Comparing European and NBA travel calls

August 26, 2008

For some reason, many Europeans – especially Spanish players – complained a lot about the referees not calling the U.S. traveling.

In some way, I really do understand both sides. Traveling in the NBA and the United States is not called the same way as it is called in the Euroleague and Europe. It looks like both sides just do not know better and do not understand why the other is so upset. To defend the US continent, NCAA and FIBA rules are almost the same, while the NBA just has a few minor changes.

During my trip to the U.S. this past summer (yes, summer is almost over!), I followed the US team’s pre-Olympic games as well as the Olympics. Before every game, the commentators talked about the differences between FIBA and NBA rules, such as the size of the court and even the size of the ball, but they never explained the important thing: TRAVELING.

Time to bring some light into the darkness of those made/missing travel calls! (Watch out where you click to start the video – the middle button is advertising. To start the video, click the left corner)

Here are the essentials of FIBA and NBA rules for traveling:

The NBA/WNBA rule is a little more liberal than the current NCAA and FIBA rules when a player is coming to a stop. The NBA/WNBA rule is identical to the pre-1994 FIBA rule; in essence, once you have come to a legal stop, you always have a foot to pivot with. NCAA and current FIBA rules can leave a player without a pivot foot. As well, if you land with a staggered stop (i.e. one foot, then the other, with one foot clearly in front of the other), the back foot is the pivot foot in NBA/WNBA. In NCAA/FIBA, the first foot to touch is the pivot.

Sounds easy right?

Here comes the problem: Why did the referees not make these calls in Beijing? It is obvious that at the Olympics, the teams have to play with FIBA rules, and that TEAM USA HAD to travel just because they are used to different rules. When you play basketball every day, you are not thinking about your steps – you just know them – so Team USA really had to travel, just because they do it – according to FIBA rules, of course – every single day in NBA games.

In case you don’t believe me – just watch this video where we have proof of travel:

We know now, that Team USA did travel at least 5-10 times a game, but the referees did not call it, but would that have changed the outcome of the Olympics? I don’t think so.

Still, why did the referees not make those calls? Any referee in a 5th division team in Europe would have made the calls that you saw in the video. I just hope there wasn’t any “higher” influence.

Aug 26, 2008ballineurope

This post was published on August 26, 2008

Comments: 32

c suth
16 years ago
cmon man…a “higher influence? you know what? as many flop calls that euros get, im sure the non-call baskets made up for it.
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Álvaro
16 years ago
Saying US would have lost if travelling was called is just fantasy, that’s true, is just science fiction.

But at least, there’s one angry point. Referees like Brazauskas, Pitsilkas and Jurgenbrandt just do the travelling call all the year in Euroleague and in FIBA competitions to lots of players. Then, when they are referees against US, they just don’t call it… well, that’s not really fair.
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alaksandrov
16 years ago
I’d say they travelled up to 15-20 times a game. But anyway I wonder what refs like Lamonica or Brazauskas who always call those travellings were thinking when they didn’t call at the olympics. Sold out
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DTC
16 years ago
A few observations:

– US players travel most often when they are starting a fastbreak – when they already have a running start when catching the ball. That’s when they inevitably pick up their pivot food BEFORE they dribble

– However, when I went back to look at game tapes, it didn’t actually happen that often. The examples in the video above were clearly travel violations. But most of the time, you would have to go to slow motion to see whether the pivot food was lifted before the ball was released

– Spanish players did something comparable occasionally: a player who catches the ball on the move would often take one step, hop, then land with two feet. Technically, that IS three steps, and the first step was the pivot foot. I wonder if this is legal in FIBA rules. In the gold medal game, Navarro did this at the 6:10 mark in the 3rd quarter.

With that said, rules are rules. So the US should have been called for travels, maybe wiping 10 points off of their end total.

