From
http://www.nba.com/analysis/rules_12...av=ArticleList
Section II--Delay-of-Game
a. A delay-of-game shall be called for:
(4) Touching the ball before the throw-in has been released.
(5) A defender crossing the boundary line prior to the ball being released on a throw-in.
PENALTY: The first offense is a warning. A technical foul shall be assessed with each successive offense and charged to the team....
EXCEPTION (5): In the last two minutes of the fourth period and/or any over-time period, a technical foul will be assessed if the defender crosses or breaks the plane of the boundary line prior to the ball being released on a throw-in.
From a strict reading of NBA rules, you may have been partially right. It reads as if it should have been a warning based on item #4.
However, you didn't learn this (correctly) from HS or college. In both of those, the ball is fair game when it is held across the boundary line.
Now the reason you probably didn't get the call....nearly all officials that do rec leagues are trained (if trained at all) on HS rules. They probably know many of the main NBA differences but you shouldn't expect them to know these oddball rarely encountered differences.
[Edited by Camron Rust on Nov 8th, 2005 at 12:52 AM]