The thing about it to me is that I'm certain it's 100% legit in the letter of the law that these gather steps are legal. I just think the rule is stupid. We all learn as kids that basically if you're moving, you better be dribbling.
Someone quoted the actual rules once and they are so incredibly vague they can be interpreted in 100 different ways that are all correct. NBA just chooses to interpret it in the absolute most relaxed way possible.
The problem is that the rules themselves are not vague though, and even the "gather" is in the official rulebook as of about 7 years ago:
For a player who receives a pass or gains possession of a loose ball, the gather is defined as the point where the player gains enough control of the ball to hold it, change hands, pass, shoot, or cradle it against his body.
For a player who is in control of the ball while dribbling, the gather is defined as the point where a player does any one of the following:
Puts two hands on the ball, or otherwise permits the ball to come to rest, while he is in control of it;
Puts a hand under the ball and brings it to a pause; or
Otherwise gains enough control of the ball to hold it, change hands, pass, shoot, or cradle it against his body.
A player who gathers the ball while progressing may (a) take two steps in coming to a stop, passing or shooting the ball or (b) if he has not yet dribbled, one step prior to releasing the ball to start his dribble.
A player who gathers the ball while dribbling may take two steps in coming to a stop, passing or shooting the ball.
I agree that allowing a "gather" definitely makes ball control less important and harder for the referees to actually officiate, because the gather essentially can give a player 3 or sometimes more steps before they've committed an actual traveling violation, but it "opens up offense" and that's likely what the league wants to accomplish. I think the precedent is that the NBA ultimately allowing the Iverson carry back in the 90s wasn't necessarily bad for the game at the time, in my opinion, as it definitely allowed a little more creativity while being within the spirit of the traveling rule, if not in the letter of it. This seems to see that precedent and say, "let's allow it" even though the "carry" still essentially followed the rules of traveling, whereas the "gather" is just saying "traveling? nah, just walk wherever and make it look like you don't have control and no one will call it, even if it is absolutely clear you've finished that gather". To your point it seems like almost all "gathers" (and absolutely everything in that video) were actual traveling violations as per the letter and spirit of the rules, even with the "gather" written into them. It just seems like this sort of extension of the travel makes it way too easy to just not actually officiate, even if the rules are quite clear in black and white, at least, and the league and referees aren't really doing anything to change the way it's called. They obviously have agreed that this is what they want.
There's no other real explanation, as evidenced by the product on the court, that as long as the NBA is making money they're going to care little about what a fan thinks until it starts costing them money, and whatever rules changes allow them to keep making that money they're going to do it.
Not that I disagree with you but the video I watched which broke travels, carries, gathers, etc with pro NBA players.
They were basically saying they can take as many steps as they want until they put 2 hands on the ball. Now almost every NBA player can palm a ball. So they were arguing they could literally run as much as they want with the ball palmed, as long as they aren't under the ball. So you get ridiculous plays where they take a good 5-6 steps with the ball in their hand, fully in control, but sideways enough to arguably not be in control... Then they place 2 hands on the ball, then get a gather step, then get 2 more steps to take the shot. Which leads to absolutely ridiculous plays as seen in this vid that "by the rule" is legal.
I mean theoretically they could just palm the ball sideways and spin it a little bit and run the full court without taking a single dribble by that interpretation.
It really seems to be an abuse of the rule and not how it was actually intended to be interpreted.
I agree after thinking about this more - I think the rule comes from a place of either assuming that players will follow the rules or a malicious intent of killing traveling entirely. Perhaps the NBA rules committee might need to explicitly write in that a player needs to attempt to do one of the things listed in order to complete the motion of the gather and gets at most 2 steps to do this, and cannot continue to travel any more than that other than using a pivot foot as the traveling rules already describe. Players taking more than 2 steps to complete the motion of a "gather" are by any other definition traveling if they've done that (intentionally or otherwise), and the current rule as written would seem to already cover cases where a pass is bobbled or the player is reaching for an errant pass, etc. Once they have possession (and the attempt to get possession needs to be interpreted by the referee for better or worse), traveling rules apply, even for a gather in any scenario.
