Hit a Free Throw With These NBA Finals Basketball Activities!

Every June, NBA fans are on the edge of their seats or glued to their TVs, watching the playoffs and waiting to see which team gets to claim the Larry O’Brien Championship Trophy. If your students are excited about the NBA finals or basketball season in general, use this as an opportunity to include that content in the lessons you’re already teaching:

• Make an easy lay-up with engaging ELA basketball content and activities
• Box out boredom with basketball-themed science lessons
• Dig into the history of basketball and the NBA in social studies

[Make an easy lay-up with engaging ELA basketball content and activities](id-ela)

What do your students know about basketball and the NBA? Help them build background knowledge on the sport and its playoff run in the ELA classroom:

Decide if athletic competition is good

During the NBA finals, athletes (and their fans) can get extra competitive. But is that devotion to the game and desire for winning the championship good for their mental health? Use this lesson as a debate topic for your students. To help them form their opinions and strengthen their arguments, share articles on topics like:

• The reaction to LeBron James breaking Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s career scoring record in 2023.
• How youth basketball is becoming an ultra-competitive sport for some elementary and middle school students thanks to the popularity of travel sports teams.
• An opinion piece on how the pressure to become a winner may lead athletes to engage in unethical behavior, like cheating.

Discover the skills basketball players need to succeed

In addition to their sports talents, athletes also need to have soft skills, like patience. Use this paired text analysis activity to examine how these things are related.

• First, have students read the fictional short story called “Abby Takes Her Shot” by Susan M. Dyckman.
• Next, assign a nonfiction article that gives tips on how to be patient.
• Finally, have students complete a paired text analysis worksheet to answer the question, “How are the text structure and author’s purpose connected in each text?”

Share basketball novels

Use our novel studies to help students build background on basketball and other important topics as they read stories like:

• “The Crossover” by Kwame Alexander
• “Taking Sides” by Gary Soto
• “Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” by Sherman Alexie

[Box out in-class boredom with basketball-themed STEM lessons](id-sci)

STEM and sports are connected even more than your students may realize. Use science lessons to help students explore how topics like statistics and geometry can impact the game of basketball:

Discover the science behind basketball

From neuroscience to stats and other disciplines in between, math and science play a big part in making basketball competitive and exciting to watch. Use the content and activities in this text set to explore the ways STEM affects the game:

• Look at neuroscience research showing how basketball players who vary their practice routines may get better at throwing foul shots.
• Have students compare who’s a better basketball player, Michael Jordan or LeBron James, based on their player statistics.
• See how psychological traits like competitiveness, work ethic, and attitude help people perform better at sports.

Analyze NBA player data

Sports stats can tell us a lot about athletes’ performance, the records they’ve achieved, and how they stack up against one another. Students can explore this data in science class using resources like:

• A dataset that looks at NBA players’ height, weight, jump, and scoring success.
• An article on how NBA teams use technology like the SportVU camera system to capture more in-game data than ever before—and how it affects their play and practice routines.
• An article on how a neuroscience professor helped the Swarthmore College basketball team improve their foul shot percentage.

[Dig into the history of basketball and the NBA in social studies](id-ss)

Who invented basketball and where were the first games played? Why are there so many different levels of basketball to play, like high school, college, and professional games? Students can get answers to these and other questions with social studies lessons.

Learn about the history of basketball

Students can learn more about the history of basketball and why it’s so popular worldwide by reading articles on topics like:

• How setting baskets at 10 feet created a design problem for the court that experts didn’t resolve for decades.
• How sports analysts and commentators use percentages and data to assess athletes’ performance.
• Which level is more interesting to watch and play: College basketball vs. professional basketball.

Meet famous basketball players

Help students learn some fun facts about their favorite basketball players by reading articles on topics like:

• How Lebron James opened the I Promise School in Ohio to provide educational opportunities, wraparound services, and stress relief for at-risk students.
• Why Kobe Bryant’s death in 2020 deeply affected many fans and supporters—even people who didn’t know him personally.
• How Steph Curry vowed to offer his Under Armour Curry 5 basketball shoes in girls’ sizes after a young fan asked him to do so.

Hit a three-pointer with Newsela’s library of content and activities

Make the crowd (your students) go wild by sharing this and other great high-interest content, engaging activities, and relevant assessments during every lesson, not just during the NBA Finals. 

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