I will deal with these in order:

1. I care because its the rule set I officiate under. People with aspirations to move to pro level in states or anywhere else in the world will care because NBA and FIBA are moving closer together so all pro ball world wide is more common. You don't have to care what the rule is or what they do if you don't want. In the context of the argument that "NOBODY wants it called" everyone in the world except the NFHS and NCAA have a rule where it is technically a travel anymore was the point.

2. Majority of the NBA players (best of the best?) come from USA and grow up playing NFHS and NCAA rule sets primarily and other than an occasional blip the US still currently dominates Olympics and Adult world championships. I don't have the stats on how many professional basketball players there are in the world and what percentage are American, so how many of the pros world wide by percentage are American I can't tell you. As I assume by "this country you mean the USA".

3. Went back and rewatched the video looking for the early travel. My break down (of the slow motion portion at the end) has him get his hand under ball (between 29-30 second mark). At that point he has back foot on the ground , front foot in air stepping stepping. With FIBA and NBA rule that back foot down is a zero step. The next two feet down (spinning or not) which is all he takes are now his pivot and no pivot foot. He can now go off two and not travel or pivot OR pivot under and power step without it being an NBA or FIBA travel.

PS: In a totally unneccessary move, here is the link to the list of non American players in the NBA. No Lebron or Steph on the list but guys like Kyrie Irving , Ben Simmons and Jamal Murray are pretty good.

http://pr.nba.com/nba-international-players-2017-18/

I have no idea what you just said? What is in bold is a PC foul and I don't see what LGP has to do with this.

The powers that be want MORE offense and MORE freedom of movement. They DON'T want defensive battle royales with teams beating each other up. Basketball is a game of finesse which happens to also have some level of contact baked into it. I still haven't noticed any decrease in PC fouls and this argument only comes up with an opposing player does it so it's not really an issue.

The plain truth is that if you call a lot of travels (or 3 second violations) in your games your ceiling is very low these days. That took me about a year or 2 to digest and comprehend and I adjusted how I called the game. The case in point is the @#$@#$ bunnyhop that shooters do beyond the arc. It drives me crazy but when I stopped calling it I started getting better games, moved into JUCO and a year later did a few D2 games. After about 3 years of that I decided it wasn't for me as the time to $ was a bit skewed along with the attitudes we have to deal with.

You don't have to listen to me but it's what it is. No amount of complaining will change it. I always remember the saying that I heard the most from any official that either is or was at the level I wanted to get to.

"Any call you make you better be ready to hang your reputation and career on the line."

Was I going to do that for 50/50 travel calls made in real time with kids who were faster than spit in traffic, in a lane, making an offensive move to the basket?

The argument is a player safety issue (that is not a player safety issue), but its actually a product issue. The rules are designed (FIBA, NBA) for adult professional men to play in front of paying crowds. As a result they want more dunks, more fast breaks, more high speed action and less standing and grinding. They are given the extra step because the speeds and masses of the bodies involved. Getting giant men travelling at reckless speeds, to stop their forward momentum using the foot already on the floor without travelling would require either A) an unnatural stopping motion for highly paid high performance athletes that could cause injuries or wear and tear on knees and joints, OR B) the athlete to slow down, be less dynamic and more in control of the their speed and mass. Since they don't want B and A can be a dollar and cents issue out of leagues and owners pockets, they came up with a rule change that eliminates both and actually increases the speed, movement and explosiveness of offensive players.

When they sell it to youth levels and club programs they talk about more natural stopping movements at pace, but what they mean is "we want the game the played so fast by giants we don't want them to slow down or risk hurting themselves needing complicated body movements",

You speak as if the NBA just changed the rule last season. This has been the rule, there is no new disadvantage all of a sudden.

Who cares what the NBA or FIBA allow unless you are working a game under the respective rule set. Regardless, one thing I will not care about is whether or not it is "fair" to the defense. All the players on the court play both offense and defense, so all players on the court are subject to the exact same advantages and disadvantages of the rule.

Who is everybody in the world? The NCAA and NFHS make up a good chunk of the world of basketball. You state this as if the NCAA and NFHS are some small sub-section of basketball.

And Kyrie Irving owns dual American/Australian citizenship, but grew up in America. Pretty big stretch (to the point of being untrue) to say he is a non-American player.

In your link, there were only a 108 players in the NBA from other countries. That is not half of the league and not even a third of the league. If you were paying attention, I actually stated this fact earlier.

Secondly this game was played under NCAA Rules.

