Traveling or not?

[Back In The Saddle]

Originally Posted by CoachP

I'll bite.

Travel.

Player lifted his/her pivot foot. All he/she can do is pass, shoot or CALL time out.

You're a provocative one, CoachP This is a maxim that gets bandied about quite often here. But it's not entirely true. For instance, the airborne player could simply drop the ball and after landing walk away, abandoning it. But it happens so infrequently that it's not worth cluttering our maxim by adding it.

My question revolves around another event that happens almost as infrequently...what if the airborne player fumbles? Another maxim we bandy about is that you can always recover a fumble. But is that one entirely true?

Originally Posted by just another ref

I got a travel. He jumped while holding the ball. He returned to the floor while holding the ball.

Normally I would agree. But "up and down" is not the actual violation. It's all to do with the pivot foot. If a player fumbles the ball he is no longer "holding the ball". And since "holding the ball" is a requirement of the traveling rule, how can pivot foot restrictions continue to apply?

Once the fumble is recovered and the still airborne player is again "holding the ball" and returns to the ground, surely the normal rules apply to determining which foot will be his new pivot foot?

Obviously I'm not certain about this or I wouldn't have asked the question.