I had a brain freeze about this rule last night. If a player throws the ball in on an inbounds play and the ball hits the rim....is it out of bounds or playable?

Hitting the ring is no problem. The ball remains live and play continues.

However, causing the ball to enter the basket or lodge between the ring and backboard on a throw-in are violations.

What about an inbounds pass that hits the bottom of the backboard and bounces into play?

Live ball.

The bottom of the board is in-bounds, so that's legal- except for one specific situation that you have to watch out for. That situation is an endline throw-in that hits the bottom of the board at the same end and then bounces in-bounds but back towards the endline. To do so, the throw-in must have hit the back of the board instead of the bottom. The back is OOB, so that would be a violation. If the ball bounced straight down or towards the court in front of the board, it must have hit the bottom. The FED issued that play a while ago.

Had the weirdest thing I have ever seen last week. Player tries to throw a hail-mary inbound from the baseline, it hits the net (on his own basket) and looped up into the basket. Called a violation, but was bizarre!