Of course you ****ing can't, not in the nba, not in college, not in high school, not in a pick up game. that's traveling, or self-pass, whatever you want to call it on your particular court, right? i've played this way my entire life and every pick up game has gone like this and every game i have ever watched has called traveling when a guy catches his own airball. but this guy i play with quite a bit has kept saying that in fact you can catch an airball. i called BS, and after a few weeks of hearing it went and looked it up in the NBA rule book to make sure i wasn't making stuff up. and of course it said it was traveling. and then he said, well what about college. and i'll be ****ing damned if the college rule book doesn't say you can just go right on ahead and catch your own airball and do whatever from that point forward, even dribble again! am i the last person on the planet to find this out? i've never played with anyone who thought otherwise. i'm racking my brain right now to ever remember a college game where i saw someone catch their own airball and then not get whistled for traveling. it's always called. but the rule book seems to state otherwise*. so a) does anyone else allow people to catch airballs in a pick up game, b) did anyone else not know this was a college rule, c) has anyone ever seen a college game where someone was allowed to catch their own airball, d) doesn't this pretty much invalidate the double dribbling rule (the question at the bottom where the rule is asks if you catch it before it hits the court again but the answer only mentions retrieving it w/ no mention of hitting the court or not), or e) am i reading it wrong? why can't i just pick up my dribble throw it where i please if i'm trapped and then go catch it and say it was a bad shot? who makes that call? or if i throw a bad pass by the basket, who says i wasn't shooting if i run to catch it before the defense? i've never seen it happen and i've watched quite a few college games, it would've happened if they allowed it. and i'm a pretty big stickler for the rules as well so i wouldn't just let it slip by if i saw it. help me. *here's the rule: A.R. 33. A1 attempts a try at Team A's basket after having completed the dribble. The try does not touch the backboard, the ring, flange or any other player. A1 runs and catches the ball before it strikes the playing court. Is this traveling? RULING: When A1 recovered his or her own try, A1 could either dribble, pass or try again. There is no team control by either team when a try is in flight. However, when the shot clock expires and a try by A1 or a teammate has not struck the ring, it shall be a violation of the shot-clock rule.
Well, it's obvious that guy sucks on the court if he has to resort to catching his own airballs. Next time he chunks up an airball and catches it, clothesline his ass in mid air when he goes up for the shot... That's even worse than those p*****s that yell "first!" when somebody ties up the ball with them. You have to EARN that ball, fairy boy!!
I never allowed somebody to catch their air ball in a pickup game(but then there are not much pickup games in holland, but if i play with my friends we do not allow it). In the European competition it is not allowed. The fact that this guy needs it says enough.
That actually happend to me and my friend during a one on one pick up game a couple days ago. I told him he wasnt allowed to but he argued that you can't do it in any basketball game besides on one one because if you airball and the ball is in play it would be a live ball for either person to rebound(on a legit shot attempt). I could see his POV because in that situation an airball would be an automatic turnover which I dunno if that should be the case. Does anyone know the rule about rebounding your own airball in a one on one game?
I believe the official NBA rule book for one on one games states that if a player catches his own airball, he must sodomize a goat. I swear, it's in there.
if you play pick up games with these kinds of people, you need to find new people to play with (i.e. people that knows the rules)
http://www.nba.com/analysis/rules_index.html With regards to the NBA's interpretation of f4p's friend's nutty antics : Section XIV-Traveling i. A player who attempts a field goal may not be the first to touch the ball if it fails to touch the backboard, basket ring or another player. PENALTY: Loss of ball. The ball is awarded to the opposing team at the sideline, nearest spot of the violation but no nearer the baseline than the foul line extended. (... interesting that it says if he attempts a FG... what if he just passes to himself without attempting a FG? I'm sure that's somewhere in the rulebook, right? )
I heard something about that rule, that if its an "honest" attempt at a shot and its an airball they won't call traveling.
It doesn't matter if it is allowed in college ball (which I'm still dubious about), it's not allowed in pick-up games. I can see one guy trying to make the argument, but no one, not even his own teammates, would back him up. And, you'd have to be pretty low on self-respect to even try to make the argument in the first place. It's bad enough he airballed in the first place. Would he try to justify dribbling with two hands if he could? It makes him look like a loser. If you're playing with other people, I would recommend disassociating yourself from that person so that his loserness doesn't reflect badly on you. I can see one accepting it in 1-on-1, but even there I wouldn't allow myself to do it. I'd grab my rebound and hand it to the opponent. Victory isn't too sweet when you do stupid BS like that.
I believe it's like this: An airball or pass cannot be caught by the same person that initiatated the action. However if the ball slipped out of his hands somehow, someway he can catch and grab it again. As far as I know, this is how it is.
Yeah, I've seen this in the college game before. But like JV said, it's stupid to do it during a pickup game. Only a whiney puss would argue crap like that.
I knew this already. We have had this argument for the last couple of years at the YMCA, and since we play the NCAA 3 pt line, it was sort of decided that we are using their rules DD
The guy can start a dribble by throwing the ball up in the air. There is no where in the rule book that says you have to bounce the ball downward to start a dribble. Which means you can technically toss the ball in the air, catch it and shoot or continue the dribble, as long as you are not close to the basket and the "air ball" was not an attempt at the basket.
My pet peeve is the fat guy who sits in the paint. Every game there is usually a fat guy who has no game but thinks he does cause he picks up a couple of cheap baskets by parking himself in the paint.
