Held Ball/Foul

[jbduke]

Okay, I've had to do some calisthenics to clear my head to make sure I'm alright. Here goes. I agree with JR.

We make decisions all the time that could be framed as "penalizing someone for their size," one way or another.

a 5'9" point guard goes plowing into the lane, and knows that he is going to have contact with the huge center. The PG blows in, jumps hard, absorbs the contact from the center, who barely budges, bounces off of it and converts the lay-up. Play on, no questions from anybody.

Same scenario, except instead of the big center, it's another guard. This guard gets absolutely mowed down. Player control, no questions from anybody.

Did we penalize the center in the first play for being big, since we didn't call the PC? Or did we penalize the point guard in the second play because he chose to crash into a small guy rather than a big one? The answer is neither. We refereed the plays.

People have to account for their own size and strength when they make decisions on the basketball court. What is being ignored here is the middle ground between the amount of force necessary to prise the ball away from an opponent, and the amount that results in the opponent being thrown to the ground? "But how can we expect...?"
Life's tough sometimes (Gosh, I never thought I'd be ending a post like that).