[just another ref]

Originally Posted by Nevadaref

How about WHY the official would continue to signal time-out when the ball is legally touched on the court and properness (or improperness) of doing so?
You cannot find one rule anywhere which states that the clock should not start on this touch. You can only find a rule stating that the clock shall stop on the violation. Now why is that?
Because it works the way I wrote in my first post in this thread--the clock should start and then stop. We can debate how quickly (My answer is however long it takes the human official to recognize the violation and sound his whistle plus however long it takes the human timer to react to hearing that whistle and click the stop-clock switch.), but we cannot debate that BY RULE the clock is to start in cases of a touch other than a kick or punch of the ball.

What does the word UNLESS mean to you? He should start the clock UNLESS this happens. Guess what, it happened.

Try one more. 6-7-9 tells us that the ball becomes dead when a violation occurs. But you're saying the clock must start at this point when the ball is clearly dead?