Assistant Kneeling

[BryanV21]

I'm having trouble finding anything in the rule book to back me up or tell me I was wrong, so I thought I'd bring it up to you guys...

Last night I had a situation in which I was the "C" on the table side of the court. While trying to get into position (foul line extended) an assistant coach was kneeling in front of a player seated on the bench, and he was in my way. I'd normally just let this go, but since he was in my way I yelled over my shoulder that only the head coach could be off the bench. I was ignored, so I said it again, only to hear another assistant (it was a female voice, so I knew it wasn't the guy that was kneeling) say "he's coaching a player". I responded, "it doesn't matter, assistants need to be seated". Again I hear her say "he's coaching a player". So after seeing that the ball was settled I blew my whistle, turned to the head coach, and told him that only he can be up off the bench during play. The head coach got argumentative about it so I gave him a warning and had it put in the book. The head coach proceeded to yell, so my partner came over and I moved to the other side of the court.

His yelling was over the top, but I decided not to issue a technical foul, and let my partner handle things... which she did without giving a tech, and the game moved on.

My question is, did I have the right to say the assistant needed to be seated, or is kneeling in front of a player okay? I remember when I played assistant coaches would either sit with me at the end of the bench or have a player move to another chair so the player the assistant wanted to speak with could sit next to him.

And am I doing my partners, or future officials of that team, a disservice by not making the assistant coaches sit whether they are in my way or not?