Finally!
Anyone who has watched a NBA game is familiar with the bickering that occurs after an official makes a call. Many players believe that they never commit a foul (or any other infraction, for that matter), so they feel the need to convince the ref that they were wrong before they can continue playing.
Well, the NBA is going to make this post-call complaining a point of emphasis this season, hoping to curb the needless banter between players and referees.
“In my 22 years in the game I have never seen a call, or a non-call, reversed because a player complained,” the NBA commissioner said Wednesday in Germany. “All it does is show a less attractive side to the greatest athletes in the world.”
There is no new rule, but players and coaches were alerted through a memo and preseason meetings with referees that their actions after calls would be a point of emphasis.
“The coaches don’t mind this,” he said, “because, as a result, it means the player will get back on defense rather than staying down to argue a call he didn’t get on the offensive end.”
There’s greater reason for concern from the players, who risk financial penalty with every technical foul. Players are fined $1,000 for each of their first five technicals, an amount that increases by $500 for each five after that, capped by a $2,500 penalty for each one starting with the 16th. A one-game suspension also comes at that point and for every other technical thereafter.
My favorite line from the article came from Kevin Garnett:
“The people that get the techs are emotional people. Do we cross the line sometimes? We walk it. … If you want to fine the individual person, that’s what it is,” Wolves star Kevin Garnett said after Wednesday’s game.
“To the fact that you can’t really speak to the refs, the refs don’t want to hear it. That’s almost like Communism. That’s like Castro.”
I love Garnett’s geopolitical reference to Castro and Communism, however inaccurate. Everyone knows that when Castro used to ball, he always talked to the refs.
Players should have an opportunity to speak with officials, but screaming at them or making a face (such as LeBron James’ pickle face) only serves to piss the refs off and slow the game down. When there is a break in the action, a player should be able to ask the officials questions and/or determine how a ref interprets a particular rule. Otherwise, just keep playing, you big baby.
