![]() ![]() And, just last week, the Atlanta Hawks’ Dejounte Murray was given a technical foul for not saying anything at all, but for ignoring a referee. More recently, Devin Booker, an All-Star for the Phoenix Suns, was ejected for making “disparaging remarks.” “Total B.S.,” the Suns’ head coach, Frank Vogel, said, disparagingly, after the game. Less than a week later, Nikola Jokić was tossed from a game, without warning, for calling an official a curse word after he believed he’d been fouled-a hook so quick that even the opposing crowd booed. Earlier this season, the Celtics’ Jaylen Brown was given a technical for cursing while complaining (“Don’t call that weak-ass shit,” he reportedly said), then ejected when he waved off the official, as he continued complaining from the bench. players published by The Athletic last year, officiating was named as the biggest issue facing the league. (In a given season, the sixteenth technical foul a player receives triggers an automatic one-game suspension without pay, as does every pair of technicals that follows.) If he were actually slapped with a tech every time he whined, he’d be ejected from most of Dallas’s games.īut the Respect for the Game rules are still on the books, and lately arguing about technical fouls has kicked up again. candidate who plays for the Dallas Mavericks, flirts with the dangerous threshold of sixteen technicals every year. These days, a player like Luka Dončić, an M.V.P. Everyone understands that the intensity of competition elicits emotion. Once the regular season started, and the games counted, players calmed down a bit, and the refs often swallowed their whistles when players violated the letter but not the spirit of the new laws. That preseason game between the Celtics and the Knicks was clearly meant to set an example. (The incident was too much even for the league office, which suspended the referee.) According to Duncan, the referee who ejected him also challenged him to a fight. Most famously, the San Antonio Spurs’ Tim Duncan, one of the best players in history, was tossed from a game that season for laughing at a ref-from the bench. In 2006, referees had been given a similar, but less explicit, edict, and technicals had spiked. It was not the first time that the league had tried to crack down on complaining. ![]() The new initiative was referred to as Respect for the Game. The league had determined that fans thought players were too whiny. ![]() “That’s the new rule.” The new rule: no demonstrative complaints about fouls. ![]() “Sorry,” the ref who blew the whistle, Steve Javie, said afterward, according to Pierce. In a game earlier that preseason, the Celtics forward Paul Pierce had been given a tech for punching the air in frustration following a foul. game, was given a tech as he passed a referee, for saying something in Russian. Sixteen seconds after play resumed, the Knicks rookie Timofey Mozgov, playing in his first N.B.A. “I was still dazed by mine,” he said after the game. O’Neal could barely register what was happening. Incredulous, Garnett kept complaining, and got a second technical, which meant an ejection from the game. When his teammate Kevin Garnett, standing near midcourt, turned to a different official to protest the tech, he was given a technical foul, too. After he approached a referee to ask for an explanation, he was whistled for a technical foul. In October, 2010, during a preseason game between the Boston Celtics and the New York Knicks, Boston’s Jermaine O’Neal was positioning himself for a rebound when he was called for a foul. ![]()
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