2.1. Participants

Athletes were recruited from Italian basketball leagues. A total of 111 male basketball players (age: 23.7 ± 4.8 years) were enrolled in this study. They have been practicing this sport on average for 12.1 ± 5.1 years within an organized team with an average training of 11.7 ± 6.4 h/week. These players participated in the 2016–17 season of the Italian A1 (N = 23), A2 (N = 21), and B (N = 30) leagues while 37 of them participated in an amateur basketball league. Taking into account the different tasks performed by the players in relation to their role, the players were divided into five groups according to the game role: Twenty-four point guards, 30 shooting guards, 22 small forwards, 21 power forwards, and 14 centers. We approached amateur players directly at sports associations in the Ferrara and Rovigo area (North-Eastern Italy) while professional players were indirectly contacted via coaches and secretariats of Italian basketball teams and individually compiled inventories, after the distribution, on a voluntary basis.

In addition, we recruited 40 control subjects (male students of the University of Ferrara who agreed to participate in this study) via a convenience-based sampling approach. Following a general announcement, students interested in participating received full information on the research. The unique inclusion criterion was to not be engaged in any sport activity, in order to avoid any interference with laterality caused by other specific sport activities. The control group was 25.1 ± 2.3 years old.

Before participating in this study, each participant filled out a brief questionnaire about his sporting background to be used in the selection of non-athletic controls in addition to the main personal information. Furthermore, data on sports practice were collected for basketball players, indicating the game role, current competitive level, years of coached practice, and hours/week training.

The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki, and the protocol was approved by the Ethics Committee of Ferrara University, Italy. All participants, fully informed about the study aims and procedures, provided written consent before taking part in the study. Apart from signing the informed consent, there were no further exclusion criteria.