In basketball, an air ball is an unblocked shot that misses the basket, rim and backboard entirely. ^[1]

Origin

The Oxford English Dictionary cites earliest printed use of "air ball" in a 29 January 1967 article from the (Hayward, Calif.) Daily Review, which reads: "Cal State, four times lofting air balls at an orange basket that may as well have been painted invisible." ^[2]

Crowd behavior and consequences

In collegiate basketball, home crowds were found to initially chant when the air ball shot was made from a distance and when it resulted in a lost possession. Home crowds were also more persistent in their chants when the shot was made farther from the basket. ^[3] An archival exploration showed that away players who shot an air ball had a lower success rate in the shot immediately after, as compared to home players launching the same shot; however, this difference was unrelated to the chant. ^[4]

Examples

In a 106 to 89 loss to the Atlanta Hawks on December 28, 1974, Elmore Smith of the Los Angeles Lakers had an unusual performance in a game where he made only one of 11 free throw attempts. He missed three consecutive shots from the free throw line (under the now defunct " "three to make two" rule in the NBA at the time), all three of which failed to hit anything but the floor. ^[5]

In another example, a three-point shot by the Brooklyn Nets' Kevin Durant in Game 7 of the 2021 Eastern Conference semifinals, that would have put the Nets ahead of the Milwaukee Bucks, 114 to 113 with less than one second left, was an air ball. ^[6]

See also

• Brick (basketball)
• Whiff (baseball)
• Whiff (tennis)

References

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