Get A Bucket Show
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In basketball the basic fundamental principle is to Get A Bucket! We study and admite the greatest bucket getters, but also those who assist, defend, rebound as all aspects lead to Getting A Bucket!! Remember, it's important that we listen and learn from one another, so make sure to tune in and let me know your honest opinions! Trying to help the world through sports conversation!!!
Get A Bucket Show
Flagrant vs. Technical: A Referee's Breakdown
We dive into the complex world of NBA officiating, exploring the technical definitions and real-world applications of flagrant and technical fouls with certified referee Nick.
• Technical foul: penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct or non-physical infractions of rules
• Flagrant foul: contact considered unnecessary per the NBA rulebook, with varying severity levels
• Analysis of the 2016 NBA Finals incident between LeBron James and Draymond Green
• Comparison to Draymond's kick on Steven Adams and questions of consistency in officiating
• Examination of WNBA flagrants between Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark
• Discussion of how blocks and head contact are officiated
• Insight into referee training on root cause vs rule enforcement
• Perspective on the challenges referees face making split-second decisions
Be kind to your referees – they're making tough calls in real-time without the benefit of slow-motion replay, and they're rarely the reason you lose a game.
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Speaker 2:David, I'll tell you what that works. All right, hold on, I'm going to do a little marker real fast. All right, that? So in terms of again, we already know we're going to talk about the referees, the talk, a little picture of this and then also and let's go to thank you for telling that one to the next story, thousand penalties. Come on, full up, full up, thank you. So technical foul it gives like different types. That's the thing I hate. But it didn't say like a specific definition, like it does for flagrant.
Speaker 2:So technically technical foul won't come from the book you didn't find a listing for technical foul in the nba book, or they have technical foul and then it goes different variations like holdcessive timeouts, delay of game, number of penalties, basket rings, stuff like that. So it tells you the type. But for flagrant fouls it says If contact committed against the player, with or without the ball, is interpreted to be unnecessary, flagrant foul penalty will be assessed. A personal foul is charged to be to the offender and a team foul is charged to the. And then they go into detail about that. But it doesn't say technical foul is by the whole block.
Speaker 1:So I was trying to have it give like a definition sort of thing Ah, gotcha, yeah. Yeah. There are two, generally two types of technical fouls in the NBA non unsportsmanlike, which, like I understand why you can't call it just a sportsmanlike technical, but like Alright, so we're gonna die in four minutes.
Speaker 2:Alright, so we're gonna start it with that. We have about 15 to 20 before they start to get overheated. Okay, well, really 25, 30, but I want to make sure we get comfortable. So 15 to 20, so that puts us at like 50, 55. All right, ready, yep, and like, primarily, it's just gonna be us talking cameras are there at this, so different angle. So if we mess up, we got other shit to pick up on. That's all, alright, peace, what's up? Everybody? It's your favorite show's favorite show. Get a Bucket. I'm your host, trayden, as usual. Hope you're all having a wonderful, wonderful day. As you can see, we got my guy, nick the statistician, here, and I don't know if y'all noticed this, but we do have a nice little venue here. I like the chat, the chat, feel cool.
Speaker 1:How's everything with you, though, nick? It's going well, everything's fantastic. Thanks for having me on again.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, you're always welcome. You're always welcome, especially when we had a wonderful argument the other day. I said argument, that's right, we were playing basketball and we ended up talking about flagrance and technical fouls Right, but we had a wonderful example to give. But we have others to talk about as well. But so we'll start off with one what's a technical foul and a flagrant foul? Now, a technical foul and hopefully we don't get nobody joining the show, and hopefully we don't get nobody joining the show. It's hopefully fingers crossed. But a technical foul is a penalty assessed for unsportsmanlike conduct or other non-physical infractions of the rule. Now I just want to say he's shaking his head, that's from Wikipedia, and you know he shook his head, yes, and they say don't trust Wikipedia. But he says Wikipedia is okay with this one. So that's a technical foul, got you?
Speaker 2:Now I'm going to read specifically from the NBA rule book what it says, what a flagrant foul is, because you might be wondering why I say what it was from the NBA rule book. From technical, because they just gave out a whole bunch of types of what a technical foul could lead to or the result from. But a flagrant foul is if contact committed against a player, with or without the ball, is interpreted to be unnecessary, a flagrant foul Penalty one will be assessed. A personal foul is charged to the offender and a team foul is charged to the penalty. One, two free throws shall be attempted. Blah, blah, blah, blah. So y'all kind of get a gist of what the flagrant foul is. So, nick, did we mess up anything?
