What to do in this situation?

[JeffM]

Originally Posted by frezer11

This is what I was referring to. I was in attendance to a game last year when a team was clearly trying to foul, and the best FT shooter for the other team had the ball, and had no desire to give it up. He was accepting that he was going to be fouled and wanted to be the one on the line. Well the covering official did not call the initial admittedly "weak" foul, so the defender then fouled way harder. That official then had no choice but to call an excessive contact intentional, and there was a discussion about upgrading to a flagrant foul. Now I don't mean to defend the actions of the player, clearly that temper tantrum was uncalled for, but I think this situation could've been easily avoided by calling the initial foul, even if it was something that might have been passed on earlier in the game.

Passing the ball around to avoid a foul? Totally different.

If the defender is able to foul the offensive player as hard as he wants to, I'm all for calling a "weak" foul rather than make the defender foul hard enough to leave a mark.

If I am a player on offense and the other team is trying to foul me, I don't want them to have to foul me hard. If I am playing on defense and trying to foul someone, I would prefer to not foul hard.

Other than passing a few more ticks on the clock, I don't see how the game is improved by passing on weak fouls that are meant to stop the clock and both teams want.