Midway through the second quarter of last night’s Blazers-Rockets game, Jeremy Lin caught a pass from James Harden and proceeded to take approximately 867 steps towards the basket, and with nary a dribble in sight. At least, that’s what it looked like. In real time, it appears the referees completely whiffed on what would most assuredly be the worst traveling violation outside of an 8-year-old boy’s rec league game.
However, Lin’s “trickeration” was actually the result of some inadvertent camera trickeration, as he did, in fact, take one dribble. Of course, critics will say that Lin still can’t cover that much ground, or take that many steps, with only one dribble, but when you slow things down, it’s obvious that, by the NBA’s definition of traveling, he committed no violation. Remember, these guys are world class athletes, whether it be LeBron James or Lin. Also, the NBA allows one extra step to “gather” the ball, an act that often creates the illusion of three (or even four) total steps.
[BroBible]
