While the Wizards were still in training camp, head coach Flip Saunders told reporters that he believes there wasn’t any fundamental change to the NBA’s “Respect for the Game” rules, simply that the league intended on stricter adherence to existing guidelines.
Given that the original guidelines were instituted in 2006, there wasn’t exactly evidence to suggest that the NBA would follow through on its goal of clamping down on player complaints and gesturing at officials.
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Of course, there is some debate whether extended guidelines simply distract from underperforming officials, but NBA commissioner David Stern insists it’s about the players.
“To have the greatest athletes in the world whining up and down the court is nothing that anyone that loves this game would want to see,” Stern said.
In preseason, referees showed Stern meant business. Saunders’ former player, Boston forward Kevin Garnett, got ejected after complaining his way into a pair of technicals in a span of about five seconds in a preseason game at New York, leading former Celtics head coach Tommy Heinsohn to say on-air that the rules were “stupid.”
Having eight days of practice before Thursday’s season opener, the Wizards tried self enforcement to improve their behavior.
“It’s for the love of the game,” Wizards forward Andray Blatche said. “It’s a new rule. Guys are going to have to adjust to it. Me and Gilbert [Arenas] made a rule in practice that if you do any kind of hand gestures then you have to do a 17. And guys were pretty good with it.”
That’s 17 sprints from sideline to sideline, in less than a minute.
“[It’s] almost like a technical foul,” Saunders said, “Just to get our guys in the habit of knowing that when something happens and there’s a play called, you gotta let it go and move on.”
Like Garnett, the two Wizards to get technical fouls in the preseason for complaining, Cartier Martin and Yi Jianlian, also earned them at Madison Square Garden.
“The [referees] set the tone,” Saunders said. “That’s the policy that the league is going to enforce so I think for us to think they’re not would be not very smart on our part.”
