Bouncing a ball off an opponent?

[fan]

This might be a dumb question but bear with me.
When watching basketball I see players sometimes bounce a ball off an opponent, so when it goes out of bounds it went off the opponent last. I see this done on out of bounds plays or when a player is falling out of bounds. Is this always legal or could a player do it in a fashion to get a foul called.

[WhistlesAndStripes]

Well, let me tell you about a situation I had recently. Administering a throw in and the player throwing the ball in couldn't find an open man, so he threw the ball right into the midsection of the player defending the throw in, and it came off him and went out of bounds. Before I gave the ball back to the thrower for another attempt, I warned him that although what he did was legal, to be careful where he hit the other guy with the ball, cause if he got him where it counted, I'd nail him for it.

Bottom line, it's a judgment call, but generally speaking, it's pretty much legal.

[Ref in PA]

10.3.7.B is a case play where the inbounder throws the pass off the face of the defender. This is in the technical foul section for unsportsmanlike conduct. The ruling says we have to use judgement to determine if we feel the pass was with the intent to hurt the opponent and what other factors influenced that throw-in pass.

In most all cases the play of bouncing the ball off a defender to go oob is legal. However, the rules do allow us the leeway to call an unsportsmanlike technical foul if we feel the throw was meant to injure or harm the opponent.

[crazy voyager]

I saw a player do this just yesterday, he had a throw in and didn't find somebody, so he throw the ball on the opponent ran in and caught it, the audience laughed but I agree that so long it's not intentional to hurt an opponent and it hits in a place that's ok (not face, stomach or anywhere else unpleasant)

[mplagrow]

I've seen that a few times in the NBA where a player throws it off an opponent's back and steps in for the easy bunny shot. I always thought it was because they hate to give the ball up to a team mate! I used to have a kid on a soccer team I coached that would do the same thing. Ball hog.