Quote:
Originally Posted by Camron Rust
While I agree with your conclusion (that disconcertion applies to bench personnel) ... 2017-18 rule book ... there are 35 uses of the word opponent or opponents. Many of the references are in regard to awarding a throwin to the opponents after an infraction or free throws for technical foul, where the team is the beneficiary of the award, but it is always a player that must execute the awarded throw-in or free throw. The next most frequent use is as a synonym for opposing players where it refers to live ball situations...contact fouls, free-throw space requirements, jump/held ball. It is rare that the word opponent, in the rule book, refers to anyone on the bench.
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Agree. I did the same search as Camron Rust and found the same references to players (as Camron Rust stated so eloquently).
Good citations for JRutledge and Stat-Man to defend their positions.
However, there is still no citation (rule, casebook interpretation, annual interpretation, or point of emphasis) that states that an opponent can't be bench personnel and that one can't call a distracting delayed violation on bench personnel.
The rulebook tells us that a free throw shooter
must get an
unhindered try and
must not be
distracted by an
opponent.
Without a rule definition, casebook interpretation, annual interpretation, or point of emphasis that states otherwise; common sense, purpose and intent, fair play, and a Funk and Wagnalls dictionary tells me that one can call a distracting delayed violation on bench personnel.
The guys on the bench did something obviously unsporting. They should be made to pay with a delayed violation do-over, or a technical foul (two free throws by the team's best free throw shooter, and the ball.
A, "Knock it off. Don't do it again"(bench warning), just doesn't cut the mustard, certainly not for an obvious pre-planned last split second startling obvious distraction by the opposing bench followed by an air ball on the front end of a one and one in the last seconds of a very close game.
I'm convinced that we can, by rule, penalize with a bench unsporting technical foul.
I'm convinced that we can charge a bench warning in some cases when the bench starts distracting a little early and the officials can sound the whistle to stop the free throw.
I'm not convinced that we can't call a delayed violation if officials can't stop the free throw in the above situation.
Rule 4 defines everything else short of the kitchen sink. I wonder why they didn't define opponent?