Another NBA All-Star has gotten fined by the league for critical comments about officiating.
The NBA announced on Friday that they are fining Sacramento Kings star DeMar DeRozan a sum of $25,000. The release notes that the fine is for DeRozan having issued a “public criticism of the officiating.”
Sacramento played the Denver Nuggets on the road Wednesday, losing 116-110. DeRozan finished with a game-high 35 points on 14/32 shooting but only got four free throws. As a team, the Kings also finished with less than half of the Nuggets’ total free throw attempts (14 to 30).
“The refs were terrible,” said DeRozan after the game, per Chris Biderman of the Sacramento Bee. “Terrible as s–t. We gotta do a better job of executing. [But] there were multiple [calls missed]. Check the free-throw difference.
“There was a bunch of times we got hit, got smacked,” DeRozan added. “It was three, four shots I took, clearly got hit, got smacked. They get the same call on the other end. Throws off our whole rhythm. Gives them momentum at home. Makes it tough on us to execute. It was a game we should have had.”
Wednesday’s loss came at an especially difficult time for the Kings, who are fighting to avoid the play-in tournament in a tightly-packed Western Conference. The defeat dropped them to 32-29 on the season, which is ninth in the West and puts them two games back of a top-six seed.
Several other NBA stars, including a former DeRozan teammate on the Toronto Raptors, have been fined by the league this season for going after the referees. Now the six-time All-Star DeRozan himself can add his name to the list as well.
