The following are the basketball events of the year 1997 throughout the world.
Bloomington North defeats Delta to win Indiana's last open-class basketball state championship.
- WNBA played its first season.
- January 8 — Paul Endacott, Hall of Fame player for the Kansas Jayhawks (born 1902)
- February 2 — Raimundo Saporta, former head of Real Madrid basketball and FIBA Hall of Fame member (born 1926)
- March 6 — Roger Brown, player for Indiana Pacers (born 1942)
- April 18 — Francis Johnson, American Olympic gold medalist (1936) (born 1910)
- May 16 — Bones McKinney, former coach of the Wake Forest Demon Deacons and early NBA player (born 1919)
- May 17 — Tusten Ackerman, All-American college player at Kansas (born 1901)
- June 5 — Joe Schaaf, All-American college player (Penn) (born 1908)
- September 7 — Bill Strannigan, American college coach (Colorado State, Iowa State, Wyoming) (born 1918)
- December 23 — Lester Harrison, Hall of Fame coach of the 1951 NBA Champion Rochester Royals (born 1904)
Media related to 1997 in basketball at Wikimedia Commons