Yahoo! and the Curious Case of the Dissapearing Techy

It's only been 10 days since the start of the NFA season but already we have some confusion and last night was the latest example. Hassan Whiteside had a techy earlier in the game and then got into a little scuffle with Paul George where both were assessed techies. This resulted in Whiteside's 2nd techy of the night, or so it seemed. This happened to Vucevic on Wednesday night, where he had 2 techies but when we checked the league standings in the morning he had none!

So, since this is the 3rd time this has happened (I can't remember the player this happened to in the first week), I decided to do some sleuthing. The NBA box score lists 2 techies for Whiteside and Vucevic for this games but Yahoo!'s box score only lists one. I found a full play-by-play on cbssports.com and the techies in question appear to be defensive 3-second violations.

Now this is where I had to consult the NBA Rule book:

https://turnernbahangtime.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/2014-15-nba-rule-book.pdf

There are numerous ways one can be assessed a techy:
1. Excessive Timeouts
2. Delay of Game
3. Number of Players
4. Basket-Ring, Backboard, or Support
5. Conduct
6. Fighting Fouls

Now the rules say you can only be ejected for unsportsmanlike technical fouls and that:

"A technical foul for (1) delay of game, (2) coaches box violation, (3) defensive 3-seconds, (4) having a team total of more or less than 5 players when the ball becomes alive, (5) a player hanging on the basket ring or backboard, (6) participation in the game when not on the team's active list, or (7) shattering the backboard or making the rim unplayable during the game (Comments on the Rules---G) is not considered an act of unsportsmanlike conduct)."

So this answers why the players weren't ejected in their games but doesn't answer why Yahoo! isn't counting them as technical fouls... or does it? Yahoo! is probably only counting technical fouls for unsportsmanlike acts. What constitutes an unsportsmanlike act you say? Here is what it says in the Rule book:

"A technical foul shall be assess for unsportsmanlike tactics such as:
(1) Disrespectfully addressing an official
(2) Physically contacting an official
(3) Overt actions indicating resentment to a call
(4) Use of Profanity
(5) A coach entering onto the court without permission of an official
(6) A deliberately thrown elbow or any attempted physical contact with no contact involved
(7) Taunting"

You can read more on Technical fouls in the rule book starting at page 39

This actually makes sense as I would assume defensive 3-second violations happen pretty frequently and if that was the case there would be a lot more techies in NFA. Now why these techies are coming up in stat donker, I don't know but I think this answers all of our concerns for the most part. It just means it might be a little frustrating to track techies this season.

Check back Monday Night for the weekly roundup.

Getcha Foulin' on

FM