A Hypothetical question that we are all curious about, many people wonder including myself. What would happen if a whole basketball team or the majority of players on a team happen to foul out of a game? Is this even possible? It is, it has actually happened before in the NBA….well not a whole team, but close to it. So again…
What would happen if a whole basketball team fouled out of a game? In high school and in college basketball, if every player on a team fouled out of a game, the team would be forced to forfeit and lose the game. In the NBA, there will need to be 5 players on the court at all times playing. If every player fouled out then 5 players would remain on the court and for each additional foul the opposing team would be granted a free-throw and the ball back…
We will look at the rules for high school, college, and the NBA. We will also look at what the ruling would be in each of the levels of play, and if in fact, a whole team did foul out in a basketball game, what would happen.
If you are interested in checking out the best basketball equipment and accessories then you can find them by Clicking Here! The link will take you to Amazon.com
What would it take for a whole team to foul out in a basketball game?
In basketball, you usually have 15 players on a team. 12 out of those 15 players dress to play while 1 or 2 players are dealing with injuries so they are barely playing or not playing at all. If we took just 10 of those players in an NBA basketball game and they fouled out with 6 fouls each we are looking at 60 total fouls, add in time to shoot the bonus and for substitutions, were looking at a very long game and we haven’t even considered the other team foul calls. The NBA is a 48-minute game, with the 60 fouls for the one team you are looking at a foul every 48 seconds which is definitely possible.
What if it really happened? what are the team’s options?
Hey, you wonder boy can you play? Unfortunately, it’s not an option to pick anybody out of the crowd or on the floor to play in the game. Players must have already been written down in the lineup prior to the game. The roster for each team must be set before tipoff.
The problem with this theory on paper is when the team reaches 4 players who have not fouled out, the team is forced to put in one of their fouled out players into the game. In the NBA you must play with 5 players at all times. If the player returning to the court was fouled out, and commits an additional personal foul, it is a free-throw plus the ball back for the team that was fouled every time he fouls.
The NFHS & NCAA Ruling for less than 5 players
The NFHS (high school) and NCAA require that you must have 5 players to start the game. If for any reason players from a team are fouled out or injured and are not available to play they may continue to play with less than 5 players. No team is allowed to play with less than 5 players if the players are available on the bench, meaning the coach doesn’t want to play them due to disciplinary action. The discretion of the referee will determine if there are players available to play.
This happens especially at the lower levels when players just decide not to show up last minute to a game because they can’t make it or they are late. As a coach myself, I have had this happen where we start the game with 5 players numerous times and while the game is starting, in comes the rest of my team. I have also seen a coach try to punish players by taking them off the court and leaving his team to play a 4 on 5 to punish a player, but the team is punished not just the player. The coach isn’t allowed to do this if the players are available to play.
Has this happened in the NBA? Yup! Different circumstances though, but still a very strange and unfortunate series of events.
The video below at the 5:26 mark shows the game in question. Don Nelson and the Golden State Warriors played the Portland Trail Blazers the game of the season. Basically the Warriors started with 6 players while they had 2 players who were injured and were in the lineup but Don Nelon was not going to sacrifice them to further injury. It came to a point that players started to foul out and the injured players were subbed into the game only to leave the game due to their injury. Don Nelson is a genius well sort of…check it out!
Story Time
The Inside Job of the Referee
I also play basketball and participated in my fair share of adult men’s league tournaments and games. A couple of games there have been less than 5 players on the court. One of which, I was playing in a tournament. The team we were playing started with 6 players and we’re down to five in the second half with their star player with four fouls. One more foul would have him fouled out of the game.
But this guy could do no wrong, the refs would not call the foul multiple times when he committed it. They were aware of the circumstances, and the whole gym even saw him run over one of our players leaving us all with our hands up in the air with the wtf expression on all our faces. The game was close all the way to the end. That player in question did foul out of the game after it was out of reach in the last minute of play and when he left the game we started clapping as to say hey you finally did your job, the player laughed and knew, he was a good sport. At the time I could remember how angry I was about it but I also understood why the referees did it, and I’m glad they did. It kept things competitive for a tournament that meant nothing really, it was a good no call.
Down But Not Out
Another time I played in a men’s league in which it felt like our whole team was about to foul out. We started with six players ready to play, by the second half one of our players fouled out leaving us with 5 on the court no big deal I thought, the refs know were in foul trouble, they’ll go easy on us. NOPE! Another player fouled out leaving us with four players on the court with three minutes left, at this point we were up 12 points, by the minute and a half mark we were only up a couple of baskets.
It gets better! Our third player fouled out leaving us with 3 players on the court, I wish was making this up. We are up only one basket with 32 seconds on the clock. We ended up calling a timeout and on the inbound, we were running football plays as my good friend on the team was a quarterback. It was the only way to inbound the ball because we were immediately doubled and triple-teamed. When we did get the ball in we were trapped on the sidelines immediately and the only way to advance the ball was to throw the ball off the defenders legs and inbound it again knocking just a few seconds at a time off the game clock.
It gets better. We were able to make it to the frontcourt finally, somehow we managed to kill the clock and be up one point with three seconds left. The other team steals the ball, dribbles it to half court, but the buzzer goes off before he shot the ball. I started walking back to the bench exhausted, with a win, so I thought. It gets better.
After the buzzer went off the player that shot the ball had made the basket. The team did not erupt with excitement jumping up and down as to celebrate their victory. That is because everyone in the gym thought the game was over and knew the basket wouldn’t count or so we all thought. I don’t know what the referees were watching but they counted the basket. When they did the team erupted with excitement. True Story…I was younger and ended up scoring 42 points that game and did not return back to the league, even though the owner had told me that the referees were fired.
Soccer Players are better at Soccer than Basketball
This next story is my last one and it might be better than the first two, or maybe not. Again these stories are all first-hand experiences and I really wish I was making this stuff up but I’m not. I coached high school basketball for a not-so-great basketball team, at the time we were in a local tournament playing a not so great team. Our opponents would be in foul trouble in the second half close to the end of the game with 2 minutes remaining. A couple of players on their team had already fouled out. The game was tied and now another one of their players would foul out leaving the team with four players on the court. The show must go on.
I remember looking at my coaching partner and said now we’re going to win this game, 4 against 5. Boy was I wrong, there was a timeout and we discuss the strategy against the 4 players, off they went. What a disaster, our players couldn’t figure out how to find the open guy on the court on offense and to double their best player on defense. The opposing team was able to take the lead and win by a couple baskets while we went scoreless. I guess it was us, the coaches’ fault. Boy did they celebrate like they just won the championship. How embarrassing I thought but to our defense we had a team full of soccer players. I guess they didn’t really know how to use their hands well, I don’t know.