oh no, another screen question (NBA rules not helpful)
 

I myself know from both coaching and playing (and reading your guys!) that there must be contact for a personal foul to be called, and illegal, i.e. advantage-conveying contact at that.

But many players (and maybe even some refs) will call "moving screen" when an offensive player is "running interference" ahead of his teammate with the ball, even when no contact has been made or is about to be made.

One such person who made this "call" cited this, from the NBA rules:

"A player who sets a screen shall not … move laterally or toward an opponent being screened, after having assumed a legal position."

Nothing about contact, anywhere. Why and how do you suppose this got written this way?
Elsewhere screens fall under "Contact Situations", but not here.

http://www.nba.com/analysis/rules_12...av=ArticleList

(sec III)

thanks, guys; you are great!

-- David

The rule simply means that if this occurs and there's contact, the foul is on the screener.

As BktBallRef implied, when put into context of the entire paragraph, this just indicates that if contact occurs, the foul is called on the screener. It's stated within the same context in other parts of the same section.

BTW - you said he quoted NBA rules. Were you playing in an NBA game? :confused:

thanks
 

Thanks, both of you.

>> Were you playing in an NBA game?

Ha! No, this is strictly geezerball, though not without skill.

I saw that the context all had to do with contact, but situation (4) seemed to imply a distinction that this case was somehow different. I wondered why it was written as it was, if that meant something. Thank you for confirming that my past understanding was still correct. I guess this text needs some revising!

There are many places in NFHS rules, too, where "a little learning/knowledge is a dangerous thing." One or two sentences can be drastically mis-quoted to appear to mean the exact opposite of what was actually intended. If someone just picks up a rule book and reads just a sentence or two, it can be a huge problem. Your friend shows a very clear example of that!

communication is a miracle
 

Thanks, Rainmaker. As someone who's edited and written for a living for a great many years, chiefly instructional and technical materials, I know that what you say is only too true, and that communication is indeed a miracle. Still, I figured that NBA rules, actually written down (and in this case posted) for use, would be ultra-precise and careful about just about everything.

Guess again. Actually, they do an okay job, but they also figure they're going to interpret the rules to their refs, so i guess they don't feel they have to write out the interpretive details beyond what they've already put out. It makes it easy for the public to misunderstand, but they don't worry about that.

David - you'll often find that the most important part of any rulebook is the definitions. For the NBA, you need to look at Rule 4, which states:

Section IV-Fouls
a. A common personal foul is illegal physical contact which occurs with an opponent after the ball has become live.

Ask your friend to find you the penalty for a moving screen. the screen may or may not be "illegal" (a matter of semantics), but there's no penalty without contact.
You won't find a penalty for it under "violations," and you can't have a foul without contact.

When confronted by the ole "moving screen" issue, I will usually ask the person suggesting or questioning the call to - "show me the hand and arm signal for a moving screen".

As has been stated in this forum many, many times before, there isn't one.

It isn't right next to the signal for over the back?

It's on the same chart that has "over the back," "reaching in," and "something" (as in, "You've got to call something.")

You are a droll (and patient) group
 

Thank you all again so very much for something that is tiresome for you, it's clear, and for good reason. I really appreciate it.

I never would have raised the query yet again if it had not been for that poorly (patchily) written text in the actual NBA rules, with strangely no mention of contact, which is quoted to lead off the discussion at the top.

I am trying to find a way to write the NBA to suggest adding the word 'contact' to make part 4 the same contextually as the three parts before it.

Thanks again. Surely this will never come up again, haha.

Honestly, David, I don't mind answer an old question for a person who honestly wants to know the correct rule. That's never a problem. The problem is the guys who come here to complain that their ref "obviously" blew a call, when the poster obviously doesn't know the rule. I hope you'll come back often.

I can't help you there, though. :)

Uh-huh. ;)

Actually, the wording is similar in high school rules, IIRC. You just have to know that you can't have a foul without contact, and you can't have a violation because it isn't defined as such.