The NBA's Officiating Remains In The Gutter After Luka Doncic Was Given A Tech For Yelling At His Own Teammate
Anyone who has consistently been watching the NBA season so far will probably agree that overall the officiating across the league has been pretty horrendous. That's not new, but it feels like things are getting a little out of hand this season. I'm not talking about a focus on travels or carrys or any of that stuff that will eventually fade as the year goes on like it always does.
I'm talking about straight up horrific decisions, mostly techs, that make absolutely no sense whatsoever. One of the worst ones we saw was earlier in the year when Jayson Tatum was given a tech for clapping. He was frustrated that he missed a layup on one end and then fouled on the other, so he gave himself a single frustration clap
Even KD admitted what we all knew
At the time, some thought this was a Jayson Tatum vs the refs issue. I'm not so sure that's the case becasue in reality it looks to be strictly a "these refs are bad" issue.
Take last night in a game between the Mavs and Thunder. This time it involves the NBA's golden boy Luka Doncic.
We're giving techs for clapping and then also giving techs for yelling at your own teammates to be better. How is this possible? I have no doubt the league will rescind that tech just like they did for Tatum, but that's not really the point. The point is this shit should not be happening in the first place let alone to the game's biggest young stars. We cannot keep having these situations where refs incorrectly get in their feelings and do shit like this. Sure the point didn't impact the final result, but I'm not sure why that matters.
The biggest problem with all of this type of shit is the fact that none of these refs of held accountable. Nothing happens. The league rescinds the tech and everyone goes on their merry way. They don't have to explain themselves, there's no penalty for doing shit like this, and the refs know the league will always protect them and make up some bullshit reasoning as to why it was justified. Until Adam Silver wakes up from his coma and addresses this, nothing is going to change or improve and I simply cannot understand why he continues to do nothing.
Silver cares very much about the public perception of his league. I don't know how that could be the case and then he sees stuff like this happen WAY TOO OFTEN to the biggest players in the league and Silver decides it's acceptable. It's ruining his product! I feel like this is a pretty easy thing to fix too. Just find a way to hold these refs accountable. You do some shit like this? Give them a $15,000 fine or some shit. Send them down the the G-League or something. We've had situations this season where refs are stopping a game because they are not aware of the actual rules, we've had situations where guys are getting techs for clapping and guys are getting techs for telling Dwight Powell to stop sucking. It's so embarrassing for everyone in the league office if we're being honest.
Remember those hilarious "Respect The Game" rules the NBA put out to try and tell players how to act and what would be acceptable? Maybe put less of the focus on the players and more of it on the people actually in charge of calling the game, because it's pretty clear they have no idea what they are doing.