As my longtime readers will know, D-League officials don't particularly love me.
Well, last night, I did some research to see how they were doing this year since I have yet have received a series of nasty e-mails and have even conversed with some officials that don't hate me (in person, at least). I didn't find anything particularly nasty, but I did find some things that help make my case.
What I did is find out how many technical fouls have been called between coaches and players (the D-League keeps track of player technicals, but not coaches) as well as what officials called the most technical fouls. Since the box score doesn't single out the exact official, I gave the entire crew credit for all tech's - after all, if their crew is consistently calling them, they're probably not helping keep the game under control themselves anyway.
Basically, what it did, is tell me exactly what I already knew: Ben Taylor loves to T people up, second behind Scott Bolnick (27) in calling technical fouls this season with 26 thus far. If you're not familiar with Ben Taylor, he was the one that ejected Macabbi Tel Aviv's coach this preseason during an exhibition game in Madison Square Garden. If you do a google search on Ridiculous Upside, you might be able to find a few more mentions of Taylor.
Other officials with at least 20 technicals in their games this season include Andre Crawford (23), CJ Washington (22), with Nick Buchert and Carl Lane rounding it out with 20 a piece.
Other interesting things that I found?
- Curtis Stinson is leading the league with nine. This probably won't surprise you.
- Joey Dorsey (or Richard, as they refer to him when picks up a 'T') leads NBA-assigned players with six.
- The Utah Flash currently lead the league in technical fouls with 25 so far, eight more than second place RGV. Carlos Wheeler has seven, while coach Brad Jones and former first-round pick Orien Greene have six a piece. Dontell Jefferson, Jordan Brady, Jason Richards and Gabe Pruitt round out the list.
- Albuquerque has the least amount on the list - Coach John Coffino's picked up two and Carlos Powell has the only other technical foul for the Thunderbirds.
- They tried to give Quin Snyder three technical fouls the other night in the BayHawks game. As far as I can tell, Erie only shot two free-throws, but maybe his tirade was worth the extra throw-in.
- Eric Dalen, Haywoode Workman and Marat Kogut each have had their crew call just one technical foul this season. Of course, they're all working quite a few NBA games this year, so this shouldn't surprise you, but good to see Kogut's role has been limited.
- On the Kogut note, here are some funny tweets between myself and Sebastian Pruiti of Nets Are Scorching as follows: (First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth). I miss Marat.
*Note: I didn't include this game's officials in the report because I don't think they actually had five officials.
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