During last night's game between the Spurs and T'Wolves in Minnesota, two technical fouls were called on one play, one against Minnesota center Darko Milicic and the other against teammate Corey Brewer.
While Spurs guard Manu Ginobili took the 4 ensuing free throws, Minnesota coach Kurt Rambis was T-Up twice and ejected, narrowly missing Wolves forward Kevin Love getting a technical on the following play as a reaction to a horrible non-call.
That's five tecs in 10 seconds and 2 on one play - something I have never seen.
Just as I mentioned on a previous post about NBA ref Dick Bavetta fist-fucking the Raptors in a game at MSG against the Knicks, the officiating in the league is terribly inconsistent and the NBA's darling franchises continue to get the calls, even on the road as it was in this instance, and their marquee players continue getting the benefit of the doubt on all borderline calls.
To compound this issue, the NBA made a much publicized move in the off season to give the officials more power to penalize players for showing dissent.
That was a completely and most utterly nonsensical decision by Commish David Stern and his legion of Ivy League pencil-pushers. The NBA experienced a boom in the 90's, and that growth was because of the entertaining aspect of watching charismatic and passionate athletes up-close and personal without being hidden by helmets or baggy uniforms like the other 3 major professional North American leagues.
People pay hundreds, sometimes thousands of dollars to sit court side and they want to see Rasheed Wallace grimace at a ref and drop a muffled F-Bomb and they want to see players passionately react if they feel wronged by a refs decision as would any of us in a similar position.
Officials should be invisible. It is not their role to alter the game, but to police it and allow it to run it's course whilst staying within the guidelines of the rules. When officials, whether in the NBA, or in baseball when some blowhard first base ump gets in a player's face, by their actions, negatively alter the tone and expression of the game, they are fundamentally failing to adequately perform their duties (holy fucking commas.)
The NBA needs to fix this fiasco right the F now.
Here's just a few more instances to further cement my point. The tone of the play-by-play guys is indicative of just how stupid this is, and it's not all hometown coverage (just listen to the Celtics announcer Tommy Heinsohn from the next clip. And for that matter, Jeff Van Gundy and Mark Jackson in the 2nd one.);
Sorry, just had to throw that last one in. Discuss.
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