Disconcerting ?

[Camron Rust]

Originally Posted by BillyMac

Disagree.

Please cite the interpretation.

Opponents can be players or bench personal.

[I]9-1-3-C: No opponent must distract the free thrower.

There are many places throughout the rules where opponent is used in a context where it is clearly only an opposing player on the court. So, I am not sure you can use the word opponent to infer anything about whether disconcertion applies.

It could be argued that the word opponent is used to indicate that a teammate can't disconcert...as opposed to all of the other elements of the rule that mention players because those elements apply to players on both teams.


That said, it is long been held here on the forum and locally, before I was in a position that mattered, that it applies to bench personnel too.

Here is an old thread discussing the issue:

https://forum.officiating.com/basket...tion-whom.html