These guys might actually be some of the softest people in all of sports. Toronto Raptors PG Fred VanVleet publicly and rightfully called out the NBA referees as being too soft and emotional as technical calls and ejections are happening every night.
It’s crazy how emotional the NBA referees have become in such a short span of time.
Only going back 10 or so years, you’d never see players getting T’d-up for talking back to the refs after a missed call or voicing their frustration with a call going against them, let alone getting kicked out of hotly contested games for it.
That’s just how the game went as the refs were some of the toughest, emotionally strongest, and fiercest talkers on the court, which allowed them to go toe-to-toe with some of the greatest players ever (ex: Michael Jordan, LeBron James, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Wilt Chamberlin, Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O’Neal) in arguments over foul calls.
However, just three nights ago, the 9th Eastern Conference seeded Raptors were in a tightly contested game with the 1st Western Conference seeded Denver Nuggets as the Nuggets had a 1-point lead with under 30 seconds to go in the game.
While defending, Raptors center Jakob Poeltl fouled Nuggets forward Aaron Gordon as he was going up for a layup, which obviously was called as a foul and sent Gordon to the line. Naturally, with the Raptors trailing by one and desperate to get the ball back, Scottie Barnes was justifiably upset and questioned the refs’ call on the play.
So, what do you think the ref core did in response? Ignore Barnes and let Gordon take the two free throws? Explain to Barnes why the foul was called and then let Gordon shoot? Or just shut Barnes up, and getting on with the game?
Well, if you said yes to any one of those normal responses, you’d be dead wrong as ref Scott Foster, who was at least 10 feet away from Barnes when he was complaining to another member of the ref team, ran into the action and gave the Raptors forward his second technical foul of the game.
Obviously, two technical fouls equals an ejection and an extra free throw (so Gordon shot twice and Jamal Murray once to give the Nuggets a 4-point lead), thus leaving the Raptors best player having to watch the final 30 seconds from the sidelines as his team lost 118-113.
And, last night, the Raptors had 21 fouls called and 31 free throws attempts against them in their 108-100 loss to the Clippers, which then led Fred VanVleet to unleash his now famous post-game tirade we’re talking about right now.
Now, even if one believes that the Raptors deserved all of their fouls against the Clippers and Barnes his ejection against the Nuggets, this ref problem isn’t just contained to Toronto. It’s a league wide issue.
I feel like there’s at least 2-5 technical foul calls A GAME, regardless of the teams I’m watching. Moreover, the refs are giving so many fouls for players speaking back to them, which is the biggest issue I have with this entire situation.
As seen in the Raptors-Nuggets game, there’s too many occasions nowadays where the refs are the ones deciding the outcome of the game due to their technical foul calls and ejections of players, which makes for infinitely worse and repetitive games. Nobody wants to watch the reserves and backups duking it out in the final minutes of extremely important, heated games due to the refs ejecting all of the star players.
Don’t believe me? Just go into the comments section of every NBA game’s highlights on YouTube and see how fans feel about the refs.
Adam Silver better get control of this issue, or the game of basketball could seriously suffer from its own arrogant, emotional refs.
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