And Finally I am happy you work FIBA games, but if this site was dependant on officials that work FIBA to support this site, then we would hardly ever have a discussion as the vast majority of those here or games we see are under rules from places in the United States and that includes NBA, NF and NCAA Rules. And there are a pretty significant amount of basketball being played around this country that play under those rules sets. My state alone has over 700 schools that participate in basketball at multiple levels. Illinois is not even close to the biggest state in the Union so that clearly means there are many, many more players that make up of the world's best players that are playing under a rule outside of FIBA. So they must be adapting well to not playing in FIBA rules to get to the NBA. And that of course is not a problem as I would bet almost all the officials in the NBA are also from this country and usually they started working some high school ball somewhere also. ;)

Peace

And what is also funny is that many of the players that are from other countries, played ball in the United States under other NF or NCAA rules. So even if you have a player that might technically be from another country, they played their college ball if in the United States.

Also for the record, every NBA All-Star Starter except one was from this country. There were only 3 total All-Stars in that were from other countries and did not play high school ball in the United States. So whatever the rules are in the NCAA or NF, must not be hurting them much.

Peace

Actually, it's only a PC foul if the defensive player already has LGP. If the defensive player runs in front of the offensive player, does not obtain LGP, and gets run over, this is a blocking foul (without considering flagrant contact by the offense).

Lets get back on track. I am not saying the best players in the world aren't in the US, I'm not saying FIBA/NBA rule is superior. As the USA, you can claim the best players and that they play primarily under the rule sets mentioned. I'm not trying to say Kyrie is Australian or played international rules. Just pointing out that 1/3 of the best of the best in the world are not US players. I don't control who frequents this website but am also willing to conceed that the lions share only need to talk about or worry about NFHS/NCAA interps.

Here are the only 2 points I was trying to illustrate:

1) Regardless of rule set, the claim was people didn't want it called. I was simply pointing out that other rule sets - NBA a while ago - and FIBA this past year have adjusted the language of their rules so that the moves they want allowed are not travels. The NFHS and NCAA rule sets still have it as a travel although "people" do not call it that way. Expectation is that to move up, get high level games, you will call it differently than or in spite of the rule set.

2) In response to the idea that no one wants it called a travel. 30+ million people in the US play basketball. 450 million people world play basketball. So as of Oct. 2017 (when FIBA rule changes were implemented for competition) 420 million people can have their travels called by the rules and can still have your spin moves and three steps in transition.

And people complain all the time that traveling is not called in the NBA. So I would not base much off of this play. There was a play by James Harden the other day that has gone around social media that clearly was a travel and the people were asking to be called.

This is not soccer. This is not a sport the players from the US do not dominate at every imaginable level. So it is honestly irrelevant who does or does not want something called from around the world when the world is not as good at that sport. And I had a few examples during the tournament of plays where a spin was called at the NCAA level.

Peace

This is not practical at all. In most cases a defender hit squarely in the torso usually has their right to their spot, the exception would be in block charge scenario where a secondary defender is sliding over and the torso is ahead of the feet. Secondly In a spin move an offensive player is spinning away from a defender so if said defender was already there LGP has already been established.

You are making stuff up that doesn't exist. LGP only matters in block/charge scenarios. LGP is not a requirement for a defender to have a legal right to a space on the group. The foul call may be the difference between a PC or a generic foul on the offense, but the adjudication and penalty is the same. You are splitting a hair that doesn't exist nor needs splitting IMO.

I specifically identified a situation where the defensive player was moving and had not established LGP.

And this is my point for bringing it up. The NBA and new FIBA rules make it much easier for the ball-handler to "beat" the defense by taking extra steps.

That is an assumption that is not always true.

As I stated in my previous post and above, NBA and FIBA have given the offense an advantage by allowing extra steps with no offsetting change for the defense.

And when the opposing team gets the ball, they can take advantage of the same rule to beat the defense. It's what the respective leagues/governing bodies have decided they want. And if you are officiating one of those games, adjudicate the plays accordingly.

Beautifully put. Precisely.

After watching the first video more, I do think it should have been called. I'm not a fan of calling spin moves too tight even though technically some are violations but I guess it's trying to figure out which ones to call or pass on and I think watching these videos help.

This is a beautiful spin move by Lebron. The gray area are the spin moves between the first video posted and Lebron's. The college one is not a blatant travel unless you slow it down and I don't fault the refs at all for missing it.

LeBron turns on the spin cycle - ESPN Video - ESPN