at disposal?

[M&M Guy]

Originally Posted by Jimgolf

"The throw-in count does not begin until B1 has the ball at his/her disposal and the official has begun the five-second count."

What determines when the official is to begin the 5-second count? Is this judgment, or is it defined elsewhere? Thanks for any clarification.

That's what had been discussed here many times before. Some had argued that the ball is "at the disposal", and the count was to start, as soon as it drops through the net after the basket, which is when the team can take it. Others argued (and most had done in practice) that the count didn't start until after the player had the ball OOB and was ready to throw it in. This Situation 9 posted on the Fed. website now points towards the latter. I would think the reason they don't specify exactly when is to give us the judgement of being able to start the count sooner, if we feel the inbounding team might be trying to delay. For example, say team A is behind by only 1 after scoring, and there are 9 seconds left in the game. Team B might be "confused" as to who should handle the throw-in, and then slowly walk over to pick up the ball, maybe hand it to a teammate to let them throw it in, then the teammate hands it back and says, "No, I insist, you do the honors"...etc. all the time the clock is running. You get my drift? The official still gets the option of starting the count when they feel the team should be ready for the throw-in.