Speaker 1:there. Yeah, no, you didn't mess anything up. There's a, so flagrants are generally in the NBA contact that is either unnecessary or excessive, and there are certain indicators that the NBA goes by. I don't think they're listed in the rulebook, but there are certain indicators that they go by that you probably have heard on a broadcast or something. Things like blow to the head, wind up, things like that that are generally sort of shared with the referees but might not be officially listed.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay, gotcha, and you might be wondering why I asked Nick, when Nick is actually certified as a referee. You know, fun fact, I did ref one time, so I got a little knowledge as a referee myself. You know what I'm saying. But he actually trained for it and got certified for it. So you know he does actually ref and the reason why I brought him on to the show is, again, he's looking at things from a referee standpoint. I'm looking at things from a basketball player standpoint.
Speaker 2:We both have refed and played before he's played. I've refed Can't say it plural, but it's a ref's a ref right, and we use, let's say, for example, this example with LeBron James and Draymond Green 2016 NBA Finals. My personal opinion LeBron pushes down Draymond and then waits to step over Draymond. Now I'm like that was the more egregious act in that situation, right? I think Nick kind of had like, oh no, you agreed on that part, but you felt as though Draymond did deserve the flagrant.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So my interpretation is that, as a person, when we're talking about character, lebron is more culpable for what's going on there. He's the one that creates the contact and then he goes to step over, whether he's waiting or he's sort of like it's just sort of then the gears start to turn and he goes I'm going to step over Draymond and he goes to do that as Draymond is getting up, you know, because the play is still going on and Draymond's like I've got to get back into the defensive play. But I don't disagree fully with the NBA's interpretation of what happened later, with the NBA's interpretation of what happened later, which was that LeBron was later assessed retroactively a technical foul for stepping over Draymond and Draymond was assessed a flagrant foul for his. We've disagreed on how to characterize this when we talk about free shots. So arm movement.
Speaker 2:I don't. So you think that he intentionally tries to hit Braun in the little brawn. You know what I'm saying and I understand that I genuinely do right.
Speaker 2:My thing is this Braun put himself in that position because Draymond admits he's trying to hit Braun after Braun waits to step over him. That's impeding Draymond from going upward. So, by my interpretation, when we read the definition of flagrant foul, you use word choice that could have been deemed as hostile. Anybody could deem that as hostile if they chose to, because it's subjective in the day. There are words that are used in flagrant fouls definition that make me wonder. Okay, well, you said blow to the head. Did Draymond Green not get hit in the back of the head? Like that's not the head to head matchup. We want to really be worried about, Like you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2:So I think, by definition, if we wanted, like you know what I'm saying. So I think, by definition, if we wanted, like you can say that's wordsmithing it cool. But by definition, if we're going to upgrade draymond's to a flavor, we could have done the same thing for problem which, personally, if I'm a referee, in that moment I'm going to look at the root cause and say, hey, I might let draymond pass, because it did seem like this was a call because of the OKC thing with Stephen Adams. Because let me ask you this If Braun and Draymond are in the Stephen Adams situation, draymond kicks Braun the way he did Stephen Adams how do you think the league reacts?
Speaker 1:Obviously, it's impossible for me to say for sure.
Speaker 2:No, no, no.
Speaker 1:How do you think? I would hope that they would react similarly. I personally would probably, in both situations, would prefer that Draymond receive a flagrant Because, even if he doesn't kick Stephen Adams or LeBron whoever on purpose, it's a reckless act, it's unnecessary. And Stephen Adams does get, you know, kicked in the Kiwis. So you know, I don't want so, I wouldn't wish for the league to be inconsistent in that ruling, so I would. If I'm making the unilateral decision in that situation, regardless of whether it's Stephen Adams or LeBron James, I'm like, listen, it's a completely unnecessary flail. I understand you're trying to draw a foul, but you do kick the person in the nuts. That is a flail. Do kick the person in the nuts. That is a flagrant and I would award that after, like as a member of the league in Scranton, after the game.
Speaker 2:But see, it sounds like it's subjective though, because again he ain't get a flagrant. Hell, I would have given Draymond a flagrant. I like one of my favorite characters is Wednesday. I'd like to protect the Addams family. You know what I'm saying. Like one of my favorite characters is Wednesday. I'd like to protect the Adams family. You know what I'm saying. Like I would have issued a flagrant then and it seemed like that moment was more so.
Speaker 2:Oh, we're going to issue a flagrant now because we missed that call. Which kind of when we were talking kind of off air, we were talking about missed calls, right, like how did you deal with the missed call? Well, I think it's subjective. You can be fair, you can be unfair, but I do wish that referees would look at the game from a context basis and say, okay, this could be a little nastier than what it normally might be. For example, we're going to switch to the WNBA. You know what I'm saying. Y'all see the jersey.
