American Basketball League (1961–1962)

The American Basketball League played one full season, 1961–1962, and approximately one-third of the next season until the league folded on December 31, 1962. The ABL was the first basketball league to have a three-point field goal for shots attempted from longer distance. Other rules that set the league apart from the National Basketball Association (NBA) were a 30-second shot clock, as opposed to 24, and a wider free throw lane of 18 feet instead of the NBA's then-standard 12; the NBA would later expand their free throw lane to 16 feet (a couple of feet shorter than the ABL's free throw lane) a few years later in 1964, partially as a means of preventing the dominance of center play there, which is still in use as that to this day.