GOAL TENDING
or
DEFENSIVE PLAYER FORBIDDEN TO TOUCH BALL ON DOWNWARD. FLIGHT

The National Basketball Rules Committee at their last meeting
proved itself to be . "model" rules committee - see Webster - "a model is a
small imitation of the real thing". The rules body temporized. They did not
meet issues squarely.

The rules committee did nothing about the extremely tall player
on the offense, But they humored a pressure group which protested against
the giant goal tender on defense. Symptomatically they dabbled awkwardly
in the same neste of their mistakes the previous year, Why discriminate
against the defense while permitting full freedom to the offense as the same
rule siete in prineiple the extremely tall player under both baskets »

The newly exacted goal tending rude will be only about ten per
cent efficient. I predict that Hank Iba and other crafty coaches with goal
tending giants will still place their goal tenders in front and under the
defensive basket.

Had the rules committee members done any research previous to
their hasty action and studied the flight of the ball toward the basket they
would have diseovered that an extremely tell player ean still steal most
shots before the ball gets to the basket. The ball does not begin its dowm-
ward are generally until it gets above the basket.

Most players shoot “skimmers" = low shots * just clearing the rims
The ball leaves the shige hands at a height of less than six feet and the
basket is ten feet high, hence tall defensive players will get the ball while
it is still going upe Offensive shooters cannot readily learn a new areh
shot mak just for the benefit of the hyper-tall goal tender without seriously

affecting their shooting accuracys