Absolutely a travel. Any ref that doesn't call it should be banned from officiating at any level. He took FOUR steps. How could that possibly NOT be a travel? Should we just abandon dribbling at all?
The rule is not "after your last dribble." That seems to be the big misunderstanding with a lot of ppl. The rule is "when your dribble ends." In this case, the rule is you start counting steps at the point he gathers the ball with two hands. Whether you agree with that rule or not, it is the rule. CJ gets 2 steps after gathering with two hands.
As heyp notes, he's still dribbling well into what you are counting as steps. If it was interpreted the way you think, half of all layup attempts would be travels, lol
Yeah, I don't really follow him, just see him on the ABC broadcasts occasionally. Probably nonsensical logic, but I typically take these types of guys opinions with a grain of salt. Can never tell what their biases are. Again its random, but I trust this conversation in this thread more than I trust Nunn's random, quick response to a tweet someone sent to him.
Yeah, it's like tweeting a ref about a foul call to settle a big bbs dispute, which has settled upon one point of contention. Then the ref responds with "it was a foul" with no explanation, and the BBS says "see, it was a foul for the reason we were debating." But in fact, the ref called it a foul for another reason, but didn't tweet his reason. I can't really call Nunn inconsistent on that tweet, unless/until he explains the point of gather (which is his evangelistic calling on twitter) and it completely disagrees with his long history of gather-step explanations. However, if he says his sees the 2-hand gather prior to point of right foot planting, so it was 3 steps, then we are debating with the ref on a bang-bang call. It is very close. (It's like a ref on twitter says Player X last touched a ball on an out-of-bounds play, and our slo-mo makes it look like Player Y.) Doesn't need to be inconsistency or conspiracy reason. This would also be inconsistency for me: if he says CJ carried the ball, then I have an issue with Nunn's consistency for sure. But Nunn would call that "Carry," since technically, Carry is a different Dribble Violation, and not Travelling.
How could anyone think it's a travel? He pulls the ball up right when he plants on the right but his left foot isn't even down yet because it is in the process of taking one more exaggerated step to the left before he shoots. It's no different than any running floater except that he is not going towards the hoop but clearly the direction doesn't matter. More importantly, I don't see how this move gives any player a competitive advantage - it's deceptive because players normally don't move like that to free up for a shot, but it's well within the rules and requires the defender to recognize the position of the offensive player's feet when an opponent pulls up his dribble which is more an adjustment than an unfair advantage.
You shouldn't assume this is about you or the technical disagreement we had over the language in the rule book. If it was, I would have @ed you about it. The question in the OP is whether it is a travel. Ronnie Nunn is nice enough to answer questions like this on his twitter page from time to time, and he is obviously an authority in this area unlike any of us posting here, so getting his opinion on this interesting play adds a relevant data point to the discussion. I immediately asked him a follow up regarding the gather rule and how it applies here; we'll see if he chooses to reply or not.
Of course it gives a competitive advantage to the offensive player. Look at the separation he was able to get with the ball in his hands.
I'm not. My analogy actually happened here. Don't assume why I used that analogy. I had already seen your follow up question to Nunn, so have full confidence that you want further explanation, thus not an example of my analogy, or I would have @ 'ed you, too. btw: you keep saying you and I have a technical disagreement of wording. That's not accurate either. More accurate is we walked through the wording together and, from my seats, you were hunting for vagueness and loopholes. Now that most all the relevant wording is out, I'm left just asking you to explain why it's vague to you...which I did ask. Any similarities to a debate are over. It's like someone telling BimaThug they are having a technical disagreement with the CBA when he just doesn't understand why something seems vague or a loophole of wide interpretation. At this point, I'm just interested in your explanation...to see if you corner yourself with conspiracy theory. You have technical disagreement with the league, refs and Nunn's long history of describing gather step, though. If you research Nunn more, I've found he never applies or even discusses "comes to rest". With the guys who matter, I don't find it to be at the level of vagueness and debate as you are trying to construct here. Claiming scores of step-backs are actually holding the ball from above is your theory. Rather than sending vids, just ask Nunn what come to rest means, and when he applies that to end of dribble.
@heypartner I provided a detailed explanation for why “ball is at rest” is not defined in the way you are claiming it is. You say this is “hunting for a loophole”. Well, yes. If I’m claiming there’s a loophole which leads to vagueness, then that needs to be dealt with. Your dismissal of this point is odd given that you have maintained throughout that the definition is clear and incontestable.
