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January 21

Basketball

When one is throwing in the ball on an inbounds pass (in the National Basketball Association), is it legal for that player to intentionally throw the ball at the player guarding him—for this example I will call him the “defender”—thus deflecting the ball off of the defender out of bounds (with the last touch of the ball by the defender and the player getting the ball back immediately afterwards) without penalty in an attempt to avoid a five-second throw-in violation? 71.146.2.46 (talk) 00:09, 21 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Unless I'm misreading the official rules on throw-ins, there is no mention of this possibility. Though I seem to recall it happening before. Dismas|^(talk) 01:02, 21 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Billups made a similarly Chauncey move (bouncing it off an opposing player, grabbing the "rebound" and scoring), so it must be okay. (Did Kobe Bryant's back get an assist?) Clarityfiend (talk) 02:17, 21 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. 71.146.2.46 (talk) 06:53, 21 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) AFAIK, it certainly isn't banned specifically. Players often intentionally throw the ball off of a non-hand body part of a competitor (frequently a foot) so it will deflect out of bounds and give them a chance to inbound it. Since the rules don't say you can't also do this on an inbounds pass, I don't see why you couldn't. It does happen, and it plays out exactly as you describe: the inbounding team gets another chance to inbound it. Yahoo answers seems to broadly agree. --Jayron32 02:19, 21 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. 71.146.2.46 (talk) 06:53, 21 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]