Player's Union to Protest the New Tech Rules

Hopefully fans have been writing to the league office and voicing their opinion on thenew technical rule.  If you haven't, you can go here to send them a message.   Herr Stern has decreed that he instituted these rules because fans wrote to say they wanted him to.  Now it's time for him to hear from the fans for real.  Write to the league.  Let them know that these new rules are ruining the enjoyment of the game for everyone.  Players have got to be allowed to show emotion.  I can see where they need to keep players from pitching fits on the court and they need to keep players from excessive complaining.  That's fine, but the refs are not allowing any emotion whatsoever and that is going to ruin the game. 


Adrian Wojnarowski reports on Yahoo that the players union is doing their part to fight this ridiculousness from the referees.  They are contesting the new rules and the way the referees are instituting them.  Here is what executive director Billy Hunter had to say about the new rules:

“The new unilateral rule changes are an unnecessary and unwarranted overreaction on the league’s behalf,” Hunter said in a statement. “We have not seen any increase in the level of ‘complaining’ to the officials, and we believe that players as a whole have demonstrated appropriate behavior toward the officials.

“Worse yet, to the extent the harsher treatment from the referees leads to a stifling of the players’ passion and exuberance for their work, we fear these changes may actually harm our product. The changes were made without proper consultation with the Players Association, and we intend to file an appropriate legal challenge.”
I wrote an article yesterday expressing my opinion about this whole thing.   This is yet another tool that Herr Stern is using to mask the incompetence of his referee corps.   If the refs were competent and fair, the complaining would lessen on its own.  The players for the most part (except maybe Rasheed) know when they commit a foul.   For the most part, they protest the wrong calls and non-calls that referees miss either because they are incompetent or crooked.   If the refs would call the game fairly, that, in itself, would cut down on player complaints. 

Hopefully between fan outrage and player outrage these new rules that remove all emotion from the game will go the way of the new synthetic basketball.  And maybe, if we're lucky,  Stern will go with them.