In the video it looks like the "ball is at rest" right AFTER he makes that second jab/step back with his right foot. After that first "jab" of his right foot, he can still continue dribbling.
Cool. Problem is people can interpret that condition any way they like, because the rule book doesn’t define what it means, despite @heypartner’s claims otherwise. There are common sense ways of defining it. But until it is explicitly codified, there will be wiggle room and you’ll have some people (like heypartner) looking at it and thinking it’s a clear legal play, and others (like two actual professional referees) who think it’s a travel. There is a clear disconnect here. My theory is it stems from the vagueness of the end of dribble condition.
What about if you do a Harden step-back INTO a T-Mac off the backboard though? Where's your God when THAT happens?
The foot he is moving to get the separation is moving when he picks up his dribble - that foot has to land somewhere. Why does it matter if it's 9" from his other foot or a few feet towards the baseline? We count in steps and the dribble doesn't stop until that separation foot is arleady in motion - he is well within his right to put that other foot down in any scenario.
umm, you didn't even describing my take correctly. But let's put that aside. Stop focusing on others, and focus on your take and your explanation. This game of deconstruction of others doesn't work with me. It just means you can't explain your take in your own words. Describe "come to rest" in your own words. To establish a theory like yours that step-backs are carries/palmings, you have to first define it, then convince others. All your post said was no one has convinced you that your theory is wrong. In the end, all we can make out of that post is your debating tactics. If you can't find a definition that fits your criteria of "perfectly clear," then you claim vagueness for all. And then to legitimize this as a big debate, you claim you are having a debate with me over technical differences. It's a common ploy of D&D conspiracy theorists: To avoid one's argument from being isolated as eccentric, people seek out an established take and inject themselves as the contrarian side, thus legitimizing their theory having a mainstream debate ... when the other side isn't even debating with you. No durvasa, we aren't debating, yet, because you haven't even provided a detailed enough theory for me to address in your language.
What? There is no proof that me and those refs disagree wrt rules interpretations. If one person says travel, and another person doesn't, that's not detailed enough for your claim of vagueness. We have to know what part of the rule we each are applying to the travel call. You can't claim vagueness just because you are not satisfied with how the rule book is written. You have to establish it. I legitimately what to help you prove vagueness. Try this exercise, when you have time: Describe all possible meanings of "comes to rest" in your own terms Give us pointers on how we can improve the phrase "comes to rest" Give us pointers on how we can help you find current inconsistencies that prove vagueness in the wild. For instance, Saying I disagreed with Nunn or another Ref is not clear. Tell me how we disagreed and what we disagreed on? Then we can help you prove vagueness. Give us pointers on how we can tell the difference between your "comes to rest" definition and when a player continues their dribble. Let us help you. But you need to help us understand your issue better. Until then, the rules remain very clear to me, and my understanding comes nearly exclusively from studying Nunn's explanations throughout the time he's been providing them....and, further, seeing no big inconsistencies in the wild.
Your take is the issue. You insist the conditions for when the dribble ends are well defined in the rule book and consequentially this is a clearly legal play (not close to a travel, I believe you said in your initial post). I disagree it is not close to a travel. All I ask is that you defend your own claims, especially in light of the fact that a prominent former NBA referee disagrees with your perspective and says it is a travel. For instance, given your interpretation of the end of dribble section, explain how the hop step can lead to a travel in this case, as Nunn says happened. As for this: Step-backs are not carries/palmings, by definition. That's not my theory, so I really don't know why you keep returning to this. CJ did not commit a carry/palming violation, clearly. If he continued his dribble rather than taking the step back, would there be a violation? I don't think so, the way the league currently enforces the rules. But I cannot prove there is no dribbling violation using the rules as presently defined. The reason is that dribbling violations include the case when the dribble has ended and then continued, while the ending of the dribble includes "ball is at rest" condition which is not defined anywhere (and if you want to claim it is defined by the dribbling violations section, then we are left with a circular definition which again gets us no where). So, as much as I don't think that would constitute a carry if he hypothetically continued his dribble, I can not say that is clearly the case as per the rule book.
So the thing is, if you want the step back to be considered a travel then we have to change the rule to be one dribble per step. That would be insanely stupid. The game as we know it would slow down. So, sorry to say the step back is here to stay. Get over it.
