Bilas

[jbduke]

Originally Posted by RichMSN

When we're talking black and white, yes, the merit of the case is pretty straightforward. Officiating, OTOH, is a series of various shades of gray. Because of this, the opinions given have to always be linked with the person making them and their authority, experience, etc. Sometimes authority is granted to a specific person (an assignor, commissioner, supervisor, etc.) and other times it's based on other, less tangible factors, such as reputation and experience.

I look at this play and I prefer to put myself in the position of the official making the call, real-time. The screener is relatively stationary, certainly so compared with the player who bounces off of him. Is a small lean (and whether the screener is not vertical for the purpose of the POV is debatable, even by the experienced people here) forward to me enough to pass responsibility on the contact to the screener? No. I would be happy to argue that this was mainly done to absorb contact. If this was a block/charge situation, I'd call it a charge/PCF in a heartbeat.

That is an argument that deserves serious consideration, if not full acceptance.

Originally Posted by RichMSN

(I've worked with Bob and I know both of the gentlemen's resumes and knowledge and to say that carries no weight is a bit ridiculous, IMO.)

The above is not.

Look, of course Mark and Bob have more credibility than most commenters here. Those in the know begin reading those two guys' posts with more initial buy-in than with the posts of many others. But one of the things that makes those guys credible in the first place is their actual expertise, i.e. rules knowledge and breadth of experience, not their claimed expertise.

Put differently, I usually read Mark's posts and think, "that's a really well-argued point, and I agree." But Mark usually doesn't need to remind me that he's Mark Denucci, super-duper-expert, in order to persuade me. In this particular case, after doing what he usually does--present evidence, draw a conclusion based on simple deductive reasoning--he broke form and dipped into the expert well, a well which carries no weight with me.

I'm not even arguing the facts in evidence here, just advocating that people think about the facts and the attendant rules and come to a conclusion based on only those things. If that conclusion happens to square with Mark's and Bob's, good on 'em; but nobody should simply default to those guys' positions based on reputation.

[Adam]

So what you're saying is you're arguing about the argument?

[jbduke]

Originally Posted by Snaqwells

So what you're saying is you're arguing about the argument?

Count it.