One particularly important bit of wisdom I've gained as a summer associate is that being a Lakers fan is prerequisite to making partner at the firm where I work. This puts me at a special disadvantage because my general interest in sports is on par with my interest in drooling. But once I made an effort to say something about basketball, in my law-geeky sort of way, it occurred to me that the "three point play" rule is a rather interesting compromise between deterrence and compensation rationales of doing justice. (If you're already laughing, do yourself a favor and skip the rest of this post.)

For those of you who don't know what a three point play is: ordinarily players who are fouled when attempting a shot are given two chances to make free throw shots (each worth one point). The idea is to give the fouled player something like the opportunity he may have had but for the foul. However, if the fouled player makes his attempted shot anyhow, he still gets one (instead of two) opportunity at the free throw line. Ideally, a player would score three points (two from the original shot and one from the free throw); hence "three point play."

But why should the fouled player who makes a shot get a chance to score one more point? His opportunity to score was fulfilled. On the other hand, why shouldn't he get two additional free throws? The person who fouled him did the same wrong, and presumably there's the same need to deter would-be-foulers. I suppose it may be the case that successful fouled shooters get only one free throw because they are less likely to have been fouled flagrantly, but I prefer to think that the rule picked a convenient compromise between competing rationales of addressing foul play in the game.