Freedom of Movement 10-6-12

[Rich1]

Originally Posted by OKREF

if the defender puts a hand on and removes, and maintains the 6 ft guarding space, any other touch would draw the whistle. If the 6 ft requirement is removed, then the second touch wouldn't draw a whistle.

This sounds like a good baseline to begin with. This is where our judgement should come in. I think of the "hot stove" test as meaning the two touches happen together. I was always told to see it as hand on, hand off, hand on, hand off, hand on...

Under the new rule I don't care where it happens (FC/BC) I just care that it happens. But I do think its reasonable to play on if there is a significant amount of time between the two touches. The intent of the rule is to penalize the defense for those hand checks that would "bother" the dribbler and thus disrupt their play (or freedom of movement) but were not getting called by some officials.

I plan to call this by looking at it from three perspectives: 1) If in my judgement the two touches disrupt the dribbler then I will call it no matter how far apart they are; 2) If in my judgement I think the dribbler is not affected and the two touches are faaaaaaaaar apart, I probably will not call it (but I may verbalize hands off); 3) If the two touches are close together, I will always call it wether or not the dribbler is disrupted. Of course, game management, my partner's calls, and other factors will influence how I call it on a day to day basis but for the most part I intend to call it as written using the professional judgement I am paid for.