Sub for the shooter
 

Team A is up by 1 late in the game.

A is inbounding the ball, and B is looking to foul.

A34 is fouled after getting the ball, and A is in the bonus, so we will shoot 1 and 1.

We are all lined up, with A34 ready to shoot the front end. He looks perfectly fine.

B calls timeout.

DUring the timeout, A's coach comes over and says "My player got poked in the eye, and will need a sub - can I send in a sub to shoot his free throw(s)?"

I know A34 is a bench player, he isn't very good, and he looked perfectly fine to me - certainly did not see him get poked in the eye or anywhere else on the play. I tell the coach that no, A34 would have to shoot his own free throws. Coach kind of grins and says ok.

A34 hits them both, A wins the game after some small amount of additional drama not relevant to the situation.

So - should I have let him sub? Is it my place to make any kind of judgement call on a reported injury? He didn't make an issue out of it, but what if he had insisted that A34 could not come back in the game?

I honestly and truly think that A34 was not at all injured, and they were seeing if they could sneak in a better free throw shooter. I thought it at the time, I still think it right now.

If the coach is willing to teach his players to be dishonest for this purpose, well, it's deplorable but there's nothing you can do. If he tells you his player is injured, he's injured. For all you know, he got injured by a teammate reaching for a water bottle during the timeout huddle. Don't question it. If you have doubts, report it to the state afterwards, but there's no way I'd make a player shoot when his coach tells me he's injured. Too much risk for zero real reward.

If a coach tells us a player is injured or sick we have to take their word for it. Unfortunately you were wrong not to allow the sub. I know where you're coming from and since the coach simply grinned it seems apparent to me that his dishonesty was revealed. A "real" coach would have bucked you more on your decision if his player was truly injured.

Nothing else to add... so... how I'll add this:

B should have "held" an A cutter before the ball became touched in bounds. That way, no time comes off the clock.

What, and give up an intentional foul?

4-19-3: An intentional foul is a personal or technical foul which neutralizes
an opponent's obvious advantageous position. Contact away from the ball or
when not making a legitimate attempt to play the ball or a player, specifically
designed to stop or keep the clock from starting, shall be intentional. Intentional
fouls may or may not be premeditated and are not based solely on the severity of
the act. A foul also shall be ruled intentional if while playing the ball a player
causes excessive contact with an opponent.

Hence the reason he said "held." Meaning make it look like a legitimate attempt play.

^ What AGP said.

B just has to play poor defense for a blink. A legitimate INT foul would look much worse.

I had it happen once in a game an hour away. When I realized what happened, the former coach in me said "great strategy".

The play you describe is the exact definition of an intentional foul. I am with mbyron and this would be an easy intentional foul.

4-19-3: An intentional foul is a personal or technical foul which neutralizes
an opponent's obvious advantageous position. Contact away from the ball or when not making a legitimate attempt to play the ball or a player, specifically designed to stop or keep the clock from starting, shall be intentional. Intentional fouls may or may not be premeditated and are not based solely on the severity of the act. A foul also shall be ruled intentional if while playing the ball a player causes excessive contact with an opponent.

You're missing the picture.

The intent was to steal the ball, when B knowingly has a low success rate. The outcome is the clock not starting. As long as it's a legitimate attempt, imho, calling and INT is an incorrect call.

FIBA does have a rule to address this, but only in the last 2 minutes, and only while the ball is still in the thrower-in's hands. In FIBA, this is by rule their nearest equivalent of a cross between a T and an INT.

In Fed, we still use our judgment as to what type of foul to call.

How can you have a legitimate attempt to steal the ball from a cutter?

There's a legitimate play where the foul occurs immediately after the ball is released by the thrower. And there's an intentional foul that occurs before the ball is released. Your original play sounded more like the latter to me, though perhaps that's not what you intended.

In the NBA as well, any foul before the ball is released on the throw-in is automatically two shots unless under two minutes in the 4th/overtime where it's an away from the play foul meaning any player on the court gets to shoot one free throw plus retain possession of the ball.

And Splute, the rule says specifically designed to keep the clock from starting. That doesn't mean any foul. We have to use our judgement. It would be very easy for a defender to make this play look "legitimate." Realistically, the only way this type of intentional foul is going to be called is if it's blatant.

