In case you haven’t heard, the NBA’s new stance on technical fouls is completely absurd. Referees have been instructed to hand out technical fouls when players make aggressive hand gestures, demonstrate on themselves the way they were fouled, complain to an official about a call, walk a long distance to argue a call, and inquire about a call excessively (even if done in a civilized tone). If that sounds like a joke to you, I’m afraid it’s not.
Although it’s only the preseason, we’ve already heard a ton of complaining about the new rules. Refs have been fully enforcing them, and it remains to be seen if the authoritarian style of ruling will die down a bit in the regular season or if the zebras are just trying to mark their territory before the feast. We’ll soon find out.
ABC color commentator Mark Jackson has an interesting take on the new technical foul rules. Rather than focusing on the negatives that come along with being T’ed up, Jackson points out that great free throw shooters could benefit from it. “If I was a guy like Reggie Miller I’d love the rule because it would add three or four points a night to my scoring total from technical fouls.”
I’m going to take the liberty of saying Jackson is joking, but with the way things are headed his thought may not be that far-fetched. If the Kevin Garnetts and Ron Artests of the world are getting slapped with more Ts than they’re used to, the Ray Allens and Chauncey Billups will be sitting back and improving their resumes.