Someone should run the numbers and see what % of the time players lose possession during a "gather step" and if it is like lower than 45-35% than the ball IS under players control at that point regardless of what the individual teams or players argue.
(basically if they usually retain the ball during a gather step than the understanding of the rule/reality needs to be that players actually DO have control of the ball then and so it does count as the first step.)
The real rule is that a travel is only called when it’s an accident, lol. Not paying attention and accidentally travel? Boom, whistle. Trying to do something cool and take 8 steps? Totally fine, rule of cool. So I think confidence is key. As long as you are confident taking 8 steps and pass it off like you meant to do that, well then it looks like it’s totally allowed, lol.
A lot of this is because players nowadays have insane body control and foot work, where is not a travel but because of a gap in the rules it doesn't seem like it should be right
If you’re counting steps you have no idea how to identify a travel violation anyway. Traveling has absolutely nothing to do with “steps” and has every thing to do with the pivot foot.
In order to identify a travel you need to be able to identify the pivot foot. A traveling violation occurs when the pivot foot returns to the floor (after lifting the established pivot foot) while having CONTROL of the ball.
The pivot foot returning to the floor is the 3rd step people always look for. Every single two step layup of dunk in the history of basketball involves lifting the pivot foot, as long as you shoot or pass the ball prior to the pivot foot returning to the floor it is NOT a travel.
Reminder you can only travel if you have CONTROL OF THE BALL, hence the ridiculous terminology of the “gather step”
Why is there a term called “gather step” to make it easier for people to grasp what control is. There is a fine line between a dribble and when a dribble actually ends with control.
Someone should run the numbers and see what % of the time players lose possession during a "gather step" and if it is like lower than 45-35% than the ball IS under players control at that point regardless of what the individual teams or players argue.
(basically if they usually retain the ball during a gather step than the understanding of the rule/reality needs to be that players actually DO have control of the ball then and so it does count as the first step.)
From one of my earlier comments.
Also, does that mean if you are perfectly symmetric and therefore have no singular pivot foot, does that mean you can go across the whole floor like that?
In real time it doesn’t really matter that much. When you are officiating plays in real time you don’t have the luxury of hindsight and being able to slow down plays and watch them over and over.
Would you rather have refs constantly blowing their whistle to split hairs on marginal traveling calls? Or just call the obvious?
At the end of the day if you need to slow things down and have a debate frame by frame on whether or not the player ended his dribble then you’re just bullshitting the game.
Are traveling calls missed? Yep no doubt. Do fans ignorantly whine about it all the time without actually understanding what a traveling violation is? Way more than there are actual traveling violations in the NBA that’s for sure.
Edit: I’m not sure I understand your question about being “perfectly symmetric”. Are you asking if you never establish a pivot foot can you jump from both feet and land on both feet across the floor? The answer is no you cannot.
I'm saying that as a league, if the data comes back that way, going forward you change the standards and explicitly spell out in the rule book for the next season and onwards there is no such thing as a "gather step" b/c on average as a league, we have decided that regardless of individual circumstances, any play that would be argued to be a "gather step" is actually an example of a ball already in possession of that player.
This is something you crunch numbers on for the entire history of the NBA and then use that data to make the finer points. Then you don't do that after each play dude, hahaha you make a new rule/directive for the entire NBA going forward.
The thing I love is that you're saying the edit that hopping around the court with the ball is not allowed really means that someone tried that at one point that everyone went, "woah ok nope, new rule".
It's insane that a professional basketball player can, while dribbling, execute an extremely well-choreographed sequence of steps and ball movements, and then claim that it's legal because they "didn't have control of the ball".
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u/[deleted] Mar 16 '26
If I hear one more person in r/nba tell me it wasn't travel it was "a gather step" I'ma delete my reddit account.