Help me work through a block/charge scenario.
 

This happened last night in 7th-8th grade boys rec game. One of the teams in question have an issue with the referee who made the call based on this incident and past ones. Their "formal complaint" is being dismissed by me, but I am trying to educate the coaches involved as to why the call was made. The referee in question is very solid, calls a lot of varsity games, but sometimes leaves himself open to these situations as he is a little too willing to try and give an explanation during the game.

Here is what I saw:

A1 catches a pass just inside the top of the key, pivots, drives hard to the basket. He does a jump stop, and makes an explosive move to the basket with his shoulder lowered. Think of a move where he is exploding out, and then up, in one motion from the jump stop.

B1 slides in late under A1, hard contact occurs, and both players go down hard. B1 was absolutely punished by A1's shoulder.

Based on what I have described, and assuming B1 did arrive late, what do you have and why?

A block, what else?

This is a block. B1 was late getting to the spot on the floor. I have seen many defenders punished by trying to take a charge but not getting LGP.

B1 slides in late under A1, hard contact occurs.

This is all I need to determine a block in this case, sounds like B1 took A1's landing or he didn't establish LGP which would result in a block as well. A1 is an airborn shooter if I'm picturing the play correctly in my mind. Yeah its going to be an ugly crash, but an easy call from an official's perspective based on what I mentioned. Of course a video like Clark posts would be the best so one could see the whole play, but that is probably not an option.

You would think that, right?
That is the call that was made.

Here is where I need help. The coach of B1 is going ape poop over the lowering of the shoulder by A1 on his move to the basket. I will say his move was hard, and aggressive, but to me it looked like he dips to absorb a blow moreso than looking to dish one out.

I need help explaining to the coach why the shoulder is the non-issue if B1 did not establish first.

Here are some comments from the "complaint" sent to me:
"I understand the nuances of the blocking foul on # 3. As I pointed out in my email, our player (#3) should have been charged with a blocking foul, as he clearly was not set prior to the contact. I was not lobbying for a "charge" either, because you can't have a charge and a blocking call symultaneously. My issue is the lowering of the shoulder and aggressive drive into the lane by the other team's player."

This is a little different than his first argument where he wanted the charge, now he is arguing that A1 should receive a foul after his player is called for the block, based on the aggressive nature of the move.

You have a pretty good picture of what happened. I would love to have video of this to discuss. My explanation to the assistant afte the game when he was asking me about it was that it was an ugly, hard play that resulted in a block, nothing more.
My thought as a coach was that B1 will learn not slide in late next time.

Explain to the coach that basketball is a contact sport and there is some aggressiveness involved.

But, when you say B1 arrived "late", do you mean he got to the spot AFTER A1 went airborne for his shot?

No. If the shooter is being aggressive toward the basket, there's no grounds for calling a foul on him in this situation.

If the shooter had been aggressive toward the defender, then we could talk about that. If the coach wants the charge called, tell him to get his player into LGP before the shot.

It sounds to me like he's asking for (or about) a double foul, one half of which is intentional or flagrant based on A1's actions.

Take a similar play where B1 gets to the spot late, but A1 punches B1 as part of the move.

It's unlikely that happened based just on the "lowering of the shoulder", but it's possible.

Since when is an aggressive drive into the lane, shoulder or no shoulder, a problem? It's only a problem when a defender has LGP and then it's a PC foul, not a block. This wasn't intentional or flagrant action by A, based on the OP.

There was no defender that had established LGP. Basketball is sometimes a contact/collision sport -- it isn't chess.

I think that is what he is pushing for here.

Talking in hypotheticals, what kind of action with the shoulder would you need to see to come up with an intentional/flagrant on A1?
What if he saw the defender stepping and lowered his shoulder just before contact?
I don't think that happened here, as this player dips his shoulder a lot on drives to the basket, even when not in traffic.

My assistant director was sitting with me, and his take was A1 dips to absorb contact. I personally think he does it out of instinct for no particular reason.

Tell the coach there is nothing in the rules that prevents a player from lowering his shoulder. It's often a good indicator, but nothing more. There's certainly nothing against being aggressive. In fact, the rules specifically allow a player to absorb contact; which may well be what was done here.

Basically, it all boils down to this, though.

You're not going to second guess the judgment call of one of your officials.

It's complete judgement, but there would have to be specific intent to cause contact with the shoulder - not in a way to absorb or brace for contact, but in a way to attempt to increase contact/punish the defender. In other words a clearly intentional act for the sake of delivering a blow.

The rules don't prohibit dipping the shoulder or aggressive moves as such.

Any part of the body might be used to cause excessive contact (intentional foul) or contact intended to injure (one type of flagrant foul). So those are what I'd look for -- not the shoulder specifically -- to call those types of foul.

A simple PC foul is more likely, as it's uncommon to cause excessive or flagrant contact with the shoulder.

Coach, you got anything on this?

