Quote:
Originally posted by tjones1
If he's dribbling, I wouldn't call that accidentally dropping the ball. That's what I was trying to say.
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I don't see any justification for calling it anything else. Dropped, fumbled, whatever -- it was before starting the throwing motion. The intent of the rule and case play is to not penalize the thrower before the throw UNLESS there is a delay situation (enters the semicircle after the resuming of play procedure or walks with the ball out of the semicircle).
As soon as the ball was out of the reach of the thrower, I blew the whistle and reset. Not sure whether he even had time to step into the lane to get it. Amazing I had mywhistle in my mouth, cause I usually don't on the first of 2 FTs, especially in 3-person, where I don't have the subs coming in.
The problem my partners had with it was that they said that a FT shooter could wait 9 seconds and then just fumble the ball intentionally to avoid a violation.
Since the official counting is behind the thrower, though, and since I've called exactly one 10-second violation in thelast 19 years, I just don't see that as being a problem.
Matter of fact, my partners were surprised when I said I usually don't even maintain a count, just flick my wrist for show. I was only half-kidding
--Rich