No matter how you phrase the question, the answer is that after the ballhandler becomes airborne, the defender moves to the spot where the airborne player will land. Again, I cannot believe that it is the intent of the rules to allow this. Once that player becomes airborne, no one can move into that player's landing spot.

It does, indeed. And I introduced it precisely because it shows that the majority opinion here would allow an unacceptable result.

According to the folks who agree with Jurassic, the defender in my scenario did not to anything illegal. He obtained a LGP, then maintained that position by moving laterally. Thus, when he is quick enough to move laterally into the airborne player's landing space, most folks here seem to think this should be a player control foul. I think that's unacceptable and not the intent of the rule.

As I've said, once a player becomes airborne, I honestly believe that no other player can move into that player's landing spot, even if they do so by what would otherwise be maintaining a LGP.

(Also, as I re-read this, I realize that it may sound like I'm calling Jurassic out or trying to be antagonistic to him. That's not my intent. I simply use his name because he's the primary person who has been having the conversation with me.)

I'm going to advocate a sort of compromise position that depends upon the trajectory of the shooter. If the shooter has the ability, demonstrated by the trajectory of his jump, to jump over the defender, and the defender then moves backwards into the landing zone; I'd say it's a blocking foul based on scrapper's logic.

If, however, the shooter's trajectory would take him into the defender and the defender simply moves backwards, maintaining LGP, PC (or incidental).

So you are saying that a defender who has established LGP and then moves directly backwards is responsible for the contact if the offensive players jumps and lands on him?

In your situation, if the player moves laterally very quickly to get to the landing spot, I think you would have a block because the player would have to move toward the airborne player in order for this to occur. And no doubt under current human physical capabilities, the player would still be moving toward the airborne player when the contact occurs. I don't think most would disagree with you here. This is illegal by 4-21-3 c.

In the situation that we have been discussing, the player falls backward so they would be moving away from the airborne player. This is allowed. Therefore, they would have legally obtained a spot on the floor prior to the contact.

We could do some vector analysis (never thought I'd bring physics into a discussion here) and prove that the player was moving completely away from the airborne player during the play, but I don't think it's physically possible to slide into the spot without moving toward the player after he has jumped laterally away from the defender.

Just my opinion in this paragraph.
I would say that in your situation, if it were physically possible to move into the airborne shooters landing spot without moving toward him and get there and stop before he lands, then yes, there would be a PC foul. It may be a loophole in the rules as I read them and as you read them, but I just don't think that the athletes that we have today can do what you describe without doing something illegal. So you'd probably be right to call the block.

If the defender moves AFTER the offensive player jumps, then yes. The rule says you have to get to the spot BEFORE the player becomes airborne.

Sorry, that ain't a compromise. You can't compromise anything without any rules backing to back up your supposed side of the compromise. And neither you nor Scappy have any rules backing for your position.

Logic is meaningless when rules are involved. One has nothing to do with the other. And one man's logic doesn't necessarily equate to another man's logic either. Mehinks you need to insert the word "opinion" instead of "logic". You and Scrappy are giving your opinion; that's a heckuva big difference than the way that the rules actually read.

And if either of you think that really you do have rules backing, feel free to cite the germane rules.

If the offensive player makes contact stright on with the defender and the defender then falls away straight backward because of that contact or to try and avoid further contact, there is nowayinhell that the offensive player can jump BEFORE the defender started moving backward afyer the initial contact. And if the offensive player now jumps, he's jumping straightforward into/onto a defender that was already moving straight backward. There is no rule that I know of that will allow you to call a block on a play like that. Quite simply, by rule the defender has done NOTHING illegal.

Are you serious? Didn't you read the agreed-upon scenario? The defender started moving backward upon the initial contact BEFORE the offensive player jumped. The defender was ALREADY moving backward either from the incidental contact or from trying to avoid further contact BEFORE the offensive player became airborne!

No matter how you phase the question, the ballhandler became airborne after the defender started moving straight backwards and jumped into/onto the defender. The rules do not allow us to call a block because by rule the defender has not done anything illegal.

No, the defender never moved laterally, and neither I nor anyone else has ever said that the defender moved laterally. "Laterally" means "sideways". The defender moved straight backwards. That's a whole different direction, Skippy.

Crabs walk laterally, lobsters walk straight! You're talking crabs vs. lobsters now.

I've already said in another post that a defender can't move laterally into a airborne player's landing spot. That's a basic. But....big BUT....we're discussing a defender moving straight backwards, NOT laterally.

You're confusing the hell out the situation now.

The idea of lateral motion got introduced because of its link to LGP: it's possible to maintain LGP against a dribbler by moving laterally.

That's not the case with an airborne shooter, which explains why everyone is agreeing that moving laterally into an airborne shooter is a block.

I suppose the point of dispute is: does the defender lose LGP by ANY motion, lateral or away from the airborne shooter? If I understand Scrapper, he's saying that by backing up the defender loses LGP and is thus liable to be called for a blocking foul when the AS lands on him.

See post #56 of this thread.

See post #56 of this thread.

And I know of no rule that says a defender loses either LGP or a legal position by moving backward before an opponent directly in front of that defender became airborne.

Ummmm, so what? :confused:

Nobody, including me, is saying that the defender has to start moving toward his spot on the floor before the offensive player becomes airborne. My entire point in this thread is that, in order to have legal position at the time of contact with an airborne player, the defensive player must get to that position before the player became airborne.

I couldn't care less when he started moving. That's completely irrelevant.

I would agree with this.