Basketball Officials Guidebook--Crew of Three--High School Mechanics

[Damian]

According to the rules, if it is in your primary, you should have a count. I have had some senior officials tell me that the lead should never have a count. I think their reasoning is that it would be so rare to have someone closely guarded in the lead's primary. And to an extent, they are right. It would be rare to have a 5 second held, 5 second dribbling, 5 second held count. But, it could happen. Usually with all of the action going on in post play, the lead is more focused on other things to watch rather than the 5 second count.

I still do make a count when a change comes in my primary as lead and a closely guarded situation occurs. I have never gotten past 3 seconds though.