was to hit the rim, it would hit it with much more force and be more likely to just bounce away (Fontanella 2006). Backspin is another aspect of shooting that is widely used to increase your chances at the basketball going into the basket. Some people assume that backspin provides some help in the form of air resistance, but this is untrue because the effects backspin actually have on air resistance are very minimal. The real effect of backspin comes when the ball either hits the rim or backboard. When the ball makes contact with the rim or backboard, the velocity of the ball will drastically change. Backspin on the ball will make the ball want to travel a vertical path, thus improving the chances of the ball actually going in the basket. This is because when the ball makes contact, it wants to travel in the opposite direction it was spinning (Fontanella 2006). This is why a ball that has little or no backspin will more than likely just bounce off the rim or backboard, instead of moving towards the net. Backspin will transfer energy from the ball into the basket also reducing the amount of bounce that occurs. This energy transfer is made possible because of the friction that occurs between the spinning of the basketball making contact with the basket (Fontanella 2006). There are various ways to improve your accuracy of shooting, one of which is adding your own momentum into your shot. For example, a jump shot adds more vertical momentum to your shot allowing you to reach a higher arc more accurately. With a running jump shot, or more commonly a layup, you add more horizontal momentum into your shot, which allows the ball to travel further with less force. The velocity of the ball will equal the sum of the shooters speed and the balls speed. In the case of a layup barely any force is required because you are basically dropping the ball into the net. This is even more prevalent in a dunk (Gardner & Shortelle 2010). Passing is another important aspect of basketball. Catching a pass can boil down to the simple equation, mass times velocity equals force times time, which can be translated into force equals mass times velocity divided by time. The idea behind this is that the longer a pass stays in the air, the less force you will receive upon catching and thus be less likely to drop the ball. The best way in order to catch a perfect pass is to catch the ball with your arms slightly bent. With this technique you should catch the ball near your chest. To understand why this helps you must first understand that the mass of an object multiplied by its velocity equals its momentum. The momentum of an object divided by the time it takes for the object to reach its destination is the force that is applied to its destination (Gardner & Shortelle 2010). When a player catch a ball with his arms extended and slightly bent, he is slowing down the ball relatively gradually. This in turn makes the ball take more time to reach its destination, the player catching the ball, thus reducing the total amount of force applied to the player catching the ball. Since momentum is divided by time, increasing the time reduces the force. This can greatly reduce the chance of a player dropping a ball when it is thrown to them (Gardner & Shortelle 2010). Sometime around 400 hundred years ago Galileo discovered that if an object is dropped while on another moving vessel, that object does not fall behind the vessel. This same principle applies whenever you are dribbling a basketball. Whenever you move forward the ball will move with you when dribbled, because the ball also adopts your momentum (Fontanella 2006). This is similar to the same physics in the running jump shot or layup. If you were to stop you can't just leave the ball, or else it would fly off as it still has your momentum. Instead you have to counter-act that momentum using your arms and hand to force it back into the position you want. A different force comes into play that allows a ball that is being dribbled to return to you. Whenever you push the ball down, in addition to the added gravity, the ball exerts a force onto the ground. Newton's third law states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction (Miles 2012). Because of this law, the force exerts and equal and opposite force onto the ball, forcing it back up to you. The reason we have to continually put force onto the ball is because when the ball hits the floor some of its energy is lost as heat. The energy supplied by the player is enough to overcome this though. You can tell this is true because if you were to bounce a ball once then let it continue on its own, it would continually bounce less high each time until it finally came to rest on the floor (Miles 2012). If you increase the amount of air in a ball, you will also increase how high it bounces. Whenever the ball hits the ground it compresses and squashes. Extra air pressure makes the ball push against the ground harder and in turn making the ground push back against the ball harder. Energy that goes into air compression mostly returns in the form of pushing the ball back against a surface. If there is not enough air inside of a basketball then most of the energy goes into bending the rubber that the ball is made out of. This results in a ball with very little bounce (Miles 2012). One aspect of basketball you wouldn't normally think of looking for physics is the shoes the players wear.
Basketball shoes used to be simple converse shoes with flat soles, but as injuries increased work was done to better improve the shoes the players wore. Most shoes worn by basketball players today are a type of high top that allows a player to lace his shoe up and around his ankle. This creates a tension around the ankle that in turn stabilizes it. Because of this ankle the support the rest of the shoe will absorb forces that would normally make a player's ankle roll-over and cause an injury (Slade 2010). The law of inertia can be seen here because a players ankle wants to continue moving but the force of the shoe does not allow the ankle to continue and stops it. In order to move in any way you must create friction between you and the surface you are pushing against. The greater the friction, the easier it is to direct your movements. This is why basketball shoes normally have rubber on the bottom. Rubber is good for making a lot of friction, especially when it comes in contact with a hard surface (Slade 2010). Shoes today are also lighter than they were previously. By lowering the mass of the shoes, players are more easily able to move their feet. This may not seem like much of an improvement, but you have to realize some players will be moving almost non-stop for hours, so any little bit helps. Another aspect of shoes today you may not think about are that they are
breathable. When shoes are breathable they reduce the amount of kinetic energy being transformed into thermal energy (Slade 2010). Once again this may not seem like a big impact at first, but after hours it does make a difference. Finally one of the most important aspects of basketball is jumping.
The game of basketball itself even begins with a battle of jumping between two players. Players are routinely evaluated on how they can jump to determine what spot they get. When a player start his jump he will normally bend his knees. This creates stored energy for him to use during his jump. The energy will then travel down his leg and push against the floor. The floor then pushes back with an equal strength and the player is able to leap into the air. The more force a player pushes into the ground, the harder the ground will push back and the higher the player will jump. After jumping a player will continue accelerating slower and slower until he reaches his peak, where for a fraction of a second his acceleration will be zero (Hesston College). This is when the player begins his return back to the ground. During this entire process energy is never lost, only converted. When the player is ready to jump he has a lot of potential energy. Once he jumps potential energy is converted into kinetic energy. Then as he nears his peak, the kinetic energy is being converted into potential energy. Once he reach reaches his peak the player once again has a lot of potential energy that begins to be converted to kinetic energy on his way back down. If a player were to increase his kinetic energy pre-jump by say running, he would then be able to have more of it converted to potential energy which would result in a higher
jump (Hesston College).