Flop

[M&M Guy]

While I'm all for "majority rules", (and especially for anything that helps make rocky grumpy ), I understand where Scrapper is coming from. I believe the section of the rule he is basing his opinion is 4-23-4(b): "If the opponent with the ball is airborne, the guard must have obtained legal position before the opponent left the floor." It doesn't say legal guarding position, only legal position. In other words, it appears it doesn't matter if the defender had legal guarding position established or not, or is maintaining it or not, only that the defender be in the landing spot before the offensive player leaves the ground.

In practice, this would have to be real obvious for me to call this. Was it absolutely obvious B1 ended up in the landing spot after A1 left the ground? Also, was the contact definitely before A1 landed (even with one foot)? Most of the similar plays I've seen involve the shooter landing, then tripping over the defender on the ground. In this case, 4-23-4(b) no longer applies, and we're left with "Every player is entitled to a spot on the playing court provided such player gets there first without illegally contacting an opponent".

The one thing I know I'm against is the feeling that it should always be a block on B1 simply to "punish" the player for falling backwards without contact and not actually taking the charge, even if it was an attempt to draw the call. If it was truly that, we already have a penalty available to us - the T. If it's not T-worthy, then we're left with the other rules already in place.

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