Quote:
Originally Posted by Rufus
M&M
I see your point, but expand the thought a little. What if, for whatever reason, the coach decides he only wants 4 players on the court even though he has eligible players on the bench available (for some reason a picture of Gene Hackman flashed into my head - don't know why). After a couple of plays/minutes/whatever he finally decides to send a 5th player to check in. Are they a substitute or not? I would think they were considered a substitute in that situation wouldn't they?
I guess the point I'm trying to get to is we as officials can't read minds and understand why there are only 4 players on the court. We can determine that we have a live ball with fewer than 5 players. Once that happens any players looking to come into the game become substitutes don't they?
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In any "normal" dead-ball situation, we would be counting players and getting that 5th player on the floor before putting the ball in play. Case play 3.1.1 tells us that a team must play with 5 if there are 5 available. However, this play happend because a team was delaying coming out of the huddle, so the officials did not have the opportunity to count and make sure all 5 were on the court.
As far as what is a "substitute", I don't think there's a specific definition, although I would probably argue the generic definition that in order to substitute, you must be replacing someone. In the OP, A5 wasn't replacing anyone, but rather they were actually one of the 5 players that were supposed to be on the floor. And, the case play tells us the reason for the T is not because of sub coming on the floor illegally, but due to one of the 5 players not returning at the same time.