NBA Technicals Getting Out of Hand

Following the start of the recent NBA season, there have been many issues brought forth regarding the referees and, most notably, their overuse of the technical foul. Although numerous examples come to mind, Montrezl Harrell's recent ejection has been the most egregious case. The incident is further described in a yahoo sports article:

"Harrell was the victim of some soft refereeing on Wednesday night when he was given a technical with 10:51 left in the second quarter. After scoring on a layup, he yelled "and-1" because he thought he'd been fouled. Yelling "and-1" is a tradition in today's NBA — it's done all the time and it usually results in nothing"

Harrell responded by saying that "If I'm going to get a tech for saying and-1, man, then they might as well just teach me up all year" and goes on to discuss how he's said and done much worse without being penalized. This was brought up on NBA first take where both Stephen A. Smith and Max Kellerman agreed that the incident was a complete joke that should never have happened. Smith, in particular, points out a connection to what Golden States Warrior Draymond Green noticed that players were increasingly being scrutinized for their mistakes while organizations and referees were largely left out. While I think that this partially accounts for the recent change in refereeing, there is a much more obvious answer that has developed over the past decade or so.

Simply put, the NBA seems to be getting a lot less physical and it is starting to manifest in the ways that referees are making their calls. As Shaq describes it, "The league is soft and these guys are sensitive, period," referring to how the game has changed to really embody the sport being non-contact. The main examples of this that we see today are growing incidents of "flopping, complaining to officials, and fouls on jump shots" as a result of players trying to manipulate the non-contact nature of the sport in order to get favorable calls. Regarding how this could be affecting referees' decisions, the referees have to adapt to the changing conditions that we see in the NBA today. Back in the 90's players would cuss at each other and throw stray jabs like it was nothing, but that all became less common as things like social media and the internet came about and brought basketball to a much larger audience. If players aren't being as physical and are trying to fake getting fouled, then the referees have to take action to try and stop this from happening. That's where giving a bunch of technicals comes in since doing so would dissuade players from trying to argue with calls or fabricate them by simply adopting a deterrence method of officiating. However, I think this method is ultimately more destructive than helpful and that there is a much simpler way to solve the problem.

Regarding this easy solution, all the NBA has to do is implement a two-step plan of creating more safeguards for issuing technical fouls and more opportunities to challenge calls. This first step could come in the form of another sideline referee that watches over tape after a technical call is made to make sure that the call was justified. Doing so would not dissuade referees from making calling technicals but would prevent silly situations like the Montrezel Harrell incident. The second step simply involves allowing coaches to challenge more than once in a game. Players wouldn't be pleading with the referees if they could instead plead with coaches to challenge fouls. Furthermore, this also serves as another mechanism to check referees so fewer bad calls happen, which should reduce the number of technicals resulting from players complaining to referees.