page_title: Key (basketball)
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Key (basketball) / History
caption_attribution_description: Scope and content: The full caption for this photograph reads: Granada Relocation Center, Amache, Colorado. A hotly contested basket ball game between the Granada city business men's team and a team recruited from the staff of the center newspaper. The final score, Granada 33, Amache 31. Said the Granada newspaper, "The game last night between the Granada business man's group and the Pioneers of the Amache Relocation Center was a huge success. It was a stiff contest and we are looking forward to a repetition in the near future."
context_page_description: The key, officially referred to as the free throw lane by the National Basketball Association, the National Collegiate Athletic Association, and the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics, the restricted area by the international governing body FIBA, and colloquially as the lane or the paint, is a marked area on a basketball court surrounding the basket. It is bounded by the endline, the free-throw line and two side lines, and usually painted in a distinctive color. It is a crucial area on the court where much of the game's action takes place.
  Dimensions of the key area have varied through the history of the game. Since the 2010 FIBA rule amendments, its shape is rectangular for games sanctioned by all three associations, 16 feet wide for both NBA and FIBA keys, and 12 feet for NCAA and NAIA keys. Prior to 2006, the key in FIBA-sanctioned tournaments was a trapezoidal shape.
  The most-commonly enforced rule on the key is the "three seconds rule" in which the team of a player on offense who stays on the key for more than three seconds loses possession of the ball.
context_section_description: Originally, the key was narrower and was shaped like a keyhole, measuring six feet (1.8 m) wide, hence its name "the key", with the free-throw circle as the head, and the shaded lane as the body. It has been also called "cup" or "bottle" in other languages, because of how it looks from other perspectives. Due to the narrow key, imposing centers, such as George Mikan, dominated the paint, scoring at will. To counter this, the key was widened into 12 feet (3.7 m) from 6 feet (1.8 m) at the onset of the 1951–52 NBA season.
  Men's professional basketball in the United States (the National Basketball Association) widened it further to 16 feet (4.9 m) in the 1964–65 NBA season to reduce the effectiveness of dominant centers, especially Wilt Chamberlain. The NCAA and NAIA retain the 12‑foot key to this day.
  On April 25, 2008, the FIBA Central Board approved rule changes that included the shape of the key. It is now rectangular and has virtually the same dimensions as the key used in the NBA. In addition, the no-charge semicircle formally called the restricted area arc was also created. The change took effect in 2010.
caption: In this basketball game played in 1942, the key was much narrower than the free-throw circle.
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