Wheelchair Basketball

What's it all about?

Wheelchair Basketball is among the oldest and most established of wheelchair sports, having been introduced over fifty years ago as a rehabilitation and recreational pursuit for people with spinal cord injury. It is now enjoyed by people with different impairments and at lower league levels, by non-disabled people as well.

One of the advantages of wheelchair basketball is that there are very few differences in either rules or equipment between the wheelchair version and the non-disabled original version of the game. The basket is the same height, the court is the same size, the duration of the games is the same, the rules are almost identical, apart from a few minor changes, - the dribble ruling is different in the wheelchair game.

Possibly the only respect in which the game does differ from its non-disabled equivalent is in the classification of players, according to their level of impairment. A highly disabled player will normally be marked as one point, while a below the knee amputee will be around 4.5, in order to ensure both teams are reasonably balanced in ability terms. Non-disabled players are awarded 5 points each and the combined total of each team of five players must not exceed 14.5 points.