What I wonder is this: they have not been calling this AT ALL this entire tournament. The right way to do it would have been to enforce it from the beginning, and make the US players change. To call nothing, and then suddenly call it in the gold medal game, where US players had not gotten used to it, would have messed up the game. I actually wouldn’t be surprised if there was a “higher influence” – it doesn’t have to be anything sinister: someone could have said “hey, just ignore this rule difference and let them play. After all, being able to pick up your pivot food before dribbling doesn’t really give the Americans THAT big an advantage.”
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JAIRO
16 years ago
It does give the player and advtantage, in fastbreaks it gives you a 1second difference that might be enough for a defender to catch up and more importantly taking steps while penetrating instead of 2 totally gets the defender of guard and also increases the distance one player can move. The non calls do make a difference.

However that is just a small detail, what really matters is that the rules of the game should be respected, anyone can follow the easy rule of putting the ball on the floor before moving theyr feet. Fiba should have enforced the rules the way they do all year long; it is not correct to change the rules fo the game just to better suit the prescence of a team.

Jairo
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Xavier
16 years ago
On response to: DTC on August 27th, 2008 3:14 pm

– Of course you can avoid these travelling situations, guys learn to do so at 11 in Europe, its a matter of coordination and knowing how to put the ball on the floor on the right moment.

– No need of slow motion when you are familiar with the rule.

– You said: “a player who catches the ball on the move would often take one step, hop, then land with two feet. Technically, that IS three steps, and the first step was the pivot foot. I wonder if this is legal in FIBA rules.”

Actualy, that’s not travelling. Travelling might be, quickly described as, doing 3 steps without dribling the ball. Landing with 2 feets count as 1 step if the landing is with both feets at the same time. So first step with one foot and the land with 2 feet. Legal. That also has a name, The “Iugoslavian Stop”. Drazan Petrovic did it in Europe and NBA, for example, as many other talented basketball footworkers.

I believe that if US had been called all the travels since game 1 they would have adjusted, that’s why no one is blaming the US players but the referees.

Alexandrov and Álvaro have pointed out that Lamonica and Brazucas should be ashamed for not blowing the wistle against the US the way they do so while refereeing in European competitions.

and JAIRO is right, travelling in fastbreak situations gives you like half a second of advantage and that might mean an easy bucket.

About flopping… I actually like what you call “flopping”. Getting the right position so that the offensive player hits you (harder or softer) and make him lose the ball because he can control his body and the defender anticipation, CHAPEAU to the defender for being smarter.
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spainISracist
16 years ago
I say “screw spain and their whining.” Bunch of racist pigs over there.
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DTC
16 years ago
Something in the video was confusing – Lebron took 2 steps, not 3. After the pivot foot (which, btw, was down BEFORE he got the ball), he took 2 steps. But that’s probably still traveling. What I mean is that in many instances, it’s hard to see what foot was down before or after the catch, and whether the ball was released before or after the pivot foot was lifted. What COULD be travel may not necessarily be one. Just like everyone knows you need to get a shot off before the buzzer, but whether you did is still not always clear. We all know that when we’re emotionally involved in a game, often we see what we want to see (like me seeing Marc Gasol throw Bosh to the ground with no call – then upon replay, I realized there wasn’t that much contact)

I agree, though, that they should start enforcing the rules – I don’t think it’ll take the Americans that long to adjust. And dribbling immediately would not reduce their speed – they are too much faster than the other teams.
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Phil
16 years ago
“Flopping” is not simply taking a charge. When people complain about “flopping” they are complaining about dramatically overselling minimal (or sometimes NO) contact. If offensive player “A” brushes against defensive player “B” and defensive player “B” goes flying backward like he got hit by a freight train, THAT is flopping. You can argue about whether or not that is good strategy, but when people are talking about flopping, they aren’t talking simply about taking a charge.

And in all honesty, this is complete sour grapes. Everyone seems to agree that had those calls been made ALL TOURNAMENT, the US would have adjusted. It’s pretty much a moot point. The officiating the entire tournament was horribly inconsistent – at least they were consistent on not calling this. Honestly, if this is the biggest problem Spanish fans saw with the officiating in the entire Olympics, then I guess FIBA officiating is always as inconsistent as it was in the Olympics and they’re just used to it.

