Here's a puzzler

[M&M Guy]

Ok, I've been thinking about this; although the interp seems to clearly go against the rule, surely the committee must have had some basis for coming up with that interp. Thanks to BadNewsRef, I think I might've come with an insight.

Let's take a simple OOB violation - we all know it is a violation on the player who touched the ball last before the ball goes OOB. Now, let's take a throw-in scenario: A1 has the ball for a throw-in, B1 is defending inbounds. A1 passes the ball, B1 blocks the pass (inbounds), and the ball comes back and hits A1 while still OOB. According to player location and ball location rules, B1 was the last to touch inbounds, and the ball gained OOB status when it hit A1 again OOB, so why isn't the violation on B1 for causing the ball to go OOB? 7-2-1 "Causing the ball to go out of bounds - individual player", along with the definition of player location (4-35) would say it's a violation on B1, and A would get another throw-in.

Except for the words in 7-2-1, "...unless the ball touches a player who is OOB prior to touching something OOB other than a player." So this little phrase, in effect, says A1 was the last to touch while the ball had inbounds status, and also caused the ball to become OOB, effectively at the same time, which is what the committee is doing with the backcourt interp. Also, this applies if the ball hits A1 again on the fly; if the ball bounces OOB before hitting A1, then the violation is on B1 - same scenario as the interp.

Now, there should probably be some addtional "unless" wording in the rule, or perhaps a clearer meaning of the phrase "cause the ball to go to the backcourt", so the interp becomes clearer. But as the rules are currently written, I still disagree with the interp, although now I kind of understand where they came up with it.