Many people would like to throw a basketball at NBA official Scott Foster — he’s not exactly the favorite of several NBA players. San Antonio Spurs guard DeMar DeRozan got his chance to do exactly that this week, and he was promptly given a technical and a ejected from the game.
Now, the NBA has handed down discipline for DeRozan.
On Sunday morning, the NBA announced that they had fined DeRozan $25,000 for throwing a ball at Foster.
This comes in the wake of the brouhaha around the Brooklyn Nets and Philadelphia 76ers getting into a bit of a tussle involving Joel Embiid and Jared Dudley. Sunday morning, the NBA also fined Nets general manager Sean Marks $25,000 and suspended him for entering the referee locker room to argue about Embiid not being assessed a flagrant 2 foul.
Things are heating up in the NBA playoffs, and emotions are running high. No doubt the referees are doing their best, but it’s not been the most impressive performance by the boys in gray thus far.
The officials will continue to face criticism as the playoffs go on, but hopefully people will calm down and cooler heads will prevail from here on out. There’s no need to throw balls or rush into the officials’ locker rooms the way DeRozan and Marks have.