Jamaaliver wrote:That's called a double-dribble on every playground in America...but NOT the NBA?
The logic there would be that he fumbled the ball and didn't actually have control of it, until when he grabs it with two hands and dribbles, which, yea, I can see. Of course one can say, "well you can just fake to fumble so you can get more leeway" but the rule books do leave that up to the judgment of officials. Also most times faking to fumble is not helping you (other times it could, eg: coming to a stop after dribbling, this specific play not so much)
You could argue that a fumble should be considered a dribble and you shouldn't be able to recover and dribble, I can see that argument and logic.
Section XVIII—Fumble
A player who is holding the ball and fumbles it out of his control may recover the ball.
If his pivot foot moves to recover the ball, he must then pass or shoot the ball. If he fumbles
and recovers it without moving his pivot foot and before the ball touches the floor, he retains
his status before the fumble.
https://official.nba.com/rule-no-4-definitions/#fumble
Kuzma didn't have any pivot, he fumbles the ball when trying to catch it, then he is initially unable to control it as it bounces off his arm, so he retains his status to dribble, but a ref might look at the replay and say he had control, but it does look like that's what happens, at least in real time.
