did it work for ET ?
Its just another form of bias for the refs to take hold of. Face it, they love you or hate you and now have another way of making sure their favourite players are babied
Who's ET? That damn little alien in that old as dirt, crap of a film?
Nevermind, just scrolled up and read one of you earlier posts. I didn't see what happened in that game, so I can't say. Still, I'm in favor of this rule and hope it's used fairly and as often as necessary.
I'm sick watching hours of debate when a basketball game is going on at the same time and on the same court.
Im ok with the new rule IF its consistent, thats all i ask. The problem is that no rule in the NBA is consistent coz when using humans as refs there will always be some bias, even if it is only small.
Solution = use robots as refs
Emotion is fine. Making a complaint is fine. Persisting with a complaint is not. Acting like a child is not. I like that this rule asks grown men to act like adults.
Of course they're starting out the season with the quick whistles. And of course, as both officials and players adjust to this, we are going to see a more organic version of this rule. More give and take between the players and officials. But there is no need to whine, flail your arms around, throw things, stomp, take your jersey off, etc. That's what toddlers do, and I for one don't like it.
Once everyone gets used to it, no one will notice that the product is better in the end. Fewer delays, fewer incidents, more basketball. That's why I watch. The less bull having nothing to do with the game there is, the better.
With about 9 minutes left in the 3rd, Bynum gets a call against him or something. He jumps up, stomps on the ground with his arms to his sides, then motions a travelling signal to the ref.
I say he should have gotten a tech with the new rule.
No Tolerance Major Mistake
This isn’t going to work. This no-tolerance edict that Commissioner David Stern has invoked in his never ending attempt to make the NBA product more palatable to corporate (read white) sponsors is going to blow up in his face.
At least I am hoping it does.
Already this season three players have been ejected – Detroit’s Rasheed Wallace, Sacramento’s Mike Bibby and Denver’s Carmelo Anthony. Now I am betting that the fans who s ed out big money in those cities weren’t real happy about that. My guess is they would much rather have watched a little extra complaining from those guys than not be able to watch them at all.
My guess is if referees keep throwing players out of games, fans are eventually going to think twice about ponying up a couple hundred dollars or so to take the family down to the arena.
Lord help us if Dwyane Wade or LeBron James ever get booted from a game.
But that is not likely to happen, is it? Wade and James are the league’s poster boys. Even though both complain throughout games like little divas, they carry more cache with referees. Referees will either listen longer or look the other way with those two, especially when we they are faced with the prospect of hitting them with a second technical foul.
And that is part of the problem with this edict. There is bound to be discrimination. You saw it Wednesday night. The edict was enforced differently in just about every game.
In Detroit, Wallace was thrown out of the game early in the third quarter while having a calm discussion with referee Luis Grillo while players were lining up for a free throw.
"You seen what I did,” Wallace told me. "I said, 'Oh!' on the first tech because it was a good block. Then on the second one, the dude (Bucks Charlie Villanueva) threw an elbow and I told the other two refs that I ain't going to be going for that. I can deal with losing. I can deal with having a bad game and I can deal with shooting woes. But I can't deal with no dirty play and no cheating.
"Then I told that to Lou Grillo. He said something back and I said, 'I am just letting everyone know,' and that's when they gave me that second tech and threw me out."
Later that night I watched Steve Nash throw a mini-tantrum that went unpunished. On Thursday, I saw Tim Duncan waive his arms and point his fingers in dispute of calls with total impunity.
"In my opinion, it's really BS," Wallace said. "It's just given them (refs) more power than what a majority of them can handle… If you already got a beef with a ref, then you have to look out. And with me, that's about 90 percent of them. It's BS. You ain't really got to say nothing or do nothing. If they come in with an at ude, you are out of luck."
You say, well, Carmelo Anthony is one of the league’s golden boys, too. Yes, but he has had some major run-ins with officials in his short time in the league, and some are bound to hold a grudge. It’s human nature. Clearly, referee Derrick Stafford and Mike Bibby have had their issues in the past, which led to Stafford giving Bibby the quick hook Wednesday.
The point is, each referee is going to interpret this new edict – just another Sheed Law according to Wallace – a different way. And the interpretation is going to be tainted by past reputations and past relationships.
"It’s just discrimination," Wallace said.
And because Stern has made such a big deal about it, the referees almost feel compelled to keep an extra-sensitive watch on it. It’s like giving policemen quotas to fill on traffic tickets. They are going to fill that quota come or high water.
Stern has said repeatedly that he isn’t looking to turn the players into robots and that he’s not trying to take the human emotion out of the game. Yet, that's exactly what's happening. There is a dress code, a citizenship code, a mission statement, an ethics code – Stern stopped just short of rewriting the cons utional amendment on the right to bear arms, for crying out loud.
Subtly and systematically, Stern is sucking the life out of this league. More and more, the NBA is becoming a non-contact league. Why? The surface reason is to increase scoring. But beneath that is the main reason behind just about every one of these edicts and new points of emphasis we are talking about here -- Stern is obsessively afraid of another brawl.
Think about it, he has essentially legislated hard fouls out of the game. Shoot, he has essentially legislated contact out of the game. But even that has backfired, to an extent. It’s the ticky-tack fouls that fuel the players’ frustration in the first place. They get mad about some silly touch foul, they get exasperated with the official and then, boom, the next thing you know they have two technical fouls and they are being escorted out of the arena.
It’s like one edict is feeding the other.
All because Stern wants a polite, gentleman’s game.
"This ain’t croquet," Wallace said.
Stern should hope it never becomes croquet, either. Nobody’s watching croquet. And sooner or later, people are going to stop watching the NBA if he continues this ridiculous genization of the game.
One of the major appeals of the NBA is the intensity and passion of its players.
And unlike in football or hockey, the players’ expressions and feelings are open and on display. They are part of the theatre of the game.
Quell the emotion and you will kill the show.
http://www.hoopsworld.com/article_19259.shtml
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote