Two for one?

[Nevadaref]

Originally Posted by Snaqwells

I agree. I agreed earlier.

I will say again, though, that I think it's odd that a player slapping the ball in this situation gets penalized more severely than a player who slaps the thrower. It's a quirk in the rules, though, in that you can't call a T for live ball contact (they could make an exception for this, I think).

Even if the defender punches the thrower in the face, it's still a personal foul.

Stop thinking of a technical foul as a more severe penalty than a personal foul. They are simply different penalties for different situations. You cannot give a T for a situation in which a player makes physical contact with an opposing player during a live ball. It's that simple.

By the same token, you can't give a player a personal foul when there isn't physical contact with an opposing player. That is why the ONLY penalty that you can assess to a player who slaps THE BALL out of the thrower's hands is a technical foul. Just the way the rules work.