If the defender has established legal guarding position, he has the right to move and maintian a legal guarding position. If he jumps he has the floor to the ceiling. It doesn't matter if he is aggressive so long he has not put the offensive player at a disadvantage. If the offensive player makes the contact, foul is on the offensive player.

Additionally, if the defender jumped up in his vertical plane and if the offensive player intentionally undercuts the defender, it would not be a player control foul, but an intentional foul.

If the defender had no legal guarding position, then the foul is against the defender.

BUT....in most situations, a majority high school officials are not referee-ing the defense (RTD). The eyes are mostly focused on the offensive and his/her movements. By the time they see the play, a majority of the high school officials will call it on the defender.

The better college officials will call it a no-call or an player control foul.

I have worked many games and seen many officials who do not get this call right. Getting the right angle and RTD will be the best factor in making this call correct.

But this is a judgment play -- did the defense have the legal guarding position or not???

However if the defender does not jump in his vertical plane, he has lost LGP.

Well, it's settled then. Only one applicable rule citation:

4-23-3c
After the initial legal guarding position is obtained:
The guard may move laterally or obliquely to maintain position, provided it is not toward the opponent when contact occurs.

Additionally,
Which player first committed to leaving his vertical space? Defender
Which player made a stupid play? Defender
Which player made the best basketabll play? Shooter

Reward the shooter.

If this OP is a foul on the shooter....if airborne shooter and airborne defenders share equally the right to a landing spot (...no rule citation here was supplied here, by the way), then please don't let the defenders of this world know. Because we'll have guarding players jumping up and out of vertical in front of driving shooters like a flea circus. Yikes!

So........if a dribbler elbows a defender running beside him, the foul has to be on the defender because he doesn't have LGP?

And what if the <b>shooter</b> leaves his feet first? Is it still a foul on the <b>shooter</b> if the defender moves under him?

Great logic.

Still about verticality and LGP...
 

I think this play, with all of the rules citations and everything, should still be judged by determining LGP and verticality.

Did the defender jump straight up, or out towards the shooter's fake position?

Once doing that, did the defender forfeit his/her legal gaurding position?

Did the shooter initiate contact by throwing body into the defender, or did the shooter simply slide to an unoccupied spot on the floor where the defender was jumping forward to?

Looks to me as if the defender jumped out towards the shooter, forfeiting LGP, and the shooter moved to a spot on the floor, not into the defender. Two shots.

Again, LGP does <b>not</b> have to be a factor in making this type of call.

If a player jumps forward to grab a rebound, would you call a foul on <b>him</b> if an opponent moved <b>under</b> him from the side <b>after</b> the player had left his feet? There's no LGP involved in this play, is there?

If a dribbler and a defender are running down the floor in established straight-line paths side-by-each, can the dribbler veer to the side and force the defender out of his straight-line path legally because the defender didn't have LGP?

The same concept in both case is used to make the call.