Oh, and, I’m sorry, teams that are constantly whining or travel calls are doing it because they’re losing. Had Spain won – or even had they been blown out like they were in the first game, we wouldn’t be hearing much about this at all.
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Xavier
16 years ago
To DTC:

About being able to judge if its travelling or not… Officials are able to identify it 80% of the time by the own, Imagine 3 officials on court. Of course they can miss some but 90% of them will surely be wistled. More over, in Europe you will not see much of traveling being called because players here are well coached in this aspect.

9 months ago, I took part in a basketball clinic about controversial calls and we were there some basketball coaches and referees of all categories and one of the referees told us that when he was calling in some U-12 categories where there is just 1 referee on court instead of 3, he had to officiate a game featuring Ricky Rubio and other top players of his age and he had to ask both coaches to hold their players of doing some moves because he wasnt able to see it all and at this age he could not know if those 12 years old fenomenons were able to perform that crazy move.

1 referee I could argue that he might not see some but 3? No way.

To Phil:

At the begining I would not want to talk about traveling, Never liked to put the responsabilities of a loss on someone other than my team. But the travelling discussion has grown lately with my american friends because they are not used to that kind of calling and I’ve been explaining it to them and I wanted to make that clear.

I’ve always said that being all the tournament called correctly since the begining US would have won either. It took the best game spanish team has done EVER to scare the US team.

What its a real shame is to think that talking hoops when you defend some of what the losing team states then you are labeled as biased.
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BRIAN C
16 years ago
I’ll agree with the traveling calls IF they also call the illegal screens.
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Karl der Gross
16 years ago
Anybody could put together a short video segment from the Beijing games played by ANY country’s Olympic team and make it look like that country benefited from the calls of the referees. Likewise anybody could compile a short video segment for ANY Olympic team and make it look like that country got screwed by the referees. Referees are not machines, they are human. The game happens fast. Referees don’t get to look at slow motion video before deliberating as to whether or not to make a call. They make mistakes.

To me that video is actually testament to how well Team USA adjusted to FIBA rules on traveling. The first exhibit in the “Spanish Fly” video – Lebron James handling an inbounds pass – isn’t even traveling!!! The video counts step #1 just as the ball touches Lebron’s fingertips. That foot is already off the floor before Lebron actually gets any hold on the ball. The dunk by Kobe Bryant in the video is clearly traveling, but anybody who feels like their team was robbed of some standing by that one missed call is a tortured soul in my opinion. Hell, I thought Lithuania should have been playing for the gold medal instead of Spain, but some of those foul calls… 😉
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Phil
16 years ago
“The game happens fast. Referees don’t get to look at slow motion video before deliberating as to whether or not to make a call.”

and

“More over, in Europe you will not see much of traveling being called because players here are well coached in this aspect.”

Put those two things together and you quickly realize there was no conspiracy. It’s simply a combination of the refs a) not being perfect, b) the US players doing stuff most Europeans don’t do, so the refs aren’t used to HAVING to make the call, and c) the US players being so fast and having such long strides. It’s clear the officials working the Olympics weren’t great officials. You’re asking them to make these calls in games where the pace and the players are moving much faster than they are used to. They simply weren’t prepared for it.

And, honestly, if there was a conspiracy, would Kobe and LeBron both have been in quick foul trouble in the gold medal game?
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BK
16 years ago
I agree with Brian C. If you want to get into a discussion about how every rule in the book should be enforced without exception, lets not forgot about those Euro-screens.

I rarely see a Euro big set their feet on a screen, they are constantly shifting their weight and shuffling their feet to keep an adventagous position.

It’s either lets the teams play, or break out the rule book and make EVERYONE conform. Otherwise, it’s really pointless for one side to be crying about how the other is being given a free pass.
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StraightBallin
16 years ago
Sure, the US got away with travels, but the Euro teams (YES I’m looking at YOU SPAIN) got away with shoves in the back 10-15 times a game with no calls that would have favored the US. Heck, just look at WHO the fouls were called on in the Final, LeBron’s second foul was clearly all ball on a High Definition replay, yet he got called for a foul. The reffing was terrible, but thinking it helped the US is even more horrible…
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Rick Allison
16 years ago
“…someone could have said “hey, just ignore this rule difference and let them play. After all, being able to pick up your pivot food before dribbling doesn’t really give the Americans THAT big an advantage.”…”

Regarding lifting the pivot foot before the release of the first dribble, the NBA is the same so there is no difference in rules in this case (see below). It should have been a travel in the NBA or FIBA or Olympics.

