The eyes of a basket ball player are 6 feet above the floor. He is at the free-throw line, which is 15 feet from the center of the basket rim. The center of the rim is 10 feet above the floor

Question

Before shooting the player decides to step back a few steps. His angle of elevation is now 12.5o. How far from the center of the rim is his eye?

I used cos12.5=15/x

Answer 1

The rim is only 4 feet above his eyes, so

4/x = sin 12.5°

we don't really care how far horizontally he is from the basket. All that stuff about 15 feet and stepping back is just noise. The final picture is just a 12.5° angle with a 4-ft height difference.