The National Basketball Referees Association wants Atlanta Hawks head coach Mike Budenholzer suspended for making contact with an official during Saturday’s game against the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Budenholzer received a technical foul and was ejected for bumping referee Ben Taylor during the second quarter of the game after getting upset with the lack of a foul call.
Budenholzer felt the ejection was excessive for what he said was unintentional contact. The NBA agreed as they only fined Bud $25,000 for the gesture. The relative light punishment left the referees dissatisfied.
“Referees operate in an environment in which an influential NBA team owner has repeatedly mocked the efficacy of fines as means to change bad behavior,” NBRA General Counsel Lee Seham said in a statement. “Recent League precedent dictated that a coach who aggressively charged onto the floor during live action and physically interfered with a Referee would be suspended. We are now operating at a lower level with less transparency, degraded safety, and diminished respect for the Game. Coaches should compete by creating better teams, not by physically intimidating officials.”
The contact was minor — there is no debate about that — but if you don’t referees to be bullied by coaches, then heavier penalties are called for. Apparently the league did not feel what Budenholzer did called for much more.
