Quote:
Originally Posted by Brad
Pretty much this.
A backcourt violation on this sequence of plays is awful.
Why do some officials come up with the most contrived rulings on plays that should just be straight-forward and obvious?
How can an official determine that the initial throw from the backcourt was a crappy pass vs a crappy shot? He can't.
Stop trying to be judges of intent and simply judge what happened.
When in doubt, make the obvious call.
A backcourt here isn't obvious — it is nit-picky, over-thinking, and wrong.
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Contrived ruling? To say he was shooting is what is contrived. That ball left his hands as a pass. He was trying to hit his player cutting in from the left side. He may have failed at it but that is what he was doing. It just wouldn't make any sense for him to shoot like that at that time. To say he was shooting just because the bad pass just happened to hit the backboard is nothing more than avoiding having to make a decision.
Stop judging intent? We have to do that all the time so why should this be any different? A player puts up an air ball and then catches it. You have to decide if it was a try or not...what was the player's intent. A player is fouled. You must decide shooting or not...what were they intending to do.
If you saw that same play but the thrower was fouled and the ball was knocked away as it was released, would you have put the player on the line for 3 shots? You must decide what he was trying to do...what did he intend to do??? Even if the ball wasn't knocked away, would you award 3 shots? What if it fell 6 inches short and missed the board, does that make it not a shot? If so, does that mean a try has to hit something to be a try?
If somone jumped up and caught that ball before it hit the backboard, would you have called offensive goaltending?