player leaves court
 

A1 breaks a shoelace and leaves the court during a live ball...ruling?

It is a violation if a player leaves the court for an unauthorized reason. If I'm the official in this situation, I would not consider this to be an unauthorized reason. If Team A has team control and is not immediately attacking the basket, I'll probably stop play and let Team A substitute for A1.

That's not an authorized reason. Violation by the departing player.

I am sorry but you would be wrong. Since the 1963-64 season, in both NFHS and NCAA, the Game Officials are not allowed to cause the ball to become Dead or prevent the Ball from becoming Live to allow a Player to tie his/her shoes not matter which Team has control of the Ball or if neither Team has control of the Ball. If a Player's shoe becomes untied it is the Player's responsibility to retie it. A Player or his/her HC may request a Team TO to tie his/her shoe.

MTD, Sr.

I'll take one from column A and one from column B.

Authorized reason to leave, but no stoppage of play / no sub until the a substitution opportunity.

I'm with bob. Although I'm likely to consider a broken shoe lace differently than one that simply comes untied.

I agree that A1 stepping out of bounds to tie his/her shoe is not an unauthorized leaving of the court. The rule is to keep a player from leaving the court to deceive his opponent. Stepping off the court so as to stay out of the way of the nine other players while he kneels down to tie his shoe does not meet the standards of violating the rule.

MTD, Sr.

+1. I would do this.

I'm guessing this was not a Varsity game.

On a slightly related note: A1 inbounding ball under own basket. Throws the ball to the right. Runs 15' OOB to the left, watching defenders, then turns [still OOB] and runs all the way to the right corner, comes onto the court and receives the ball. Legal?

Probably not. A player has to return directly onto the court, and not in a deceptive manner... which is what this sounds like.

Although, honestly, without the rule book in front of me the semantics I've given may be wrong.

You have to ask? No.

In practice we give a lot of leeway on this rule, but what you describe seems beyond that.

And, the penalty for failing to enter right away is pretty severe (more so than going OOB to make much the same moves).

See 10.3.2A

I don't see a 10.3.2A. I mean, there's no "A". Sounds like this is a player technical.

I didn't think it was legal . . . I was coaching; the refs let it go . . . it was clearly (to by biased eyes) a deliberate play and used to set up a shot for the player who literally scored almost all of the team's points.

Sorry - I assumed you were a ref.