Quote:
Originally Posted by bob jenkins
Agreed that the more the official knows about the game, the better the official is able to head off problems before they occur. IT's in the same vein as 6 players on the court -- the official should count before putting the ball in play, but if they don't, then the team gets penalized. And, of the things an official needs to know / remember / perform -- knowing TOs and team fouls are down on the list.
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I must be in the minority here, but late in the game I absolutely want to know the timeout situation. Mainly because once a team uses its last 30-second timeout or last 60-second timeout, I know what they have left so I don't spend 10 seconds asking the coach what he wants, only to be told by him he only has 30-second timeouts left. I also make sure both books agree on the number of timeouts. If I've gone to that amount of trouble and the scorer and visiting book (on their own, without informing me or the teams) change the number of timeouts available, well, I'm not sure what I would do. Hasn't happened to me yet and I refuse to put myself in a corner on the Internet.
For me, it's no different from knowing when a team has 6 team fouls. Is it necessary information? No. I frequently will point at a shooter as a non-calling official and say "shooter" on a 5th or 6th team foul anyway (no harm getting a shooter even though it's not a bonus situation) but normally when it's 6 or 9, I like to be able to communicate that with my partners so we're all prepared for the bonus situation.