NBA to expand technical foul rulings

Fortunately the games haven't been absolutely riddled with technicals as I feared they might be. Still, when they have called techs they've usually been ridiculous and they're not always particularly consistent with what constitutes an "overt gesture of emotion" or however they've worded it.

The refs are fucking stupid. Seriously. This rule is stupid.

Melo gets a tech for slapping his hands but then later in the game when he does something similar, no call. Be consistent or just don't call stupid calls like that. It's called emotion, they aren't hitting you to change the calls.

Great write-up on the situation a few months in.

Yes, technical fouls are up from this time last season. Way up, according to the Los Angeles Times, which has a level of T-ness pegged up at a 34 percent increase from 2009-10. But the number of technicals called has been falling consistently since the season's first month. And, ardent viewers, I don't think the players have gotten any less demonstrative, have you?

More telling ... literally, where did all the technicals go?

Because, as the Times points out, heaps of the bad boys have been rescinded this season. A 300 percent increase on the amount of technicals that were called and later rescinded by the league office when compared to last season, numbers that have helped to shine a lot on one of the more ridiculous aspects of one of the more ridiculous seasons in this league's history -- the quick whistle, followed by everyone on the court and at home realizing that the technical foul will be taken away after a sober review within the next day or two.

All well and good that they're being rescinded to avoid automatic suspensions, but that doesn't change the fact that free throws are awarded on really flimsy technical foul calls and quick ejections have taken place. As Dwyer put it:

You can nullify a technical foul in New York a few days after the game in Memphis, but you can't redo a one-possession game that was made into a two-possession game by influence of that one point.

OMFG the NBA is becoming terrible , what the fuck does Stern think he is doing ?