[Back In The Saddle]

Some of them seem basic and obvious, that is true. However many of them encompass knowledge that could only be had by studying all the relevant rules and then making additional inferrences based on the lack of rules to the contrary.

For example the fundamental about a jump ball, throw-in, and free throw being the only way to get a dead ball live. To prove this otherwise you'd have to pull together the relevant sections of rule six and rule four, which only tell us when the dead ball becomes live during these events. Then you have to infer that there are no additional ways a ball can become live from the absense of any other rules.

You'd be just as correct to continue believing what this fundamental tells us if it didn't exist. But minus this authoratative statement, any argument to the contrary would have be settled by saying, "Show me a place where the rulebook says the ball becomes live any other way."