Quote:
Originally posted by Mark T. DeNucci, Sr.
This rule has always been interpreted to mean that the request must be made during player control or is at the team's disposal for a throw-in or a freethrow, not when the official signals for the time-out. To interpret the rule as you do would penalize the team requesting the time-out.
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As I said before, I understand that this is the popular stance on time-out requests and granting them. However, I have been giving this some thought recently, and am a bit concerned that we are not doing justice to the time-out concept.
What I mean is that I believe officials have become overly concerned with making sure they aren't "penalizing the team requesting the time-out" as MTD wrote above. This has reached a point where we have likely forgotten about penalizing the team that is NOT requesting the time-out. The play given in the start of this thread is an excellent example. The defense did a good job to steal the ball. Just because the coach or some player can verbally spit out a quick TO request when it is obvious that his team is going to turn the ball over, we negate a nice defensive play. This happens on throw-ins too. How many times have you seen one official reach a 5 sec count while the coach is suddenly requesting time-out? I've even seen the partner come over and say that they granted the time-out before the 5 second violation even though the partner never blew a whistle!
Since this entire discussion centers around the intent of the rule, I have to inquire whether the rules committee envisioned coaches using their recently acquired ability to request TO simply to prevent an imminent turnover. If this is done 5 times in a game, that can be a big deal. How many of you think that this is why time-outs were initially put into the rules? I don't believe that this was ever the intent.
As we all know, the rules book starts with a couple of paragraphs headed "THE INTENT AND PURPOSE OF THE RULES" which includes the sentence, "A player or a team should not be permitted an advantage which is not intended by a rule."
Are we permitting an unintended advantage for the offensive team here?
Granting the time-out in these situations seems similiar to a boxer being saved by the bell. Some like the rule and use it, while others detest and have expressly prohibited it.
I'm not going to say that those who grant these time-outs are wrong, but I do believe that the scales have become tipped too far to offensive side. Afterall, there are two teams out there and it is our job to make sure neither one of them is placed at a disadvantage.
Just food for thought.