Article: Providence Journal

[Bob Miller <bob@pointofchoice.com>]

BILL REYNOLDS, Providence Journal

Anyone know the rules?

I watch too many basketball games.

College games. NBA games. High school games.

Too many games.

My biggest problem?

I don't even know what the rules are anymore.

Not that I feel alone here.

No one seems to know what the rules are anymore.

Not the players. Not the coaches. Not the referees. Certainly not the fans.

Can you tell me what a travel is? Or palming the ball? Or a legal screen?
That's not even getting into the more esoteric rules, such as the new
possession rule, which is determined by the defense tying up the ball, or
the five-second rule, my personal favorite for the most unnecessary rule in
college basketball.

Odds are, you can't.

Traveling, carrying the ball, and wiping people out on screens-to name just
three-are such staples of today's game that it's virtually impossible to go
back to some earlier era when they didn't exist.

Don't believe me?

Tell Allen Iverson that every dribble move he makes used to be a violation,
and see what he says to you. Tell Shaq it used to be illegal to knock into
people with your backside. Tell every high school kid that the high
crossover dribble used to get you laughed out of a gym, since it showed how
clearly ignorant of the rules you were.

Time was when everyone knew the rules.

If you took more than one and a half steps, you traveled. If your hand went
under the ball when you dribbled, it was a palm. If you weren't stationary
when you set a screen, it was a foul.

No more.

Now it's all subject to . . . what? Interpretation? Whim? Current mood? All
of the above?

It's now to the point that every once in a while someone will get called
for palming, even though virtually everyone on the court dribbles in a way
that would have been a violation 20 years ago. To the point that every once
in a while someone gets called for traveling, even though some players have
perfected the so-called ``jump stop'' in order to traverse large parts of
court space with nary a dribble. To the point that players are taught to
put their body on people while screening off the ball, something almost
unheard of a generation ago.

To the point that to watch a tape of a game played even a decade ago is to
see what now seems like some different sport.

How did this all happen?

There's no easy answer.

It's been an evolutionary thing, unfolding over the last 15 years or so.

One of the reasons, certainly, is the negative effect of the NBA, whose
tentacles have slipped more and more into the college game. Once upon a
time, the last thing the college game wanted to be was like the NBA. They
were two different games, and never the twain shall meet. But that was once
upon a time.

Maybe it started because, at its heart and soul, the NBA really is about
entertainment. So if Magic essentially wanted to back people down, all the
while having the ball stop in his palm after every dribble, or if Michael
wanted to take an extra step every once in a while, so be it. Call it the
perks of fame. As the old adage goes, there are ``two-step'' players and
there are ``three-step'' players.

Maybe it was because, historically, the NBA was a league where the home
team got all the calls, a throwback from its early days when the overriding
philosophy was to send the customer home satisfied. A league where fouls
always were situational, the rules being different if you were a rookie or
if you were a superstar.

Whatever, the bottom line became that the rules in the NBA became blurred,
and then they started trickling down into the college game.

Now the two games are, in many ways, essentially indistinguishable.
Traveling. Carrying the ball. Continuous physical contact off the ball.
Guerrilla warfare in the low post. This is basketball nowadays, whatever
the level.

There's no doubt it's made the game almost impossible to officiate. If you
can call a foul virtually every time down the floor, the key becomes when
you call it. If there are potential violations everywhere you look, the key
is when an official deems it a violation. Is it any wonder so many games
seem to be officiated inconsistently?

So what are the rules?

Who really knows anymore.

The rules have become so blurred that it's all a matter of how many times a
referee wants to blow the whistle.

Sound preposterous?

Not really.

It's no secret that any team that plays a clawing, pressing style gets away
with a lot of fouling, for the simple reason that referees do not want to
be constantly blowing the whistle. Call it human nature.

It's also no secret that to stretch the rules-to hand-check, to wipe out
people off the ball, to carry the ball around defenders-is an advantage.

So if I were still playing, I would do all those things. Over and over again.

But isn't this advocating breaking the rules, you say?

Not really.

No one seems to know what they are, anyway.