NBA rules excerpt:
“…In starting a dribble after (1) receiving the ball while standing still, or (2) coming to a legal stop, the ball must be out of the player’s hand before the pivot foot is raised off the floor…”

By the way, I saw several instances of both team’s players picking up and moving the pivot foot before taking the first step with the non-pivot foot and releasing the ball for the dribble. The referees chose to relax their enforcement of the rules for both sides.
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Nick
16 years ago
Taking one step and a hop is traveling if you land on both feet. Once you have a pivot foot established, you can lift it and shoot or pass but it can’t touch the floor again.

So if you take a step then lift your pivot foot, you have to shoot or pass, but it cannot be brought down. So a step then a hop would be putting the pivot foot back on the floor again.

Travel.
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Nick
16 years ago
Note that if you had both feet off the floor when you caught the ball and landed on one foot, you are allowed to jump off that foot and land on two feet. Otherwise, the first landed foot is your pivot foot and can’t touch the floor again.
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TyrantKing
16 years ago
So here’s the thing, I don’t buy it. I think it’s a lot more subjective than this video makes it out to be. Not to get too hyper-technical but what exactly are the FIBA rules on possession? When does a ball handler actually have possession of the basketball? Well, here’s your grey area. So in the first example, Lebron should have released the ball when it first hit his hand? I’m not buying that. To me it didn’t appear that he had possession until number #2. The second example is a little more convincing, unfortunately the black out in the slow-mo makes it impossible to determine when LeBron actually has control of the ball. It actually looks like he doesn’t close his grip on the ball until after the video resumes, which would make his next step his pivot foot. The third example definitely looks to be traveling. Here’s the real problem though, the officials are watching the game at full speed. They are making the determination that a player has possession of the ball and then determining that a player has traveled. Watching at full speed, neither of the first two examples look like traveling.
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Alberto
16 years ago
TyrantKing, when European people say that’s travelling, I may swear that’s travelling. I mean, one of the referees in the final, Lamonica, is a compulsive travelling-caller (or whatever you call him) here in Europe. And all those actions that you say that are not very clear, Lamonica always, always, always calls it. That’s all. Other thing is that US players are used to play like that. That’s ok, but if you play with FIBA rules, then you gotta play respecting those rules. And here in Spain, they talked about that on TV from the first match of the Olympics, that we have been able to see here too: against China, Germany, Argentina… to the last. It’s not about “we’ve lost because of the travelling…” It’s just that you have to play with the same rules, that’s all. But not from now. I remember Sidney, and happened the same, and it always will, in the end…
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DTC
16 years ago
Just want to highlight this: I don’t believe that this post, or some posters on here, like Xavier, is whining about no-calls. They have acknowledged that the better team won, and are just saying: “look, there is some basis for complaints about US players traveling – pro-Spain fans are not just pulling stuff out of their @#”. It’s trying to clarify rather than to whine. And I totally respect that.

And I will admit that European players do catch and dribble differently – they always make sure to bounce the ball right away, before moving.
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TyrantKing
16 years ago
Art. 14 Control of the ball
14.1 Team control starts when a player of that team is in control of a live ball because he is holding or dribbling it or has a live ball at his disposal.

That’s called wiggle room.

Unfortunately, much like the women’s team gymnastics debacle, the officials will never have to provide answers. Who’s to say the official’s weren’t given instructions on how to call the games by FIBA. All I’m saying is that even under FIBA rules, you can certainly make an argument that the first two instances were not traveling based upon the control Rule.
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ChicagoBull
16 years ago
When will Spain stop crying ? Lose with dignity please.USA is the better team.The officials were terrible for both teams.What about all the flops by Spain that went against the USA.?What about all the 3 seconds against the Gasols that were not called?USA have beaten Spain 3 times in a row now.We own Spain.Even thier World Championship in 2006 is tainted because they didn’t beat the USA.I have one question for the crybabies….would you like some cheese with that whine ?I’m out,like Rudy Fernandez with 5 fouls.
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Xavier
16 years ago
ChicagoBull,
try to read last DTC comment and try not to lose YOUR dignity by showing your cockyness instead of your knowledge.

