Unwritten Rule

For years, the NBA had an unwritten rule and now technology is ruining it.

Here's the situation: The ball goes out of bounds. Sometimes it's a rebound, sometimes it's what happens to Chris Paul on Saturday. The reason the ball went out is because there was contact. So even though the non-contact player may have touched it last, they award the ball to them. Basically it's a play-on.

This is the way it's been for a long time.

A couple years, ago I had a beef with this. But I've grown to embrace it. It's not a ton of contact that really warrants free throws. But it was that guys fault that the ball went out, even if it last touched Paul. So giving the possession to the Clippers, in this case, seems like a fair deal.

But now, the replay rules have broken this system. The refs were required to review who last touched the ball, but they aren't allowed to call the foul. They had to give the ball to the Warriors.

So now refs have to be retrained. They have to call ticky-tack fouls like that in the moment. This is an instance where the spirit of "getting it right" results in a worse product.