That's not entirely false.
When 20 second timeouts were first created, players were to remain standing and no water was to be given. In fact, I believe only the 5 players on the floor at the time were allowed in the huddle.
Later, it was changed to a 30 second timeout but players were required to remain standing. Even later, the delay of game rule was added to include delaying the game to remove water from the floor after a timeout, presumably a 30 second timeout since players are standing on the playing floor.