Is this common in your neck of the woods?
 

A conversation I've had with fellow officials is about wether we should tell players how much time is left on the shot clock. Now I know many of you do not use a shot clock. But for those who do, do you advise the players the amount of time left before a throw-in? I don't believe we should but some of my partners do it. Today, I'm doing a game and we have a throw-in with 4 seconds left, I show my partner four fingers. He seems to take this as a reason to loudly announce that "There are four seconds on the shot clock". Now he did three of four times during the game so it was consistent for both sides but to me if a team is unaware of a game situation that's their problem.

I don't comment on shot or game clock time to any player or comment. In "these here parts" we will try to get our partner's attention and communicate (non verbal) that time is short on the shot clock. (Chest tap, wrist tap, nod to the clock etc.) UNLESS, there is a time out, then it is just easier to talk to your partners.
Hope that helps.

In NYC, some of our pro-am games do not have a physical shot clock (but do have the shot clock rule) so we keep it ourselves using the game clock -- in this case, we announce at all inbounds, 10, 5 and countdown from 3.

In our officiating zone our head officials ask us to announce anything under 10 on dead ball (throw in). They're rational is it will help avoid game interruption because a team wasn't aware.

Why should it be the official's responsibility to tell a team how much time is left on a shot clock? Here officials may give the violation signal or some other if time is close to tell each other but not tell teams. However that is the responsibility of either coaching staff or players to know the clock!

This just seems weird. "game interruption?" So they teach you to coach the players out of a violation? Might as well do your 5 second inbound count out loud.

I do see that their is a bit of a difference here.

Telling the players about the status of the game is a bit different than telling them they're getting close to an infraction. I don't think it is quite the same as "Hey, watch out, you're getting close to the OOB line" or "Hey, remember, you've already dribbled".

It is more like..."You can run the line" or "Spot throw-in". They should also know which of those it is but we do tell them that. I don't see that it would be much different to say, there are 5 seconds on the clock (to both teams).

Of course, we don't do it that way, but I could see the reasoning.

I see your point with the spot vs end line throwin, but I do think it's closer to the 5 second throwin call. They're both time limits the players and teams should be aware of.Then again, I've only worked one game with a shot clock, so it's not something I'm overly familiar with.

Warning, Warning, Will Robinson ...
 

How about the infamous, "Get out of the lane"?

During critical throw-ins in the NBA, the officials will sometimes verbally give the counts (The whole count). I'm not sure how often they do it, but they do.

Also, I was at a local rules clinic, and one of the officials there, who does D-III games told us to give the first second of the five second count (I guess this was so they could gauge how fast we were counting?).

Really? Sounds like the TX tradition of the officials hitting the whistle as they take the court so the players know it's time to stop dunking. Purely local/regional, and something I've never heard of anyone else doing. If your local powers want that done, ok. If, however, it's some guy who just started getting some D-III games passing something he heard from someone that one time at band camp, I'd ignore it.

Yeah, I was watching a special on NBA TV where the profiled the officials. On almost every inbounds that was shown in the piece, the official was verbalizing the 5 second count along with the hand count.

I think it's just an NBA thing. I've never actually done it during any of my games, but I've always remembered him saying to do it.

I don't know enough about NBA mechanics to doubt you; there are others here that work NBA mechanics regularly (BTaylor) and would know one way or the other. I was surprised someone told you to do it at the high school level, to be honest.

I'm by no means saying that it is a proper mechanic. I'm just saying that I've seen it done. If not for the special, I never would have known that they even sometimes do it. You never can tell when you watch games on TV, and I've never been to an NBA game, so I don't know. Maybe I'll go and see a game one of these days, and maybe then I can find out for sure.

If you're doing high school games, don't do it.

NFHS rule 2-7-9.

That makes no sense whatsoever.

FIBA, Jeff. Might be the proper mechanic for them. Who knows?

Do you officiate in Canada?

His listed location is NB/PEI.

Canada yes.

I don't think this is a directive by anyone above our local level. As previously stated it supposedly helps us reduce game interruptions to hand the kid the ball and say you guys have x seconds to shoot (When its below 10). I don't care one or the other so if that's what my partner is doing I'll go along.

I personally feel we would have less game interruptions if our old school officials would stop combining to call 35-50 fouls every game.

Unfortunately, the "game interruption" that they're advocating is a legitimate offensive violation. What you're doing is aiding the offensive team and screwing the defensive team. As BktBallRef said, that makes no sense at all. Officials are supposed to be neutral. What you're doing is a coaching function.

However, you really don't have a choice if your local association tells you to do that.

Silly monkey local association.