Agreed, I do see your point if the ball is in the air when the hold occurs; that does complicate the call. And yes we still have to use our judgement in Fed, but I do not see that as a bad thing. We discuss these types of plays in our pre-game especially for high profile or playoff type games.

When I first read the post I assumed the ball was still with the thrower; but with the ball in the air, I agree it is not necessarily a clear case for the INT.

Even if the ball is still in the thrower's hands, it doesn't mean it's still an automatic intentional foul. I could imagine scenarios where Team B would foul, but it would still be a legitimate play.

You can have a legitimate attempt to stop the cutter from getting open, leading to a five-second violation.

It's not automatically intentional.

What could you possibly tell a state association in this case? "I'm pretty sure the coach was lying, but I have no evidence, and I didn't look into it?"

I don't see that going anywhere.

What Berkut did may have been risky, but it worked. He smelled a rat, and had good instincts. Some may have checked with the player and asked how he got poked. Either way, he prevented scummy behavior from prevailing.

You're still asking for trouble when doubting an injury or not. We are never put in a position to ascertain the legitimacy of an injury. The matter of the fact is the OP got lucky that coach didn't push the matter further. The only thing we can do is report this to the state. What they can or decide to do is up to them.

Yes IMO to go automatically intentional in this play is being over-officious. Especially if it is hard deny and there isn't any shirt grabbing or other "non-basketball" action.

Exactly. It happens all the time throughout the game, and we never think twice about calling it a common foul. Suddenly, in the last minute, people want to change the way they call it just because the clock stops on the call.

1. That's pretty much what I'd say, but rather than "I didn't look into it" it would be, "I know I had no authority to question him on the court, but I'm pretty sure he was lying."
2. If it goes anywhere is not my concern. If this coach is that duplicitous, it'll catch up with him in time. Even if it doesn't, still not my concern. My job is to follow the rules and (maybe) report suspicions to the state where appropriate.
3. What Berkut did could have gotten him sued, and righfully so, if the player was truly injured. "Sorry, coach, I don't think your player is injured. He has to shoot." Now imagine a very likely scenario with a rebound situation and that player has his injury aggravated.

Not only do you have no rule basis for doing this, you're just setting yourself up for heartache by even going down that road.

Also, by doing what he did, now what does he tell the state? "Yeah, I ignored the rules here and told the coach he couldn't pull his injured player." If he reports the coach, then he admits to the state that he risked the player's health. Over the top? Not really, because even if he judged the risk to be small, that's what he did.

Now, maybe if the coach had pressed the issue, he would have caved and allowed the sub.

Bottom line, though, Berkut got away with one here. And no matter how positive he was about it, it's a very dangerous road to condone the decision in a public forum with new officials who may not possess Berkut's enlightened wisdom and medical expertise.

I agree it is not an automatic intentional and I apologize for giving that impression. I was poorly trying to state what you all know, that the definition of an intentional foul covers the the deliberate attempt to prevent the clock from starting. If that situation occurs we have a means to prevent the defense from unfairly gaining an advantage by having an opportunity to regain the ball without any time having elapsed on the clock. But I would avoid the terms automatic, always and never; they tend to come back and haunt me. :)

Once the thrower-in has released the ball, they can no longer affect the outcome of the pass (unless the pass is really really piss-poor). So then the cutter (to the ball) is at that moment, responsible for completing the in bounds pass. So "steal from the cutter" means to prevent the successful in bounds pass - either by a real steal or a legitimate attempt at a low-success chance of a steal.

In my OP, I did mention "before the ball it touched in bounds" for when the foul should happen. I could have said "airborne after the release".

This is pretty much the conclusion I came to after the game. I was pretty comfortable doing it during the game, with no time to think about it, but in retrospect it was a mistake.

Who am I to say if a kid is injured?

On the other hand...it is pretty galling to let it happen, when I am pretty much positive he was full of ****.

I think the only other thing I could have done would be to ratchet up the pressure on the coach a little bit, *without* saying his player must shoot - ie, ask the player to come over, ask HIM if he is hurt, generally make a bigger deal of it and see if the coach just backs down, without ever saying the player cannot be subbed for?

I dunno, it was certainly one of those "Well, never been faced with THIS situation before..." kind of things. Going to send an email to my interpreter though.