Continental Basketball Association

The Continental Basketball Association or CBA is a professional men's basketball league in the United States. The league views itself as a minor league that develops talent for the National Basketball Association. It is affiliated with USA Basketball, the sport's governing body in the U.S. It should not be confused with another CBA, the Chinese Basketball Association.

CBA Rules

The CBA follows the same basketball rules as does the NBA and most other professional leagues. However, in the late 1970s CBA commissioner Jim Drucker added several new rules to increase scoring and raise fan interest.

Related Topics:
NBA - 1970s

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• During each game, a team can win up to seven standings points - three points for winning the game, and one point for each quarter in which they outscore their opponent. The teams with the greatest number of standings points at the end of the year go to the playoffs.
• A player cannot foul out of the game - after a player's sixth personal foul, the opposing team receives an automatic free throw.
• During the 1982-83 and 1983-84 seasons, overtime games were decided by the team who scored the first three points in overtime. During the 1984-85 season, that rule was modified so that victory went to the first team to LEAD by three points in overtime. By the 1987-88 season, that rule was superseded by a standard five-minute overtime period to determine the winner.
• During the 1981-82 season, the CBA created a six-foot by five-foot "no call box", an area in front of the baskets in which any contact in the box betwen offensive and defensive players was to be an automatic defensive foul. This rule, which was designed to encourage drives to the hoop, caused more confusion than scoring, and the rule was quickly abandoned.
• For a few years in the early early 1980's, the CBA offered a money-back guarantee, returning a patron's money if before the start of the second quarter, the fan left the game. There was also a "national season ticket," allowing fans to attend any CBA games within a 100-mile radius of his hometown.

Other CBA rules and innovations that were later adopted by the NBA include the three-point line (first used in the CBA in 1964), collapsible rims to keep backboard glass from being destroyed in a dunk (first used by the CBA in 1980), and the offering of three foul shots if a player is fouled in the act of shooting a three-point behind-the-arc play.

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