I will say in almost 20 years of officiating and longer watching/playing I don't recall ever seeing a shoulder like the one you describe that resulted in an intentional/flagrant foul if that tells you anything. It would have to be a scenario where I judged that the shoulder was not part of his move to the basket, but that he went out of his way to seek out the defender and deliver the shoulder to him intentionally - and I mean REALLY went out of his way. More than likely there would also be something leading up to this play that would tip me off that A1 was looking for trouble if I judged it to be intentional/flagrant.

Bob, would you really have a double foul in this scenario where you judge that A1 initiated contact deemed intentional/flagrant? I could see your second example about A1 punching B1 after B1 contacted him illegally, but in this case if the first contact is A1 initiating intentional contact on B2, do you have a foul on B2 also?

Yeah b/c if he went airborne, then B1 arrived at the spot, and then A1 gave him an airborne/intentional shoulder, I'd love to see that play. We're talking Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat now!

Yep, that's the part I'm having a problem with. If B1 was late (after elevation) how/where did he take the contact from a dipped shoulder?

Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka maybe.

Could have been on a "hop" rather than airborne to shoot. A1 was going to return to the ground before going up for the shot.

At least, that's the way I envisioned it.

My take was that A1 started his move to the basket and had left his feet before B1 slid in. I said earlier B1 slid under, because B1 came into the play leaning back trying to pick up the charge late.

I do appreciate all of the feedback I am getting from this, and it will help me explain this better to the coach.

Kind of the opposite. He did a hop/jump stop, and was exploding out of it to the goal. He was in the lane, maybe 8' from the basket.

The shoulder wasn't dipped when contact was made, but was dipped as he started the move, which is what caught Coach b's attention.

Think of A1 coming to a jump stop. As he gathers himself, he drops his shoulder. He jumps out and up, and brings his shoulder through and up as he brings the ball to the basket in an ugly shooting motion for a lay up.

As he moves out and is bringing the shoulder up, B1 slides right into his space, and receives the hit from the shoulder as A1 is bringing his upper body up to the goal. B1 was leaning back as he slid under A1, getting his lower body closer to b1, and his upper body farther back, which is where the contact occurred as A1 did his out and up move.

As I said, this was one of those ugly sequences that seems to occur only in bad rec ball.

It sounds to me that the coach is associating degree of contact with culpabilty, which of course is wrong. A1 airborne on a drive, B1 slides underneath and is flattened along with a blocking call, would be an analogy to tell your coach.

I thought everybody knew that.:D

When I was young and stupid (I'm older now) I used to jump my truck off of a drop-off next to the driveway at the back exit to where I worked. I'd get going at a good clip, go airborne, and then land in the road and tear off toward home. Which was all just fun and games until one night I discovered after going airborne that another vehicle had been in my blind spot (which, when I was young and stupid was larger than most people's). The really interesting thing about being airborne in a vehicle is that no matter how hard you crank the wheel or stomp on the brakes...you just keep heading the same direction at the same speed. I don't know, it has something to do with physics.

Same thing in this case. It's not like the shooter went headhunting for the defender. When the shooter dipped his shoulder and went airborne toward the basket, there was nobody in his path. But once he's airborne, if the defender steps into his path...there ain't much the shooter can do about it. It's the own defender's fault he got creamed, and the foul is just insult to (self-inflicted) injury.

You might also want to point out to this coach that a player dipping his shoulder is not a rule, it's only a rule of thumb.

OT - Speaking of driving
 

When I was in the military (back in the day) I took an Anti-Terroroism and Evasive Driving Class in Europe (Audi's, Merc's, BMW's, Opal's, etc). Very cool. :cool:

When you're car is sliding on ice/snow and out of control - this is your exact same reaction - push that break pedal through the floor. It's not until you release the break pedal will you be able to control the car and avoid whatever it is you're trying to avoid. If you keep that break pedal down, you will continue to go straight no matter how hard you turn that wheel.

Break, pause, release, steer.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled programs......

You know, I learned this lesson in a Pontiac 6000, when I was 16. It's one of the first things you're taught about driving when you learn in a small midwest town; where snow and ice are just facts of life.

I see this play as fairly common. When the block is called, the fans scream, "No! He lowered his shoulder!" Even the coach, who knows his player was late to the spot, might say, "Yeah, but watch him lowering that shoulder next time."

Darn those laws of nature!

That's how I'm seeing this. Even if the shooter saw the defender moving in and lowered the shoulder as a warning, there's nothing illegal about that.

The only way I could see this being anything but a simple block/charge equation, is if the shooter started his move to the basket, saw the defender and THEN adjusted his path as he lowered his shoulder to deliberately ram the defender. I think I'd call that at least intentional.

Or the shooter sees the defender coming and knows he has him beat. He might adjust his posture without adjusting his path, to in effect deliver a blow rather than receive one. I still got a block.

Just tell the Coach to have his player get LGP...

and "take it like a man!"