Speaker 2:Y'all already knew we was going to get a little controversial. Angel Reese and Kaitlyn Clark they both got a flagrant foul against one another and I would venture to say that Kaitlyn's might've seen more reckless, but Angel, she got a flagrant foul and she's swatting football right. In my estimation, that happens a lot of times and you can easily get hit in the back of the head. I don't think hers was malicious, and there were other people in the play too afterwards as well, so she ends up falling. It gets called a flagrant. I don't have an issue with it, but other people did. What would be your thoughts on that sort of situation?
Speaker 1:So when a player gets thrown out of the ground, you have to and and you know you're going to call or you're leaning towards calling something. Uh, that is not a a standard personal foul. The first thing you have to do is look at it from. Was this person? Was the contact what we're, what we have an issue? Was this during live or dead ball play? Was this sort of a basketball play that was reckless or unnecessary? Or was this just sort of a shove that is immaterial to the game of basketball, where they're no longer playing basketball, they're just trying to get into a conflict In that situation? From what I remember, it was sort of a reckless, overzealous rebounding effort, we'll say, if I remember correctly, or some off-ball action.
Speaker 2:You're talking about with Angel and Caitlin? Yeah, caitlin is going. The play I was talking about was she was going up for the layup and Angel's swatting to block it.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay, yeah, and she hits Caitlin in the back of the head. So this is a basketball action that you would decide whether it's a flagrant or a normal common foul.
Speaker 2:What would make it a normal common foul if you get hit in the head Because again, it's a blow to the head. That's my thing with Draymond and Braun. You got hit in the head Because again, it's a blow to the head. That's my thing with Draymond and Braun. You got hit in the head so it could be deemed a flagrant.
Speaker 1:Contact to the head and neck is a major indicator of a flagrant foul. One of the big things we're going to be looking at as a referee to determine whether it's a flagrant or a common foul, is whether there's windup. Windup would be a big thing, especially when you're looking to block.
Speaker 2:How much of a windup? Because, again, if I'm jumping and like this, like my wing, I got a 6'6 wingspan, ladies and gentlemen. So I'm swatting, I'm turn eight and this ain't even a windup, but this jump look wide as hell. So it was like is this a flagrant?
Speaker 1:So if a player is not, this is up to the referee's judgment at the end of the day. But what do they teach you guys? What do they teach you? So what they teach us is essentially, if they're going for a big block like Dwight Howard style, this is a windup and you might not be trying to hit the person in the head, right, but you have to be very careful when you do that.
Speaker 2:So it has to be. The hand or any part of your body cannot hit that person in the head.
Speaker 1:Yeah, again, it's trying to tackle reckless behavior that can result in things like concussions, Because the number one thing you don't want to have happen is we understand now how severe concussions can be, so you want to try to dissuade players from behaviors that can lead to that as much as possible, Right? So yeah, it can be completely inadvertent where you wind up, you go for the block and you hit somebody in the head.
Speaker 2:That would be issued a flagrant. So what happens? And I'm not, trying to discredit this man's block at all, because it's a good block. Shout out JR Smith too. But Ron's block, chase down, block right. What happens if he hits the ball but, like his elbow, hits like iggy in the head, but it's if he did it because he jumped higher than he shut up. Again to jr smith, like I. Is that a?
Speaker 1:flagrant foul. So in that situation um, because it's on the play, you get away with a lot more contact. You can block a shot and then get called for a shooting foul. That can happen. But you get away with a lot more contact when you get the ball first and in that situation, if the arm if I remember LeBron is sort of here and when he blocks the ball, if he blocks the ball and then grazes Iggy on the head, we would not refer to that as a free throw.
Speaker 2:I didn't say graze, but I said hit Like hit. Yeah, if you can elbow to the head.
Speaker 1:I think that's still going to suck for Iggy. So it's a double whammy for Iggy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's one of those.
Speaker 1:So it would be one of those situations where is is the contact unnecessary? No, is the contact excessive? No, then we would say no, you know, there's no foul, um, or there's no flavor and foul in that situation and there has to be a foul also to call a flagrant Um. So in that case, I have seen plays where, uh, a player in the NBA, especially if you block a shot. I've almost never seen a play I don't remember the last time I saw a play in the NBA where somebody got called for a foul after a block. Anyway, again, that can happen. And I've seen plays where it probably should have, but I've not seen it called.
Speaker 2:I was looking, I wanted to see a foul called after a block, like how does that work? I was going to say I was looking, I wanted to see if that called after a block, like how does that work?
Speaker 1:I was actually going back and watching the 08 finals. I think there was one.
Speaker 2:I forget who on who but I believe there's that sounds vicious. If it weren't for my team, that sounds vicious. My boys was in that day. But okay, referee, before we close up, as a referee, are you guys taught to pay attention to root cause? Because, again, I look at flagrants and technicals as like, if a flagrant is issued, it's deemed more, it's worse Because it's deemed as a physical contact as opposed to a technical to be taunting. You're just talking so you can get a technical, but flagrant involves physicality. It's deemed as excessive, unnecessary. Does root cause factor in at all for you guys? Or do y'all just go by the book and just say, hey, if it hits this definition, call space fade.
