Thanks!
But there’s still something I don’t understand about your “not a pick” verdict. I understand that it is the spirit of the rule that a defender cannot guard more than one player at a time. However, obviously a defender is allowed to switch between the players he’s guarding. Seems to me that in the described scenario, the defender X started off guarding player A, then switched to B, then back to A, and then the (alleged) pick occurred. How long after X stopped poaching and reacting to player B, and started pursuing and reacting to player A until we consider X to be guarding player A?
(I don’t mean to be over analyzing some super rare situation. This is an argument I encounter quite often with “poach happy” teams…)
EDIT: Going over the original post, I see that (since we established a defender cannot guard two players) X’s argument for there being a pick is invalid. Let’s consider the same scenario, but with a revised discussion:
A: For it to be a pick you must be guarding me. And you were poaching off me and reacting to B, so you were not guarding me.
X: True, I was poaching and reacting to B’s cut, but once you started your cut I went back to reacting solely to you, and I was within 3 meters of you. Therefore, I was guarding you at the time of the pick.