Its good to know that the Professionals have blarges as well!!!! All year, I have been working on no prelims...and it has kept me out of trouble several times.:)

I wish they would just get rid of that arc because the NBA referees should be good enough to call it correctly without the line there.

Also, I think the line is a defensive disadvantage because it is like having a virtual screen set if you want to get a legal guarding position.

This is the reason that the restricted area was implemented! The NBA wanted more drives to the basket. The secondary defender would jump over and take away those drives to the basket.

The arc has nothing at all to do with the ability of the referees. The referees are good enough to call it correctly whether the arc is there or not.

As All Heart mentioned, the purpose of the arc is to prevent "cheap" charges being picked up by secondary defenders. The NBA philosophy is that if you are that close to the basket, you're not really playing defense; you're only there to try and draw a charge. They don't mind having offensive fouls, but they don't want people taking a position with the sole purpose of drawing the offensive foul.

Yup, that would be called "playing help defense". And "help defense" is frowned on in the NBA because it would cut down scoring. And besides cutting down scoring, you wouldn't see all of those awesome dunks from players who otherwise usually can't dribble, pass or shoot a 15 footer. And you also wouldn't get to see those players who just made that awesome dunk pound his chest, point at the defender he dunked on, dance, and perform all of those other little post-dunk acts that we've grown to know and love....all while the other team is going 5 on 4 the other way.

The NBA......fantaaaaastic......

The NBA rules have made it to the stands of high school gyms all around us. I was working my last game of the season two weeks ago, when we had a charge about where the semi-cirlce would be on a NBA court.

Same fan, in the same seat, every year I've been there, yells out "How is that a charge, he was too far under the basket?!"

We have a load of subs coming in and he asks
"Isn't therea rule about that?"
"only in the NBA" i say.
he replies "kind of like traveling isn't in there rule book but its in the HS one?"
"yeah, kind of like that." I smile and we go on.

Yeah in block/charge plays that don't involve the RA it is a double foul and resume from the POI.

Jurassic,

There is help defense. All our RA plays involve secondary defenders. Primary defenders don't have to be outside the RA to take a charge. We just don't want guys running in there and undercuting guys like they do in college. Its a safety thing and an opening up the lane thing like you said. What's wrong with opening up the lane for more scoring? What would you rather watch and referee, a game in the 50s or in the 90s?

1) Our? We? Did you skip high school ball before you got a chance to do a varsity game and move straight into the NBA? If so, congratulations.

2) I'd rather watch <b>any</b> game at <b>any</b> level from <b>any</b> time period than the current doo-doo that they're playing (supposedly) in to-day's NBA. The NBA is unwatchable imo.

But the pay is out of this world, not to meantion the respect!!!!

Quite possible that he works somewhere that utilizes the same rules.

I love help side defense. Nothing is better than seeing a defensive player stop somebody from going into the lane for an easy layup by getting pounded by the guy driving to the basket and then seeing the ref wave off the basket and point the other way.

Back in the day when I was playing HS ball, I took a charge and prevented this guy from dunking and he was so pissed he wanted to fight me and he got ejected.