Not a big basketball fan. Simply because i cant see how a defender can take the ball off the attacker. Intercept a pass? Low chance. Snatch the ball from his hands? Again low chances. An attacker can simply barge in and defender can do little about it.
At my admittedly amateur level of play, yelling, “hey! Lookie there!!!” and when they look in the direction I am pointing, grabbing the ball, works surprisingly often.
This makes it sound like you’re picturing the “attacker” running down the court like a football quarterback. You do know they have to dribble—they can’t just carry the ball—right?
The Steals stat also includes stolen passes. The OP seems to be talking about is Strips. I don’t know if they are tracked by anyone. They should be, as they are a powerful defensive tool.
A common mantra is you’re supposed to play defense with your feet, not your hands. Not quite true, but the point is to stay in front of the offensive player with your body and not reach in and get fouls or get off balance (“you reach, I teach”).
Getting a steal off a live dribble against someone who knows what they’re doing is difficult. At least in the NBA, most steals are from playing the passing lanes or if the offensive player is under duress or in a chaotic situation, like being double teamed, on the break, players scrambling and not knowing where defenders are, or the shot clock is running down, and so on.
Basketball rules tend to favor the offense and it’s a high scoring game, but it’s not a free for all. If an NBA player misses only half their shots they’re really good.
Unless your name is LeBron James, then it’s OK. I kid, I kid…mostly.
NBA steals leaders average around 2 per game. The top teams average 9 - 10 steals per game. Sure, every other play doesn’t result in a take-away, but it’s not like you never see it.
Not sure why you think this such an impossible or rare thing. Every NCAA or NBA game has multiple steals. Hereis a video of one NBA professional just blatently taking the ball away from another. No foul was committed.
As long as the defensive player has contact with the ball, he can whack the offensive player’s hand all he wants. “The hand is part of the ball” is a rule so long as the defensive player also has contact with the ball as well. So grabbing the ball out of an offensive players hands is perfectly legal in many cases.