minute (basketball)
{{Short description|Unit of time in a basketball game}}
{{More citations needed|date=June 2016}}
A minute is a unit of time in a basketball game. Technically, just a minimum of one second in silo (1-59) would count as one minute of playing time. For example, there are forty-eight minutes in each NBA basketball game, excluding overtime. As five people from one team will be on the court at any given time, a total of 240 minutes can be distributed in regulation among a team in an NBA basketball game.
For players, the total number of minutes played in a season—and the average number of minutes played per game—are both tracked as statistics.
Leaders
File:Kareem-Abdul-Jabbar_Lipofsky.jpg
LeBron James is the all-time leader in minutes played with 57,578 as of December 30, 2024. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (57,446), Karl Malone (54,852), Dirk Nowitzki (51,368), Kevin Garnett (50,418), Jason Kidd (50,111), and Elvin Hayes (50,000) are the only other players with 50,000 or more minutes played in a career.{{cite web|url=https://www.basketball-reference.com/leaders/mp_career.html|title=NBA & ABA Career Leaders and Records for Minutes Played|website=Basketball-Reference.com|access-date=Dec 30, 2024}} Most of Abdul-Jabbar and Hayes's minutes can largely be attributed to the amount of playing time that star players had in the late 1960s and early-to-mid 1970s. Abdul-Jabbar played 40 or more minutes per game from the {{nbay|1969|app=season}} to the {{nbay|1975|app=season}},{{cite web|url=https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/a/abdulka01.html|title=Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Stats |website=Basketball-Reference.com|access-date=May 19, 2019}} while Hayes played 40 or more minutes per game from the {{nbay|1968|app=season}} to the {{nbay|1974|app=season}} and from the {{nbay|1976|app=season}} to the {{nbay|1977|app=season}}.{{cite web|url=https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/h/hayesel01.html|title=Elvin Hayes Stats |website=Basketball-Reference.com|access-date=May 19, 2019}}
Wilt Chamberlain holds the record for most minutes played in the NBA in one season with 3,882, set in the {{nbay|1961|app=season}}.