Whaddya got?

[Adam]

Originally Posted by Scrapper1

UNLESS the contact is on or by an airborne shooter, which is the entire debate on this play.

Why in the world not?? What other reason is there for making an exception for an airborne shooter if it doesn't cover this situation? The ONLY way I can think of for an airborne shooter to commit a foul after the ball is dead is to do it after a dunk. Nobody's hang time is good enough to stay airborne until after a 15-foot jump shot goes through the basket.

So should we submit a rule change so that 4-1-1 reads that an airborne shooter is a player who has released the ball on a try and has not yet returned to the floor, but who has not grasped the ring? (That opens up a whole other can of worms for this play, btw.)

As I said previously, I can actually understand why we'd want this to be a dead ball contact technical foul. It is the "expected" call. It's like calling one foul instead of a multiple foul. You could be technically right in calling a multiple foul, but nobody does; and it would be a major headache if you did. But at least in that case, you have rule support for calling one foul (after all, the player who gave the foul to did commit a foul). And to be completely honest, in the heat of the moment, I might actually forget that he's an airborne shooter because of the unusual circumstances.

But in the video play, you actually don't have rule support for a technical foul.

At the very least, you would need to go with an intentional personal.

I've still got a T, for either taunting or hanging.
Taunting: Brad gave us a pretty good reasoning.
Hanging: The book says a player may "grasp" to prevent injury. Rondo goes beyond that by purposefully altering his trajectory into an opponent. Not part of the spirit of the rule allowing him to prevent injury.

IMO, you do have rule support for a T.