WE are not officiating NBA games, which has a different set of marching orders.

This.

I'd have a no call here in a game I'm working. The NBA has their own POEs that don't match ours.

I really don't think we can criticize this call in a vacuum.

Agree here, I'm speaking in general terms about the call. And Bryan, bodies hit the floor all the time. It doesn't mean it was illegal contact that sent them there.

Steve Javie (former NBA ref) was with the announcers crew yesterday in the ABC/ESPN game (Bulls-Lakers). They spoke at length on air about the officials and the officiating. Kind of neat. At one point, they showed the Kyle Lowry play in question. Javie felt a no call would have been better in this instance. Pehaps in hindsight, Eric Lewis might have no called it as well. Unfortunately, the decision has to be made instantly.

Whether or not a player gets hurt as a result of contact has no bearing on that contact being legal or illegal. This is not the correct way to determine if you are going to call a foul or not and should not influence you in either direction.

I didn't say that. You're taking what I said out of context.

It's true... you're not going to have a foul every time somebody falls. Which is why I said I'd be fine with a no-call in this situation.

I see this as a bush league play by the offense and I want them to stop it. If I think they put they foot out on purpose and it trips someone (they did, and it did in this case), I'm calling an offensive foul. The fact that only the NBA has a POE on this doesn't indicate that the underlying rules are different (they're the same), just that the NBA made it a POE.

How did I take what you said out of context? You asked if somebody would change their mind from not calling a foul to calling a foul not because the defender fell, but because he got hurt. I never claimed you said you or anybody else would change their mind because a player fell. I did say, using an injury or lack thereof to determine whether or not a foul occurred is not a criteria to determine whether or not a player's actions constitute a foul. Seems to me my response is in the exact context of your post.

I have to agree with johnny. I fail to see how his response takes your question out of context.

No, I didn't say I'd change my mind on whether it was a foul or not. I'm saying that a player falling shouldn't be disregarded, because a fall could end up bad if said player hit his/her head. Or a fall could end up with another type of injury.

So while it's true not all falls are created equal, and some can be let go, they can be bad and therefore prevented through proper officiating.

This fall in particular could end up really bad. Those two players didn't just tangle their feet together during "normal" play. The defender was tripped while in the air, so there is a greater chance of injury. It's pretty much the same reason it's okay to hang on a rim to prevent injury from the fall.

I am saying that the action that caused the player to fall, regardless of how likely it is that the person/persons falling could be hurt, is either a foul or not a foul. This designation does not change because of an injury or possibility that an injury might occur.

I don't understand how proper officiating is going to prevent any type of fall from occurring. Anything that an official may or may not call is going to come after the action has already occurred and the fall has already happened. Using the OP as an example. Let's assume that there isn't any debate (obviously not the case in this play) that the offensive player committed a PC foul. I am sure that Lowry was/is aware of this ruling in the NBA. Did his knowledge of the rule and the official correctly calling it stop the play from happening? Of course it did not and can not. There are things we can control as officials by blowing our whistles, and things like players falling and being injured or being knocked down and injured that we have no control over.

Proper officiating doesn't prevent falls or injuries. All it can do is penalize the illegal acts that led to those events.

This is a more succinct and better way of stating what my last post tried to say.

And if you penalize those illegal acts, like this trip, then you prevent other players/shooters from doing it. So in this case proper officiating won't directly prevent injuries, it can help prevent future injury.

This all goes back to saying the trip was incidental, and the fact that just because the contact is incidental doesn't mean it's not a foul. If you want to debate whether this is a foul... fine. But saying it's not a foul because the contact was incidental is wrong.

I think you are confusing incidental with minimal. Incidental contact is by definition not a foul. Minimal contact may or may not be a foul.