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Old Fri Jan 10, 2003, 10:15am
Mark Dexter Mark Dexter is offline
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Join Date: Aug 1999
Posts: 4,801
I wish to register a complaint!

Quote:
Originally posted by Nevadaref
If one player is inbounds and one is OOB, rule 4-4-4 by itself would not tell us whether the ball is to be considered inbounds or out-of-bounds. There is just as much merit for both.
Not really. First, just look at the other rules (all of the rules need to be taken with respect to one another and especially the case book). 7-1-2a clearly states that the ball is OOB when it touches "a player who is out of bounds."

Now, let's consider a ball rolling from the center of the court to the OOB line. In a perfect world, the ball would only contact the court at one point. However, as the ball rolls, its shape is distorted, and you will have a time where part of the ball is in contact with the floor on the inbounds side of the line and part is in contact with the out of bounds side of the line. Do you blow your whistle and call an OOB violation? I sure hope so.

So, if the ball is touching a player standing OOB, that ball has OOB status - it doesn't matter that someone is touching it inbounds!

The casebook is key here. There are several situations/topics which are covered only in the casebook - "lag time" and end of game delay tactics are only a few. The rules do not exist in a void; we have to go to the casebook for interpretations of the rules, and those interpretations are valid, whether it seems like there is support for them in the rules book or not!
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