Well said, basically my take on things. There are many layers to this topic.

I heard from a well respected source (NBA, D league & NCAA) that game awareness can make the difference between good officials & exceptional officials. In addition to mentally knowing the team foul count, knowledge of individual fouls aren't bad either as it ties to "knowing the impact of your call". As we will never manipulate the GAME, best officials know the result & consequence of their calls.

NOTE: Every DI official that I have access to, shares the same thoughts & have turned an avocation into a very successful career.


Quality calls on 4s & 5s:

Teams & players practice & train hard to be competitive in the modern game. Post players & strong forwards are involved in more play in crowded competitive areas near the basket. These players are called to defend against players who have eluded other defensive coverage, rebound all missed shots, defend their own area or man, and score when near the basket.With all the possible contact & coverage, it is imperative that officials sort the play & call the fouls that matter. "Cheap" fouls on 4s & 5s can cause a significant competitive disadvantage to a team, and while unintended, unfairly influence play. Make solid verifiable calls on 4s & 5s.

Take it or leave it... just thought I'd share.

Here It Comes!
 

BeachBum:

Not only is it inapporpriate it is absolutely WRONG to ever ask which players have four (4) fouls. Officials do NOT care who has four fouls PERIOD!!

MTD, Sr.


P.S.: BillyMac, this post was for your first post of the thread, :D

I disagree entirely...this is the attitude I was talking about in my earlier post. There are officials who want to know who has 4 fouls - and for very legitimate reasons. The knee-jerk reaction of some people to automatically think it is wrong to want to know as much information as possible is disturbing at best, and ridiculous at worst.

I agree that you don't want to "foul someone out" on a "cheap / questionable call."

Since all fouls count the same, avoid the cheap questionable call early in the game and you won't have a problem.

RockyRoad:

Knowing the team foul totals is a legitimate piece of information that I want to know but I do not need to now who has four fouls and neither does anyother official. When does a player tend to commit his fifth foul? The fourth quarter. So unless I have a player who has been a real hacker, I am going to be cognizant of the fact that when I report a foul that it could be the player's fifth foul. I just do not report the foul and immediately turn away from the table. I take the same attitude late in the second and fourth quarters if we have not yet reached the bonus situation. This is called dead ball management: don't rush but take care of business.

MTD, Sr.

Deadball management...I'd rather have game awareness and know prior to the player committing their 5th foul that they have just picked up #4. It is just like knowing that a team has picked up their 6th team foul and the next one will result in Bonus FT's.

By your logic you don't want to know that until it happens. Rocky is talking about being proactive rather than reactive

Could you explain a bit more what you mean here?

icallfouls:

I do want to know when a team has six team fouls, but as officials we really do not need to know who has four fouls. It is not germane to game awareness or game management, but can lead to game manipulation.

Knowing how many team fouls each team has is good game management and is good game awareness because it helps prevent correctable errors from happening. But that last thing an official needs is people quesitioning why he wants to know who has four fouls and hell, while he is at it who has three fouls for that matter, just think Tim Donaghy.

And dead ball management is very important. When the ball is live it means we are playing basketball, when the ball is dead the game is not being played and 99.99% of the time nothing good ever happens during a dead ball time period and that is why dead ball management is very important to game management AND game awareness is an important part of dead ball management.

With regard to dead ball management, I would like to recommend trying to find a video of Fred Horgan (past President of IAABO and currently representing Canada on the FIBA Technical Board; Padgett, no FEEBLE joke this time) giving his presentation on dead ball management. It is must see for all basketball officials whether one officiates, NFHS, NCAA, NBA/WNBA, or FIBA. Hopefully one of our Canadian members can point us in the direction of a video of one of his presentations on the web.

MTD, Sr.

Sorry, but that's pretty bad reasoning to determine if I'm calling the foul or not...If he's the only dribbler, well...the coach better get to work in practice!

That is your opinion sir. You know what I was talking about. I was just stating how to use good game management skills. There is nothing poor about it. If you have a girls middle school game and their only dribbler is fouled out for some nit picking calls, your game will go to hell. '
You can say what you want, but a game is not much a game without some kind of rhythm or flow. So if you can use some preventive officiating by talking to players, the game flows smoother.
The same principle goes for the game "knucklehead." Every game has one and as soon as you can get rid of him/her, the game cleans up.

I am so sorry that your having to explain yourself again on this opinion, but I just have recently joined. I am enjoying the good conversations.

Merry Christmas

Clarification
 

So just to clarify:

You will cut a player some slack if they have talent just so "your" game doesn't get messed up?

And conversely, your post suggests that getting rid of the "knucklehead" makes the game better. Do you go out of your way to "see" fouls committed by the alleged "knucklehead"?

Your reply was not directed at me but I will follow up my first response with this. The bolded part is of no concern to me...if it goes to hell, it goes to hell....I have my own team that I coach when not officiating and my job as official is not to adjust calls for the better players so the game doesn't go to hell.

We seem to have two discussions going. One is nit picky fouls and the other is who you are calling them on.

There is no provision in the rulebook that protects the best dribbler (or any other best skill set player you want to put out here) on a team. Why would that even come into consideration by an official to call or not to call a violation is simply silly and shows you have a biasedness toward one team or player. Cardinal sin as an official.

If you foul the player out it more than likely has something to do with contact that He or She is creating, causing you to blow the whistle.

Weather or not it's nit picky is soley up to the officials on the court who are charged with putting air in the whistle.

How did I miss reading this one? This is exactly my point.

I find this post more disturbing than the first one. Depending on your definition of the term, I think most of us try to avoid this. But when an official uses this phrase, in any context, I see it as a problem.