I'm offended. I thought this was the kinder, gentler forum? Is the Jurassic period resurfacing?

Good grief, you're both right. BNR's point was that I focused on player control when that is not necessarily required. However, my original point, that team control is not relevant, stands. :)

OK, new rule: During a live ball, only the player holding or dribbling the ball may request a timeout. My head will spin less that way.

It was getting too touchy-feely for a moment and I was getting dizzy.

Fixed it for ya ;)

Nope, mine was my dream for the new rule. You just ruined it and now I'm going to cry.

My badd :D

Even though it is not sufficient, I wouldn't say it is not relevant. Team control is implied by player control.

Not relevant would be like saying that the ability to be granted a timeout depends on the number of team fouls.

When the question is, "what's sufficient to call a time out," the fact that player control implies team control is irrelevant. Team control is not sufficient. Player control is.

I won't quibble with the idea that team fouls are "more irrelevant."

I would say it's not relevant because having team control has nothing to do with the ability to request a timeout.

Not only is it not sufficient, it's not even required (at disposal). Team control never matters. The fact that it's always present during player control means nothing with regard to timeouts.

Agreed. Team control is neither required, nor sufficient for a legal time out request. At best it is casually related. Sometimes.

Just a whacky analogy: A player who is holding the ball most likely has a pivot foot. But, like team control, there are cases where a time out may be granted without an established pivot foot. However, unlike team control, having a pivot foot is sufficient for a legal time out request (assuming the request comes from the holder, a player teammate or his/her head coach). So...as relevancy goes, having a pivot foot, which we would agree is completely irrelevant to time out requests, may be less irrelevant than having team control. ;)

I am glad we are so "anal" for words used in an example. Perhaps we should apply this "anality (does such a word exist?) to the rules :)


shame on me; especially when i am so pushy about the rules
I did say my example was incorrectly thought out...:o

But, team control by the other team (among other things) does preclude being granted a timeout. And that is what I read the original post to be talking about...verifying that one team has control vs the other team having control. And, the fact that the other team does have team control directly means that a team can't have a timeout.