NBA - Main

Yeah at the very least the fact that he's carrying the ball multiple times on the hesitation dribble used to be a travel. Now it's just part of a "bag"

Exactly. Back in the day, if you even spun the pivot foot too much, it’d be a travel. It’s gotten looser and looser as the game has evolved. Whether that’s a good or a bad thing, idk. I’m just saying that when I was a kid learning to play in the ‘90s from guys that learned to play in the ‘50s to ‘80s, that’s how I was taught.

Ditto for palming the ball. Allen Iverson and everyone after him wouldn’t have gotten away with most of their crossovers and hesi moves pre-‘90s. That’s a big part of why we think the old clips from the ‘50s and ‘60s look so goofy — they had much stricter enforcement of stricter rules.

The rules were not different in the 3-point arc era of basketball. There was a video someone posted a while ago where someone compiled footage dating back to Jordan in the 80s, where the pivot foot was lifted in this exact same manner.

The other thing that confuses people is that, in a triple threat position, if you start dribbling the ball, you actually can't lift your pivot foot before initiating your dribble. So folks are remembering the rule about not lifting the pivot foot, but applying it to the wrong basketball action.

If you lift the pivot foot before you start your dribble, it's a travel. But if you shoot or pass instead, it's not, as long as you do so before your pivot foot returns to the ground.