Hey Im new here, and I started playing basketball about 2 weeks ago

[Jeffdaddy12]

It minimises the risk on injury. But as long as you're not professional and young and don't mind, you can play without it.

You probably mean the 3 seconds. Attacking players can not stay more than 3 seconds in the opponents' paint. They must at least step on the line separating the paint from the rest of court once a while.

Refs don't actually count, it's rather a mechanical reaction if they see them inside the paint for a long time, or if you see attacking team's players exchanging passes or grabbing multiple rebounds in the paint, it's almost impossible to do all that below 3 seconds, so against the refs call the violation.

Compression shorts are not essential