You have been slaying in this thread. Just thought I would tip my cap to you. We have a professional basketball ref over on the Blazers board. Like, he literally makes his livelihood from reffing basketball games. If he viewed this, he would most likely back you up bud. Do you guys want me to show this clip to him to get his opinion? And yes he is a Blazers fan, but he calls out the good and the bad from our games.
That is hard to believe that he'd mistakenly call it a "clear" travel out of sheer carelessness. He does this stuff for a living. More likely, the league is currently OK with giving star offensive players more leeway on these maneuvers, even though they are in actuality somewhat questionable. As for your other post above, I'll just say you evidently missed my point with those questions. You seem agitated, so I'm going to just not respond to it rather than continue what appears to be turning into a flame war.
I'll send it to him. It is Saturday, so not sure if he will get to it soon. I'll see what I can do though! Cheers.
You never claim conspiracy theories. In fact, you are a big contrarian against such arguments. It's not a stretch at all to say the league had better video at their disposal than Nunn had. But it is a conspiracy to say the L2M officials corrected the earlier travel in the 4Q, but not Giannis, because of superstar treatment. I didn't miss you point, because you didn't make one. You're just playing dumb by saying stuff like Thorpe can palm the ball with one hand while shuffling his feet...because the carry rules only speaks to having your hand under the ball. If you can't tell the difference between continuing a live dribble by touching/caressing/steering the ball from above and holding it by palming, that doesn't mean the rules aren't clear. Many dribbles like a cross-over (or cut dribble, inside-out dribble) are just like McCollum's still live dribble, but cross-overs continue the dribble legally vs McCollum stopping the dribble with his second hand.
Or he never played the game. Sounds like the guys who think “I can’t do it so it must be illegal” on that note I’m certain refs in this era couldn’t handle Dreams footwork. I can’t tell you how many non-travels are called travel today while obvious one are not.
There is no conspiracy theory. The league is consistent on giving the offensive player the benefit of those step back calls. The rule book allows for them to do so. You are changing your arguments. You started by saying its not a ball at rest when both hands aren't on the ball. Then you said its not a ball at rest as long as the hand isn't underneath the ball. Now, its it isn't a ball at rest if the hand isn't underneath the ball and the ball isn't being palmed from above (where does it say that?). Point is: the rule book does not define what ball at rest under the control of the ball-handler means. In the end, you are relying on your intuition of what that means. Fine. Others can easily have a different intuition. That is the gray area, and that is why I suspect the NBA has some wiggle room to change how they officiate this with new "points of emphasis" in the offseason. Not saying it is likely to happen, but it might if enough people within the league complain about it.
That was a really lengthy reply for no reason. Whether the rules allow for it or not is irrelevant to me. The rules allowed for the 3 point ft’s last season. Like I said... Regardless of what the rules say, I don’t like how the second one looks. Edit: I’m gonna clarify so you don’t write a huge response. I don’t care about this topic one way or another. Giannis’ step-back was just ugly.
From this discussion, I think the takeaway is that the current rule allows a player to take max 2 steps after the point from which the dribble is discontinued (when it would be a violation for them to continue it). By that definition, it could definitely be argued that CJ's play is legal. The question really is whether the NBA would consider tweaking that rule. For example: limit the number of steps a player can take with the ball in one or both hands to, say, no more than 3. Would that put things in line with how travels were called 20+ years ago? If it ends up being too restrictive, then it won't work. But if it matches how the game was called back then, I could see them strongly considering such a change. Especially if players try to squeeze in more and more steps during that "gather" and there is increasing push back against that trend.
I enjoy gaining new knowledge. Thanks for your time. Ask the referees why LeBron's jump-step was deemed illegal early in his career. I don't need to post videos because they should exactly what I'm speaking. He was doing it early and wasn't whistled, but then it changed. The move was NOT a "hop".
Not sure why you say this is an NBA dunk thing. The two-step rule has been with basketball on all levels since I was a kid. I'm sure it was there before I was born. Dribble to the basket. Gather the ball. Two steps. Jump for the layup. That's how I was taught since elementary school. It's not about making dunks look better. It's about giving you a couple more steps to carry your momentum when you drive, making the jump smoother. If basketball has another rule for other kinds of footwork that allows moving your pivot foot so that shooting looks smoother, that's fine. But I don't think the step back or side stepping to shoot should be an application of the two-step rule. That's the purist in me. That's why I asked you if the taking a step to square up was a separate rule.
Op is clearly not a travel. It’s spectacular in its aesthetics of awkwardness but it’s legit legal. It’s hard understanding how the giannis video is legal. But after watching over and over again in slow motion, yeah... it’s legal also
Lol ask the refs? It was illegal because he takes 3 steps. If he landed with both feet after his initial step it would be fine but he takes another full step after. Two completely different moves
Haha. I shared this video on the Blazers board and it just started an argument there about whether or not it was a travel. Didn't learn anything new. For what's it's worth, a professional ref there called it a travel, as he thinks CJ initially sets his pivot foot as his right foot before the step to the side. And then that move would be considered changing the pivot foot. An ex college basketball player on the board doesn't think so, as the dribble is still active up to that point. I'm done thinking about it. Haha What I will say, is that the REALLY good offensive players will find ways to be creative with the rules. Why wouldn't they? I know Harden does similar things. And it's smart as hell, as long as you kind of live in that gray area between legal and illegal and get away with it.
CJ's is a travel; Harden's is not. Put any of Harden's step backs side by side with CJ's, and McCollum is taking extra steps beyond his gather which other people are calling the gather. The gather is after you bounce, wherever your feet are going if they're in motion, that landing process does not count towards the two steps. If you bounce the ball and pick it up, and your feet are already planted, then you don't get a gather because you're already gathered. It's a very refined dance that only Manu and Harden have mastered as far as I can tell. Natural for copycats to be messing it up on their initial go-arounds.
Yeah, in terms of rythym, CJ's looks okay, just different because of the side stepping. Giannis looks like he stuttered and and gathered twice. Am I getting old or something? Everything is happenening way too fast.
last summer the league and refs got together and changed the rules on giving FTs on fouls specifically to stop Harden then harden quickly adjusted to the rules and not only still getting his this year but even getting more while the rest of the league lagged behind pretty sure the league and the refs will think twice before pulling the BS again because they gonna lose big again