And btw, the foul count in ANY game is predicated on the play, not the officials. And I don't care what association you're in or where it is, some officials will call a tighter game than others. And age and experience doesn't have that much to with that either. As long as both (tight and loose) are consistent, there's not a damn thing the matter with that imo. The players/coaches will adjust to the officiating that they get. It's inconsistent officiating that drives 'em nuts. Your statement above about "old school officials" shows very little actual knowledge about basic officiating realities imo.

And btw, that term "game interrupter" is a pet peeve of mine. Every time you blow the whistle, no matter what for, you interrupt the game. A timeout is a game interrupter. All the "game interrupter" advocates are doing is advocating blowing fewer whistles. And that's dumb. You call what happens in that particular game. And what happens in that particular game is set by the players, not the officials.

End of rant. :)

I couldn't agree more. I'm young and definitely have areas I can improve in but . . .

If the nature of any game determines how many fouls are called then there shouldn't be 35+ fouls in every game.

And while good and poor officials can come in any age, shape or size. When the 2-3 oldest officials in our zone that I refer to as old school call all contact a foul. When you try to talk to them about adv/disadv. they says that's ridiculous all contact impedes someone somehow and that causes the disadvantage.

I am not near to being the official i want to be but I know who I don't want to be:

- I don't want to be the official doing a game between two top teams that get university level officials night in and night out except at an evaluation tournament and then having two of our local guys combined to call 61 fouls.

- I don't want to foul out 7 players in a provincial (state) final when those teams have played 3 times prior and had 3 players foul out total.

- I don't want to be the official making this quote: Coach: If you are going to call that then you can't play m2m defense on them. Partner X: Good - They figured that out 2 quarters ago. Now play zone.

- I don't want to be named in a report which was sent by one local coach to our association claiming that in 10 local games his team had players foul out 27 times while they fouled out 13 times in 15 games out of conference.

I'm not perfect, but I know from experience and reputation that our zone calls a tighter game then any other in our area of the country. As a result our kids try to adjust but the game just then gets called tighter and tighter. While me and other officials for the sake of consistency need to make the calls these guys are making in a given game. I shouldn't have officials telling coaches their kids are too rough and then having these same kids go to play road games and being told by officials they are too soft and have to play through that.

End of Rant.

After reviewing this thread, I've decided I'm going to verbalize five-second inbound counts from now on. However, I'm going to do it like this: 3, 5, 2, 1, 4. It'll be a lot more fun that way. :p

You might have 20 fouls in one game and 80 in the next. And sometimes that's true if the same teams play again but decide to change their defensive philosophies. The bottom line is that our job is to react. We call what happens at any particular point in any particular game...and hopefully we do so consistently. It isn't our job to make any kind of decision as to how a game should be played. That's up to the players and their coaches. Yes, we each set our own personal standards as to how how much contact we allow during the game. The key is to just try to follow those standards as consistently as you can.

You're using the world "old" when you should be using the word "incompetent". And being older than dirt myself, that tends to piss me off. :D "Old School" ain't necessarily "bad school".

What I think that you have is a philosophy difference between yourself and some of the people in your association. I really don't think that age or experience is that big of a factor either. That kinda thing is fairly common in a lot of associations between officials across the spectrum in my experience. And there's really not much you can do by yourself to change it. What you can do is stick to your own personal ideas and values as to how to call a game. If everybody disagrees with that, you'll sureashell find out in a hurry anyway.

The great thing is that you obviously care about the job that you are doing. Please, don't ever lose that care. What we do is a never-ending quest to keep up with the game as it continually changes and evolves.

As usual, jmo.

I have done just a few games with a shot clock. The shot clocks are on the top of both backboards where all players, bench personnel, coaches and officials can readily see them. No difference from the game clock in my opinion. Why penalize the defense by letting the offense know what they should already know? Spot throw-in or run of the line especially coming in from a timeout is not the same in my opinion.

No Blind Jokes Please ...
 

Required in IAABO mechanics. Just added this past season. Previous to this it had been a suggested option. Not sure about NFHS. I'm sure a non-IAABO Forum member will be along shortly to bring us up to speed on NFHS mechanics regarding this situation.

Spot or running baseline throw-in v. time remaining on the shot clock is apples and oranges. Spot/running is not obvious. If you are the thrower and you have a brain fart and don't recall why you're throwing the ball in, there is nowhere you can look for that information. The shot clock, OTOH, is prominently displayed. Not only can the player look at any time to remind himself of the remaining time, he is coached to do so...every time the ball becomes live.

By reminding the players of the remaining time, you are doing for them what they rightly should be doing for themselves.