How Many Players Are on a Basketball Team?

The captain may be anyone on the active list who is in uniform, except a player-coach. The captain is the only player who may ask an official about a rule interpretation during a timeout charged to his team.

Rule 3, Section I deals with a short bench. A player is disqualified when he receives his sixth personal foul. If the player in the game receives his sixth personal foul and all substitutes have already been disqualified, he remains in the game and is charged with a personal and a team foul, and a technical foul is assessed against his team.

If only five eligible players remain and one of them is injured and must leave, or is ejected, he must be replaced by the last player who was disqualified for six personal fouls. Each later replacement follows this inverse order, and such a re-entry is penalized with a technical foul. This rule is why a team cannot be reduced to fewer than five players on the floor.

At least 30 minutes before the scheduled start, the scorers must be given the name and number of each player who will start the game. The crew chief checks the active list before the game.

The bench is covered by the rules as well. The first row of a team's bench may be occupied only by a league-approved head coach, a maximum of three assistant coaches, players and a trainer. A substitute must report to the scorer, position himself in the vicinity of the 8-foot Substitution Box in front of the scorer's table, and tell the scorer whom he will replace. He must wait there until an official beckons him onto the court.

A few limits apply to who may enter and when. A substitute may not replace a free throw shooter or a player involved in a jump ball unless an injury or ejection requires it, and no substitutes may enter after a successful field goal by either team unless the ball is dead because of a foul, a timeout, a violation or infection control. A substitute may not re-enter the game after being disqualified, except in the case of a team reduced below five players.

The five-player rule has a procedure for the case when players are lost. If only five eligible players remain and one of them is injured and must leave, or is ejected, he must be replaced by the last player who was disqualified for six personal fouls, and each later replacement of that kind follows the same inverse order. Such a re-entry is penalized with a technical foul. This is the only way a disqualified player returns to a game.

A player who leaves the court while the ball is in play does not stop the game. Play continues until the next stoppage, and the player is replaced if he is not ready to return. No technical foul is assessed for it, but the incident is reviewed by the League Office for a possible fine or suspension. Officials must also report to the Basketball and Referee Operations Departments a team's failure to have eight players to begin the game.

The rules reach people who are not playing as well. Players who are not in uniform, whether they are on the active list or the inactive list, must wear dress attire that is clean and neat in appearance, such as league-approved team-issued apparel, when seated on the bench, and athleisure clothing such as joggers and sweatpants is not permitted there.

The minimum of eight dressed and eligible players, and nine in the Play-In and playoffs, also affects suspensions. If several players are suspended for leaving the bench during an altercation, and the team would otherwise be short of the required number, the suspensions are served over more than one game, with the players serving them in alphabetical order of their last names.

A player, coach or assistant coach who is told by an official that he has been ejected must leave the playing area immediately and remain in the dressing room of his team until the game is over, or leave the building. A violation of that rule carries an automatic fine, and a fine of up to $100,000 and possible forfeiture of the game may be imposed. A player, coach or assistant coach who is suspended from a game may not appear at any time before, during or after it in any part of the arena or stands where his team is playing, and a violation carries an automatic fine of $2,000.

Each team may have a captain and a co-captain, a maximum of two. The designated captain may be anyone on the active list who is in uniform, except a player-coach, and is the only player who may ask an official about a rule interpretation during a timeout charged to his team. He may not discuss a judgment decision. If the designated captain keeps sitting on the bench, he remains the captain for the entire game, and if he is absent from both the court and the bench, the coach immediately designates a new one.

The coach has a marked place. The coach's position may be on or off the bench from the substitution box line closest to the coach's bench to the baseline, and a coach is not permitted to cross the midcourt line: violators are assessed an unsportsmanlike technical foul immediately. All assistants and trainers must remain on the bench, and coaches and trainers may not go to the scorer's table for any reason except during a dead ball. A player-coach, if permitted under NBA regulations, has no special privileges and conducts himself like any other player.

Uniforms are part of the same rule. Each player is numbered on the front and back of his jersey with a number that contrasts with the color of the shirt. Each number must be no less than three-quarters of an inch wide and 4 inches high on the front and 6 inches high on the back, and each player's surname is affixed to the back of the game jersey in letters at least 2½ inches high. The home team wears light-colored jerseys and the visitors dark ones unless otherwise approved, and in neutral-court games and doubleheaders the second team named in the official schedule is regarded as the home team and wears light jerseys.

The playing rules fix the number of players on the floor, the smallest roster a team may play with and the way a short bench is handled. They do not give the total number of players a club may carry. That figure comes from the agreements between the league and its players, and it is not part of the text this page quotes, so the page leaves it out and does not give a number for it.

The wording comes from Rules 3 and 12 of the official 2025-26 NBA playing rules. The total number of players a team may carry on its roster is not in the playing rules, so this page does not state it.

The rules are reviewed each year. This page was checked against the 2025-26 edition. More basketball pages are collected on the NBA hub, and the page about PF in basketball covers the foul limit.