on walking with the ball

[Kim Malo]

At 12:24 PM 4/9/2007, gene kirkpatrick wrote:
>I would like to see a video of "traveling" non-calls.  It would be a 
>hoot and the league could use it to make a case for returning to the 
>rule book.  Our two most outrageous perps are West and 
>Perkins.  It's almost funny when West comes to the ball, catches it, 
>then hops (already a walk), and then takes another step.  Perkins 
>simply catches the ball at the top of the key and keeps on moving 
>until he's finished--usually three steps.  I think refs figure 
>there's no harm in that they're so far from the hoop.  Traveling 
>seems to be called in terms of proximity to the hoop.  The way I 
>learned it in HS was that you must be in the air to establish either 
>foot as the pivot.  It primarily helps bigs in the paint, but 
>everybody does it now, no matter how far out they are.  There has 
>been a little uptick in traveling calls late in the season, but I 
>doubt we'll see it much against the stars of the playoffs.  Gene

The problem with the uptick is what it's based on. They aren't 
calling the sort of egregious stuff you're talking about. They're 
calling the first step of a drive or stepping into a pass stuff. 
Which is silly. It accomplishes nothing - it interrupts the flow of 
the game continually calling ticky tack, you're trying to force all 
players to change habits overnight that have been OK since they were 
in the cradle and that are not really a major offense, while as you 
note still letting the more obvious offenses go. It's annoyed me all 
season, mainly because it's all negatives with nothing positive I can 
see about doing it.
Kim