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Originally Posted by Texas Aggie
What if there was absolutely nowhere else for the defender to go as the other places on the floor around the player he seeks to guard are taken and he doesn't wish to foul the player? Maybe the offensive player will drive the baseline under the basket looking for an outlet shooter.
You can't make a blanket statement about this. Usually, they are underneath the basket because that's the quickest place they can get to and be in a legal guarding position. How is that bad defense?
The NBA rule is stupid and designed to give the offensive player added protection that neither the NCAA nor Fed codes generally allow. They do it because the NBA is a show, not a competition.
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Frankly, I think it's likely to be a block a heckuva lot more often than if the defender is actively playing defense in front of the basket.
Why? Not because I advocate ignoring the rule. It's because it's much more likely that the defender hasn't established LGP before A1 became an airborne shooter. It's a long time between A1 leaving the floor and subsequently hitting B1 positioned under the basket on a typical layup.
BTW, I don't think it's a stupid semicircle, either -- if the only way one can defend against a layup is to position himself in A1's landing spot, he ought to cede the bucket, IMO -- but that's not relevant as I can't imagine working a game under those explicit conditions any time soon.