GhostofAlfrederickHughes
05-12-2005, 04:10 PM
I thought this was interesting. Perhaps a medical term should be applied?
The Karl-Allen Syndrome, anyone?
http://www.salon.com/news/sports/col/kaufman/2005/05/12/thursday/print.html
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May 12, 2005 | With all the whining NBA players do about fouls, can any of it do any good? There's not a play that goes by in the NBA without at least one and usually two or three players on each team bitching to a ref that they were fouled. And with rare exceptions, when a foul is called, the whistled player objects. He's shocked.
What? Are you serious? Me?! My God, this is a joke.
When you count the grumbling by the coaches, there have to be 200 complaints for each of the three officials every night.
The players and coaches believe you have to stay on the refs or you'll never get any calls, but is that true? Do you think the refs are even listening to this mewling?
I mean, they always kind of nod and even sometimes rebut the argument, but do you really think that this complaint, the one being made right now, No. 132 out of the 200 tonight, is having any effect? The calls seem pretty random to me anyway.
Middle aged guys like me complain a lot about the NBA's trash talking and chest-thumping and showboating, none of which bothers me. What bothers me is the whining. I have a 2-year-old, and if he ever wants to play in the NBA he's going to have to learn to whine more.
I don't listen to him when he whines. Maybe the refs should say the same thing to the players: Na-ah-ah, Rasheed. Use your normal voice.
Maybe I'm sugar-coating my memories but I don't recall Jerry West or Julius Erving bellyaching this much. I'm too young to really remember Bill Russell but did he constantly gripe to the refs the way today's players do? Players have always argued about fouls that were called, but the lobbying for uncalled fouls seems to have increased a hundredfold, to use a made-up factor.
And I wonder if this is a related observation: There are way too many technical fouls called these days.
When you're looking around trying to figure out who the technical's on -- and it's not a penalty for something like delay of game -- it probably shouldn't have been called. That happens twice a game now at least. Someone gets T'd up, and when that player is identified, you look at him and he looks calm and collected, maybe a little surprised.
If there isn't foam coming out of the guy's mouth, he shouldn't get a technical. Let the players decide the game, not the delicate sensitivities of the officials -- though they do have my sympathy for having to listen to all that whining.
Here's my modest proposal: The players should quit bitching so much and the refs should quit calling so many ticky-tack technicals.
The Karl-Allen Syndrome, anyone?
http://www.salon.com/news/sports/col/kaufman/2005/05/12/thursday/print.html
-------------------------------------------------------
May 12, 2005 | With all the whining NBA players do about fouls, can any of it do any good? There's not a play that goes by in the NBA without at least one and usually two or three players on each team bitching to a ref that they were fouled. And with rare exceptions, when a foul is called, the whistled player objects. He's shocked.
What? Are you serious? Me?! My God, this is a joke.
When you count the grumbling by the coaches, there have to be 200 complaints for each of the three officials every night.
The players and coaches believe you have to stay on the refs or you'll never get any calls, but is that true? Do you think the refs are even listening to this mewling?
I mean, they always kind of nod and even sometimes rebut the argument, but do you really think that this complaint, the one being made right now, No. 132 out of the 200 tonight, is having any effect? The calls seem pretty random to me anyway.
Middle aged guys like me complain a lot about the NBA's trash talking and chest-thumping and showboating, none of which bothers me. What bothers me is the whining. I have a 2-year-old, and if he ever wants to play in the NBA he's going to have to learn to whine more.
I don't listen to him when he whines. Maybe the refs should say the same thing to the players: Na-ah-ah, Rasheed. Use your normal voice.
Maybe I'm sugar-coating my memories but I don't recall Jerry West or Julius Erving bellyaching this much. I'm too young to really remember Bill Russell but did he constantly gripe to the refs the way today's players do? Players have always argued about fouls that were called, but the lobbying for uncalled fouls seems to have increased a hundredfold, to use a made-up factor.
And I wonder if this is a related observation: There are way too many technical fouls called these days.
When you're looking around trying to figure out who the technical's on -- and it's not a penalty for something like delay of game -- it probably shouldn't have been called. That happens twice a game now at least. Someone gets T'd up, and when that player is identified, you look at him and he looks calm and collected, maybe a little surprised.
If there isn't foam coming out of the guy's mouth, he shouldn't get a technical. Let the players decide the game, not the delicate sensitivities of the officials -- though they do have my sympathy for having to listen to all that whining.
Here's my modest proposal: The players should quit bitching so much and the refs should quit calling so many ticky-tack technicals.