That's not the meaning of "actionless contest" in the book. There's plenty of action - an inbound play and a foul.

The point I think that was trying to be made was that if you put in this rule as an option and the fouled team opts to always inbound, rather than shoot free throws, the incentive to foul disappears.

Gee - maybe the defense would actually have to try to steal the ball. There's a novel idea.

Thanks for all of your opinions and comments guys. My initial reasoning for throwing this out there is that I went to an SEC game this past Saturday and Georgia was fouling early and frequently and put Auburn into the bonus about nine minutes into the 1st half. It suddenly dawned on me that Auburn would probably have rather had the ball on throw in so to attempt a 3 or to work inside for an easier 2 than the FT's offered. The fouls by UGA did not seem to be strategic as would be late in a game.
I agree that the fouling game is like chess. How many pawns, or others pieces/players are you willing to sacrifice to accomplish your long term goal? I just felt that early in the game was questionable. In High School there are many smaller schools and teams that do not roster 15 players but have to play teams that do. Seems that the larger teams would have an unfair advantage that was not intended by rule. Fouling should never create an advantage.
Good points and discussion. Thanks again!

I seem to remember it as mid-90's. Thought I had seen some games like this . . . . .

I think that a nice change would be to allow any player on the floor to shoot the free throws for a foul committed by a team that is trailing in the last 2 minutes of the fourth quarter (2nd half for NCAA or Mass. HS) or any OT period.

I also believe that the option of choosing to keep possession instead of shooting free-throws was an international rule that was used in the olympics in the late 80s.