Give NBA players a step, they'll take, well, several more

Sometimes, as the saying kind of goes, art imitates comedy, and life just gives up fighting in response. Hence, the NBA's announcement that it is legalizing something it has allowed for 50 years.

Yes, the league that hasn't called a two-step walk in forever just legalized the two-step walk. And what does that mean to you, me, NBA players and all who enjoy the game?

It won't take long for LeBron James' three-step 'crab dribble' to become legal. (Getty Images)

The three-step walk, of course. Which leads to the four-step walk, and finally, to the end of the dribble itself.

But first, let's give you the exciting background. We'll wait while you pour that pot of coffee in your lap to make sure you're fully awake.

It seems that NBA officials had long been instructed to call the two-step walk while working off a rulebook that called for a one-step walk. Fine, we knew that the NBA has been working on a two-step walk for years, maybe even 2½ for your superduperstars, from Bob Cousy to LeBron James.

Now, with brand-new officials who are attempting to make people forget that they are soon-to-be-exposed replacements, the league wants to come clean and make the rule book jibe with reality.

But we know players, and players stretch rules until they become suggestions, all in a search of the elusive and clichéd "competitive edge." And in this case, the edge is the third step.

The third step means that anyone can pick up his dribble behind the 3-point line and lay the ball up without difficulty. And given how rarely officials call traveling anyway, you can guess who might try the fourth step -- you know, just to see if they have the stones to call it.

Much is being made that the NBA is the first league to codify the two-step travel, which is true as far as that goes, but what it really means is that it will have to codify the third step before long, and eventually the fourth, and before you know it, another word for "dribble" is "turnover."

If we thought the new crop of officials could hold the line on two steps, maybe this would be a triumph for truth, justice and the American way. The NBA would finally acknowledge that the rulebook is really a book of suggestions, and that it is trying to make the book reflect reality.

Only the book isn't reality, and it never has been, because the three-second rule isn't really three seconds, either, and the hand-check isn't really a hand-check, and the goaltend isn't really a goaltend. Basketball, more than any other sport, operates under the rules set by its best players -- they establish the outer envelope, and their inferiors operate within those parameters.

And when you say you can take two steps instead of one, the best players will say, "Excelsior! Victory is ours! Now let me give three a try. And if the guy with the whistle and the license plate number on his back says I can't, I'll just pitch a fit until he gives up."

And the fit wins every time, because every basketball fan in America is inclined to root for the player rather than the official, especially now that the league has diminished what little authority the officiating class still has.

But the NBA doesn't get it with the officials and never has. In acknowledging the two-step travel, the league is the equivalent of the Pope who finally gave up and decided that maybe Galileo had the sun-earth thing right after all. All the NBA really did was fix a willful typographical error (a) everyone knew about and had long ago had come to peace with, and (b) created a new one.

Which will beget a new one after that, and a new one after that. And soon you'll see a crossover dribble as often as you see short pants, or third jerseys that don't make the vomit rise in your throat. Hey, you'll see. Once he gets over the flu, LeBron will show it to you, night after night after befuddled-referee night.

Ray Ratto is a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle.