Recently I’ve been seeing the guys I play with do some version of a very short roll shot. Usually a cut. They contact the ball fairly high, but the ball spends a lot of time in their hand. I haven’t recorded it yet, but it looks like they’re touching the ball with their fingertips while snapping their wrist, which then rolls the ball into the palm, where it “bounces” away from the hand.
The effect is a shot that lands several feet “shorter” than you would expect based on all the other factors of the swing. It beats me almost every time and I’m a fairly quick and adept defender.
I feel it’s an illegal contact; more of an upwards “paintbrush” than a clean contact of the ball. I brought it up yesterday, asking the best player amongst us if he genuinely thought it was a legal play (right after he’d done it). That didn’t go over too well, but I think that had more to do with personalities than substance of the conversation.
Thoughts?