Rules for Thee, but Not for Me
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During Game 2 of the Celtics-Warriors NBA Finals on Sunday, ABC/ESPN announcers Jeff Van Gundy and Mark Jackson interviewed retired NBA referee Steve Javie about whether Warriors forward Draymond Green should have received a technical foul for an altercation with Celtics forward Jaylen Brown. And Javie’s comments took many viewers aback.
The fact that Green already had a technical foul, Javie opined, was a key consideration in this scenario. A second technical would have automatically disqualified Green, which Javie suggested wouldn’t have been the appropriate outcome.
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The remarks bluntly highlighted the factors referees consider and the discretion referees possess in determining when rules ought to apply. For a league that worked hard to overcome the 2007 scandal involving former NBA referee Tim Donaghy, and that—since the U.S. Supreme Court permitted states to legalize sports betting in 2018—has embraced wagers and the accompanying importance of data, Javie’s recommendation was striking.
To be clear, the referees assigned to the game, not Javie, deemed the play did not require further discipline. Also, Javie doesn’t work or speak for the NBA, for whom he refereed from 1986 to 2011; he’s employed by ESPN to provide expert analysis. But given Javie’s lengthy tenure in the NBA, which included officiating more than 1,000 games, he offers an authoritative voice on refereeing.
The NBA rule book doesn’t mention that a player who already has a technical should be given a break on a second technical. Instead, a technical foul is described as an appropriate penalty for a player who engages in “conduct which, in the opinion of an official, is detrimental to the game.” The rule book tries to craft a predictable and reliable metric for assigning a penalty intended to diffuse player tensions before they escalate.
The idea that a player who already has a technical is less deserving of a second T, which Javie’s comments…
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Source : yahoo
