1) There is only one God and that is I- Nevadaref. All others are false.

2) Sorry, God Junior(hereafter known as Junior), but I disagree with you. That makes me a heretic. :eek: Howard didn't call it a fumble. He said that it <b>might</b> a fumble. I acknowledge that you are omnipotent and all-knowing.......but to us mere mortals, when a player <b>drops</b> the ball, we have to judge whether that drop was accidental or not, and then if we do rule it as being deliberate,we have to additionally judge what action was started by the drop. Depending on our judgment, we then <b>may</b> rule it to be a fumble, or we <b>may</b> rule it to be a pass, or we <b>may</b> even rule it to be the start of a dribble. The only two officials in the world who actually <b>KNOW</b> what that player's intent was as soon as the ball has left his hands seem to be JAR and Junior. You're both better men than I am, Gunga Din.

I was simply looking for some evidence relating to making a call on what is a dribble as opposed to a pass by seeing it. This statement, from Tony, no less, fit the bill quite nicely.

"I can't believe that you and Woody truly believe that the officials on this board can't judge the difference in a dribble and a pass."


You have continued to say you can't be sure it wasn't a pass. Sometimes you can be sure if you see the play. According to your logic a player trapped in the backcourt could "begin a motion which habitually precedes the release of the ball," throw the ball straight up in the air, and retrieve it and start a new dribble, because "that might have been a try."

Because I took the trouble to find it, here's the link

http://forum.officiating.com/showthr...ake+a+judgment

I think that there are in fact 2 different questions here, and that we can distinguish them. Let's assume that we are indeed talking about an illegal dribble, and that the official judges it to be so, and ask:

1. When does an illegal dribble violation occur?
2. When is an official in a position to judge that an illegal dribble violation occurred?

In that context would the answer to 2 be (c), and the answer to 1 be (a)?

Rationale: The violation occurs when the illegal dribble begins, but we aren't usually in a position to judge that until we know that it's a dribble and not a fumble, pass, etc.

you know, looking at the rule book again, and trying to remember back to the dark ages when I studied formal logic, I'm wondering about carefully examining the words used.

The book says that a dribble is ball movement that yadda, yadda, yadda...

It does not say that all ball movement that yadda yadda yadda is a dribble.

Is that significant?

I mean, suppose you said, "A cat is a mammal that has four legs, pointed ears, and eyes that glow in the dark." Could you then say "Look, it's a mammal, has four legs, pointed ears and eyes that glow in the dark so it must be a cat?" Well, no! It might be a lemur, certain types of dogs, and so forth and so on.

Just because a dribble is a certain type of movement doesn't mean that all of those types of movement are dribbles, does it?

Hard to argue with your logic, but, I suppose that I still kind of tend to combine the two questions. My idea is by the time the ball touches the floor, usually the official should be able to judge whether it was a dribble and not a pass or a fumble. This goes hand in hand with the definition of a dribble: "a player.....pushes the ball to the floor...." This definition does not mention the ball being touched after being pushed to the floor.

My idea here is that you are now asking "How do you know that the animal on the cat food commercial was not a lemur?"

My answer is "Well, maybe I don't with absolute certainty, but it sure looked like a cat to me. Must we have a zoologist perform a dna test before I can say it is a cat?

The thing is, there's no need to make this judgment. Once the ball either returns to the bouncer or doesn't, judgment is removed. Yes, there are times when we need to judge intent. This isn't one of them.

I think this is true 99 percent of the time. But, that one time when the defender knocks the ball out of bounds two inches before it touches the illegal dribbler's hand, I think you have to call the first violation first.

Silly monkeys

My point is that waiting for the result allows you to determine whether it was a dribble or not; removing the need for judgment on this play. You can simply wait about a quarter second and the result tells you everything you need to know.

The dribble may start when the player releases the ball (this definition tells us when a player must lift his pivot foot prior to dribbling in order to avoid traveling), but it doesn't become a dribble until he touches it again.

In old Iowa girls' rules, back when they played 6 on 6 "half court" basketball and were only allowed to bounce (dribble) the ball twice, the start of the dribble was defined differently. By definition, the dribble started when the player began pushing the ball towards the floor. It was not necessary to actually release the ball prior to lifting the pivot foot, only to begin the pushing motion towards the floor. By your definition, an illegal dribble would then occur if a player, who had already used her dribble, began to push the ball towards the floor: regardless of the result of that push. Yet it seems absurd.

Nope that's clearly not what I'm asking, and you clearly have no concept of the use of logic, formal or otherwise. Nobody cares what the creature on the cat food commercial is. People do care whether all mammals are cats.

In the case we're discussing, we're trying to figure out what the rules committee means, not what feels right to us. They say that a certain type of motion is the beginning of a dribble. They don't say that that type of motion can only be the beginning of a dribble. So I don't see how you can say that, when they don't.

This just in, for those who have some clue of the clout that Howard Mayo pulls in Fed rules world. Yea, he's got his faults, I know that as well as anybody. But his rules interpretations do carry a lot of weight.

Juulie:

Item C would be a violation.

Howard


-----Original Message-----
From: Juulie Downs <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Sent: Wed, 5 Sep 2007 9:49 pm
Subject: Re: definition of a dribble


Howard --

A1 has used his dribble. He stands holding the ball. He forgets the sitch and pushes the ball to the floor, as if to start a dribble. Specifically when does an illegal dribble violation occur?

a. when it leaves his hand
b. when it hits the floor
c. when it hits his hand for a second time
d. some other time

That's how I'm calling it, and I recommend everyone else does, too, unless your interpreter specifically says otherwise. And even then, I'd argue with him/her for a while.

This is the problem I have. Is this written anywhere? If so, I would like to see it.

No, it isn't. That's the point. No where does it say an official must use judgment here; see the result.

If the actual result of an intended pass can be an illegal dribble, it makes sense that the actual result of an intended dribble can be something else (a steal, a pass, etc.) There are so multiple reasons a player will release the ball towards the floor, so we have to have some way of determining which is which. As I stated before, if the rules allow me a reasonable reason to continue play without a whistle, that's the interpretation I'm taking.