Speaker 1:So what's important is that we don't have, we don't get to rewrite the rules. That's not our position. That's for whoever's in charge of the competition committee, the NBA, it's the owners and the coaches who are part of that committee. So we have to referee by the book. However, there is some leeway.
Speaker 1:There are occasions where we can look at, for example, a player who initiates contact and causes a legal defender in legal defense position to become illegal as a result of the contact by the offensive player. In those instances we are taught as referees to if the defender is basically doing all that he can to be in legal guarding position. We're taught to referee the defense. If the defender hasn't done anything wrong. We're not. We should not call a foul. There are still times where, because some referees are really looking for those arms and that the angle that they're at, that they might erroneously call a foul and I think players would have a valid complaint. But, um, believe me, I've been hit with with that foul as a player myself, where I've gotten my arm comes down inadvertently. But as a referee, it's my opinion that we would be in error to penalize the defense for what an offensive player does. But in terms of technicals, unsportsmanlike behavior, flagrance, everybody can get it, everybody can catch one, but all right so I'm, I'm, I'm with you.
Speaker 2:Everybody can catch, can catch these technicals, right, you can catch these t's and f's, I guess. But if someone is viewed as a victim for me I don't want to give them the okay, I guess, quote, unquote, worst call which I look at it like that, right, you don't look at a flagrant technical as worse other people like I asked one of my friends, he said not necessarily, but again, like I'm looking at because you're saying, oh, like it's a physical reason why you got issued this one, not not just a verbal, like sticks and stones may break my bones, but words, but words may never hurt me. Like, so taunting is worse than physical. So that's why I say flavor might be viewed as as worse than technical. But I don't know, I, I, I, I, I hate the fact that the victim gets worse, at least in my eyes.
Speaker 2:The worst treatment if they got both in using brawn and dream on it and incident, but they both were issued a technical or personal file and that's it Cool, like I. Or or flagrants, cool, but because it got issued, I upgraded to a flagrant. The perception of it looked bad, especially when the root cause was broad in that scenario, cause if you flip it. I do wonder if they do the same thing the same way.
Speaker 1:Um, again, I do wonder if they do the same thing the same way Again. That's one of those where we probably won't know, although it's still possible. Lebron and Draymond are still playing but we probably will never know.
Speaker 2:We'll never know, because that's prime LeBron and prime Draymond Right. You know what I'm saying. We won't know what that Draymond Right. So, like you know what I'm saying, like that's like we won't know what that would look like, right, and I would bet my life savings and everything that you love on. Why is it everything I love and everything I love too, that they would treat it differently? You can't do that stuff. I'm just saying I'm that confident you wouldn't lose nothing.
Speaker 2:That's just what I'm saying, but I'm definitely curious what other people think about as well too. But again, this was a very I don't want to say heated argument, but it was an argument on the last day at one point in time. But I also thought too, it was a great talking point as well, because referees and players they view things, they view the games differently. Like I know, players want the referees to be more root cause oriented, and maybe you guys are taught A focus on what is actually occurring. So I mean, I do get that as well too. But, nick, I mean you got anything you want to say before we close up Shaka?
Speaker 1:I think that about does it. Yeah, I mean, refereeing is difficult. Go out there and referee a game if you want, and you'll find out it's not easy. We don't get the slow motion replays that you see on the broadcast from the perfect angle. We get one shot at it. It's going 20 miles an hour and it's difficult. We're going to make mistakes and at the end of the day, we don't cause you to miss all your choke shots. We're not like very rarely are we going to cause you to lose a game. So be kind. Most of them are doing it for not great pay, if any. So be kind to your fellow referees and they might give you a little bit more grace.
Speaker 2:You never know. You know what? Because that actually reminds me of what. It's another episode that, I guess, but we'll talk about when Kelsey Plum and Angel Reese and all of them were talking about the wrestling and saying how they are costing them games. We'll talk more about that another time. But yeah, it is. It's interesting. Being a ref, I'll admit that it was fun. I don't know if I would keep doing it, but maybe I'll try to do one game recorded-wise, just to see how it is and give a little content that way. But, nick, I greatly appreciate your time and effort, per usual. You'll be back on the show again, don't worry, and I'm surprised we actually didn't talk stats today, so we may change that next time. But until next time, ladies and gentlemen, I greatly appreciate y'all for listening. Definitely stay tuned. And again, this is Nick, my name is Trey. I'm the host of Get a Bucket. Please make sure to like, subscribe, comment, tell anyone about the show. Hope y'all have a good one.
Speaker 1:Take care.