Funky gym

[Back In The Saddle]

I posted in another thread about my deep and abiding love for gyms with the table at the end. But there's one wreck league our association serves that plays in an old gym that has balconies that overhang on each end. They're low enough that they could easily interfere with throwing a long pass. So there's a red line striped about 3 feet inside the end line that serves as the OOB line during end line throw ins. They must only use this gym as a last resort, because it always takes a little explaining to the players, and sometimes even to my partner.

Of course I've read about this in the rules book. But until I had to deal with it, I had never really thought through the situation. Sure, the thrower can step up to the red line. But both offense and defense also have to stay behind it. And when there's a quick throw-in after a made basket, you will sometimes have players still across the red line when the throw-in is made. Not really an issue. Unless one of the defensive players begins to pressure the inbounds without remembering to back up behind the red line.

Then there's the issue of the throw-in ending and the location of the thrower. I blew this one when I was there earier this week. The thrower released the pass, and a defender swatted it away back across the red line, but not all the way out of bounds. I blew it dead.

But if instead the defender had swatted it back and it touched the thrower, who was still standing outside the red line, it would not be the normal OOB situation because the throw-in ended when the ball was legally touched. Therefore the boundary goes back to normal and the thrower is now standing in-bounds.

Could that be the basis for a trick play? Since the red line is only about a foot behind the backboard, if the throw-in were midway between the basket and the sideline, and the thrower threw it in to a teammate, who threw it right back to him, he would have a pretty makeable open shot without ever moving. Same if the thrower just bounced the ball off a defender. You could probably make that work once or twice, until the defense wised up and began to step "oob" to cover this player.