{"id":625261,"date":"2026-04-24T09:30:21","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T09:30:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/625261\/"},"modified":"2026-04-24T09:30:21","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T09:30:21","slug":"all-the-rules-differences-between-the-nba-and-wnba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/625261\/","title":{"rendered":"All the Rules & Differences Between the NBA and WNBA"},"content":{"rendered":"

We’re in the final push of the 2025-2026 NBA season, with the Playoffs now in full swing on NBC and Peacock<\/a>, but the 2026 WNBA<\/a> season is just beginning. League play for the year begins in May and continues into the fall, with a ton of games on NBC and Peacock<\/a>, giving basketball fans another dose of their favorite sport even after the NBA’s stars have hung it up for the season.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If you’ve never watched the WNBA<\/a> before and you’re curious about how it all works, the good news is that if you understand basketball, you’ll be able to follow the action without any problems. That said, there are a few subtle differences in the way the NBA and WNBA<\/a> do things, so let’s take a quick look at the differences in rules between the two leagues.<\/p>\n

RELATED: Every WNBA Game on NBC and Peacock in 2026<\/a><\/p>\n

How the WNBA differs from the NBACourt and ball dimensions<\/p>\n

In almost every way, a WNBA<\/a> court is the exact same dimensions as an NBA court. They’re the same length, the same width, the free throw lines are in the same place, and so on. The only major difference is in the three-point line. At its furthest point from the basket, a WNBA<\/a> three-point arc is just over 22 feet, making it nearly two feet shorter than an NBA three-point arc.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The leagues also differ in the dimensions of the basketball itself. An NBA ball has a circumference of roughly 29.5 inches, while a WNBA ball is about an inch smaller, with a minimum circumference of 28.5 inches and a maximum of 29 inches.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Timekeeping differences<\/p>\n

Both the NBA and the WNBA<\/a> divide their games into four quarters, but WNBA games are slightly shorter, at 10 minutes per quarter versus the NBA’s 12 minutes per quarter. The WNBA also, as a result, gets fewer timeouts, five per game with one additional “reset timeout” to be used in the game’s final minutes. The NBA allots seven timeouts per team per game.<\/p>\n

RELATED: Who Were the Top Picks in the 2026 WNBA Draft?<\/a><\/p>\n

Rosters<\/p>\n

Team sizes are also slightly different, with 12 players per WNBA roster versus 15 per NBA roster.<\/p>\n

When does the WNBA return?<\/p>\n

The WNBA’s preseason games are ongoing now. The 2026 regular season is set to begin Friday, May 8, with new WNBA games hitting NBC and Peacock<\/a> the following weekend, on May 17.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We’re in the final push of the 2025-2026 NBA season, with the Playoffs now in full swing on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":625262,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[461,49,48,4052,17228,5250,82,630],"class_list":["post-625261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-basketball","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-evergreen","tag-nbc-sports","tag-peacock","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=625261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625261\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/625262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=625261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=625261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=625261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}