I don’t want to reiterate me with all this traveling topic because when I do so it looks like i’m whining and its not. Just saying that if you would have been involved in FIBA ball since being 9, and like most of euro basketball fans would be able to recognise a travelling this discussion might never happen.
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Nikola
16 years ago
wow and LOL @ Kobe’s travelling! but refs were real weak @ these olympics
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Tony
16 years ago
Im spanish
The 2 gasols (the one without courage and the one with the beer belly) stood in the paint for no less than 6 seconds almost at every static attack. Who said that over here? nobody. Why? cos it doesnt sell papers which is the main reason why all this whining crap is coming from
Enjoy ball.
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carlos
16 years ago
One thing that I can understand is that american players have grown up doing those extra steps every time, and no ref has call them ever. For the people that have played ball all their lives now that this kind of quick actions are instinctive so there is nothing that they can do about it, it’s just pure insitinct. Yes here in Euroleague and in national competition ref’s call all those plays.
That is ref’s problems, they must get together before a tournament like this one and talk it out, say what they are going to call and what not, also depending on the situation and the advantadge that the player gets from travelling. For example, the kobie dunk… don’t call travel please. If someone is able to do that (on a fastbreak and all alone) you can’t call him travel, he has got the advantage, that travelling doesn’t give him any advantage at all
By the way has anyone seen what Navarro does on the last possesion of the game?
Anyway, what I don’t like at all are all this people (americans I bet) that are just writing crap and aren’t contributing at all to this discussion.
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Andres
16 years ago
Not surprising at all. LeBron gets away with the four-step travel even here in the US. He made plenty of mistakes to help Spain, so it’s not as if it was a big deal.

It was an exciting gold medal game, but what killed Spain was the turnovers. They shot extremely well, but so did the US. Turnovers are critical and the US players were going after every steal they saw. In past tournaments, the US got screwed by inconsistent refereeing itself, especially with rules that sometimes don’t even make sense. Yet, they only blamed themselves for not winning. Show some class guys, you were clearly the only competition Team USA had.
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Jason Gill
16 years ago
I think the key factor here is not a rules interpretation but rather the way the violation actually played out on the floor. When American’s commit travelling violations that would be called in Europe they are committing them with the intent that they are legal plays. Without any hesitation or hitch it is difficult for a referee to process the violation. This is similar to what you saw happen with American player’s adjusting to the ball in the cylinder goaltending rule: even when they took the ball out of the basket, it looked like they were committing a violation, solely through body language; inevitable they would stop, think about it and then swipe the ball away.

When they “travel” they don’t betray a violation but rather a fluid part of the game. This makes things hard on the refs.
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Russell Kanning
16 years ago
I agree … Lebron is running with the leather like a tailback in the NFL
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a
16 years ago
“…In starting a dribble after (1) receiving the ball WHILE STANDING STILL, or (2) coming to a legal stop, the ball must be out of the player’s hand before the pivot foot is raised off the floor…”

The key line there is standing still, that is why LeBron’s play wasn’t a travel on the inbounds pass. YOu can take two steps without dribbling on the move.
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Rick
16 years ago
“The key line there is standing still, that is why LeBron’s play wasn’t a travel on the inbounds pass. YOu can take two steps without dribbling on the move.”

********************************************************************
Wow, where does it say THAT in the rules??? Can you cut and paste that part of the rules here?

I see where is says “…b. A player who receives the ball while he is PROGRESSING or upon completion of a dribble, may use a two-count rhythm in coming to a stop, passing or shooting the ball.” However, it says he can stop, pass, or shoot…doesn’t say he can dribble after the two count.

Where is the rule that you are talking about?
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