Quote:
Originally Posted by BayStateRef
I see your point that a hard pass that hits another player's head behind the arc and goes into the basket should be seen in the same light. But I don't agree that it "was obviously short and below the ring" at the time it hit the player. Most shots begin "obviously short and below the ring" until such time as they attain the height and distance to reach the goal.
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Certainly if the trajectory is such that it was going in the general vicinity of the rim, you may be left with calling it a 3 but obviously short is judging the trajectory of the ball to be not toward the basket or not strong enough that it will rise that high. 99% of all thrown balls in a basketball game are nowhere near a direction or height which might take them into the basket...those were not meant to be 3's.
The thrown ball rule was written WITHOUT considering the complication of a deflection. It was only written to cover a ball that was released in such a way that it might or might not be a try as released but goes in is to be called a 3. It was never intend to be applied to a ball that was thrown no where near a path that would go in but was batted in by someone else.
Too many people try to convolute the thrown ball case with the the case of a 3-point try that is tipped by a defender. The latter case was also written to cover a basic play, not one complicated by an unrelated issue. It is intending to describe a play where a defender, just inside the 3-point line tips the ball just as it comes out of the shooter's hands but it still goes in...that a defender can't cause a 3 to become a 2 just by touching the ball. This was written before the thrown-ball rule and was made to consider that what-if. It was never meant to apply to a case where a clear pass is batted into the basket.
Those two cases are simply apples and oranges. They were never meant to be combined to come up with a nonsensical ruling where a skip pass from one elbow to the other, in a line that would not come within 20 feet of the basket and is batted by a defender into the basket would be ruled a 3.