Hmmm... so you're okay with a player laughing and stamping his feet and covering his head with a towel every single time you make a call against his team? That doesn't seem like that player is mocking authority to you? What if it was Rasheed Wallace, or Ron Artest? Then would this story get this kind of press? I don't think so. Duncan is the opposite of Rasheed: he has a reputation as a saint. Therefore, he thinks he can get away with any amount of disrespect he wants and never get ejected. So do the fans. It's all reputation, which is BS. Kudos to Crawford for calling everyone the same way throughout his career, even if he was a little more liberal with techs than the norm. There's a reason even Stern admits that Crawford is "consistently rated as one of our top referees."
exactly man. laughing and mocking is disrespectful but the way crawford called the T's was the problem. he could have gave the T in a much better situation than randomly calling it while he was on the bench.
The whole bench was laughing. If you were going to give a T for mocking, you would have to give one to the whole bench. And that's taking things too far. He didn't hear anything. Tim didn't say anything. They were laughing amongst themselves on the bench. Now, undoubtedly they were probably laughing at Joey. So what. Happens all the time. It happens the same amount of time that the refs huddle together and they discuss amongst themselves which player is ragging and which player they are gonna quick whistle. No diff. Those officials make plenty of comments amongst themselves regarding certain players that they have a disdain for and hate to be on the floor with. As long as they keep it to themselves and it doesn't effect their job performance, they shouldn't be penalized. The same goes for players. As long as they keep it amongst themselves, then they shouldn't be penalized. It's when they vent too much on the ref or vent too much to the media that they are penalized.
This whole thing about laughing and disrespecting the referees... What thick-headed Crawford should have done is not call a T on Duncan while he is on the bench but really "tighten" his calls on the Spurs. And things that most refs would probably let go when a player questions a call, he could T them up at that moment. I mean that looks more acceptable than this bush league of Ting Duncan up for "laughing on the bench". That is why the dude got suspended - he didn't handle that situation right at all. And the sad thing is that Joey Crawford probably knew he could have handled that situation better. He just can't admit that he has an enormous ego problem.
No ... the issue isn't whether laughing at a referee is right. This has nothing to do with whether his calls are fair or not. Nobody denies that. The thing is -- when Crawford says "he is mocking the game", he means, "I am the appointed prophet of the holy institution of basketball, and you dare laugh at me? Get off MY court!" And you can see that's exactly what he meant from his body language while issuing the ejection. He really *does* think the game is about him. When you combine that kind of huge ego problem with a short temper, you get unacceptable refereeing. And good riddance to that nonsense. A good referee, like others have pointed out, is one that disappears into the background and just keeps the game running. They don't mind talking with players and coaches and explaining things. You never hear their names because they don't make scenes like this. They don't have "reputations". Nobody came to the game to see how great the officiating is. They came to watch Tim Duncan and Dirk Nowitzki play. And if a ref can't understand that, he has no business officiating the game. He needs to get out and go start his own personal ego league or something.
Laughing at a ref ON THE BENCH doesn't warrant a tech...come on Why is the ref paying attention to the bench during LIVE ACTION????? can one of you answer that? Joey was so worried that "they" (cause all of them were laughing) were mocking him and his authority was being questioned. He did what most insecure people do......they wrong thing
EXACTLY. this would not be a situation if crawford had ignored it but just made a mental note. laughing at an official for his calls = wrong throwing a player out because you thought he was laughing at you = wrong, stupid, dumb, idiotic
Worse even is the lack of contrition on Joey's part afterwards....I mean he basically said PISS off to his boss. Unbelievable. DD
