Seeking clarification of the "letting the ball roll on the floor" rule

That’s a good question. Is it 5 seconds to get the ball in possession, or just 5 seconds to get it inbounded?

I am all for this practice of not touching the ball when time is precious. But our own Steve Blake does it in excess, I think. And the way he does it (or maybe it’s how the inbounder puts the ball in play) looks awkward, whereas other guys will be walking face forward up the court with the ball right in front of them.

Meh, I guess.

I’ve always wondered why teams don’t just have someone get up there and make the PG pick up the ball.

Doesn’t really bother me though.

would solve a heck of a lot of timekeeper problems.

Ref hands the ball to inbounder, ref signals, ref blows whistle, time starts, off we go.

Besides it’s silly to have the nine guys running around going full tilt and one guy lollygagging around with the ball in the backcourt and say that the game isn’t in progress.

When GS inbounded way in the backcourt and Rudy was doing some sort of chicken dance with the ballhandler all the way upcourt that resulted in him getting two quick fouls in about 10 seconds. The second of which gave GS free throws.

I thought Nate was going to punch him.

Maybe its already been talked about to death but I didn’t see where.

It absolutely is part of the 5 second inbounds rule. Same with the 8 second rule and passing the ball past half-court. But there are a lot of rules that get ignored in the NBA.

Another “new” rule I hate is that you can inbound the ball into the backcourt (your own half) now in the final minutes of the game without a backcourt violation. This way you can literally run away from guys trying to foul you to win the game. I’ve seen all kinds of teams do it, from Phoenix to Boston. One can make an argument that fouling to stop the clock is stupid, but running away like you are playing catch is worse to me.

once players starting watching those old NBA Superstar videos where they play highlights while some cheesy 80s music plays in the background. Magic did the same thing in one of those videos and hit a buzzer beating 3.

1. Get into the offense with more time left on the shot clock (as others mentioned);
2. Makes it easier to avoid the new eight second rule for getting the ball out of the backcourt;
3. If a defender comes running up in an effort to force the point guard to pick up the dribble, the point guard could blow by the defender much more easily and create a five on four or a mismatch at the offensive end of the floor;
4. (most important) Bored fans waiting for the player to pick up the dribble —> increased beer sales :)

Point guards have done this from time to time for decades, but it was the eight second rule that made it more popular.

i totally hate this too! I get the pros but there have been a couple times when blake almost lost the ball out of bounds because he was doing this in the middle of a game. In my opinion you should only do this in the 4th quarter. Look 8 seconds is plenty of time to get it across court so who really cares(the only person this seems like to short is blake because he moves at permanent slug pace). Its just annoying

The first time I heard about it was because of a play made by Rubio in the final game of the U16 championships (Aug 2006). The final game went into two overtimes, and Rubio finished with 51 points, 24 rebounds, 12 assists, and 7 steals. With 28 seconds left in the first overtime, Rubio was told in the timeout to hold for the final shot (tied game at that moment). As the ball was inbounded, there was no pressure coming from the Russian team, and Rubio let the ball bounce off his chest and onto the ground. The shot-clock didn’t start because no possession was established, and Rubio picked up the ball with 24 seconds left. His coach had not informed Rubio of the rule; it was the imagination of a 16 year old that led to such a veteran play. He even had to remind the rule to the refs while he was playing that ball, after he looked at the clock and watched that they were missing it. Link

The one I don’t like is the dribble behind the back, where the guy has to look to find the ball, this is a carry almost every time and it’s never called.
I don’t remember the game (it wasn’t the Blazers) the guy (NBA) gets the defensive rebound at the free throw line, takes two dribbles and dunks it at the other end of the court – he could have been called for traveling twice on the same play. No call was made. Throwing the ball out in front of you so that you have to catch up to it should be an automatic call.