It was bad, but just how bad?

[rainmaker]

Originally posted by Hartsy
I went with flagrant as opposed to intentional because the offender was not fouling to negate a clear advantage (ie breakaway layup) by the opponent nor to gain an advantage for himself. It was, to me, clearly just an overaggressive push to get himself away from the other guy.

The intentional is defined in the book as two different possible fouls. There's the "negate a clear advantage" thing, but there's also "excessive contact". That's where I think you might have put this play. In the rule, it does say "...excessive contact while playing the ball..." so I guess I'm fudging here a little ( ...and I don't want to hear all those catcalls about being a "rule book" ref!!). But it does make a good intermediate penalty for those over-the-top fouls that aren't really, actually fighting.