I really hate this new rule. I only saw one of the T's and it didn't look like Odom was doing anything that deserved a T. If anyone saw the little graphic last night of the amount of T's and ejections so far this season compared to this point at last year, I'm betting they'd think the refs are going overboard as well. It was something like 71 Ts already this season and 8 or 9 ejections, I don't exactly remember.
<div class='codetop'>CODE</div><div class='codemain'>2006 - 67 Technical Fouls / 5 Ejections<br/>2005 - 24 Technical Fouls / 1 Ejection<br/>2004 - 63 Technical Fouls / 5 Ejections<br/>2003 - 35 Technical Fouls / 2 Ejections<br/>2002 - 43 Technical Fouls / 4 Ejections</div> Compared to last year, there's a big increase, but if look at 2004, it's not a drastic increase in how the officials are dishing out T's and ejections. I just think it's too much control given to the officials with the emphasis on controlling a player's outburst. When you're competing at the pro level, you're playing with a lot of emotion and you're going to overreact at times, especially when you feel you've been on the wrongside of a call. It shouldn't be up to the officials to control emotion, their job should be to calm a player down and explain why they made that call. If the player continues to be disrespectful, then go ahead and issue the T. But what I see a lot of times are the refs baiting the player into a T instead of keeping the peace. They stand there with a puffed out chest with the look on their face that says, go ahead say one more thing and I'm going to toss your ass.
<font face=""Comic Sans MS""></font> My problem is that it gives the refs more power. That is the last thing they need. This does not address the issue at all. Stern is so overprotective of his refferees that he let this blind allegiance cloud reality. I don't think he is listening to the fans, his interests are vested in dollars.
One thing that pisses me off about Stern is that one minute he's talking about how he wants to get rid of the hip-hop culture with the dress code and the next minute he's advertising "beef" with Kobe vs Shaq on Christmas Day.
