Yesterday, at the referees’ annual meeting in New Jersey, the NBA announced new guidelines on what constitutes a technical foul. No longer will players be allowed to overtly argue calls. In fact, barring a “heat of the moment” type emotion, everything else will fall under the umbrella of a ‘T’.

Unfortunately for us NBA fans, Rasheed Wallace retired on August 10th of this year. So if you’re looking for someone to test the boundaries of the new technical foul rules, you’re going to have to look elsewhere. A good place to start would be his Celtics teammate Kendrick Perkins who led the league with 15 last year. A far cry from the 40 Rasheed picked up back in 2002-2003.

Anyways, despite the fact that Rasheed is gone, NBA players can still learn from the savvy veteran. So if you’re a rookie coming into the league and want to know exactly how to avoid a technical foul, watch these videos….and do the exact opposite.

Here are the new guidelines and here is Sheed demonstrating how to break every one.

NBA rule: “Players making aggressive gestures, such as air punches, anywhere on the court”
Video: A montage of Rasheed in the 2010 NBA finals including a dazzling array of uppercuts and hooks.

NBA rule: “Excessive inquiries about a call, even in a civilized tone”.
Video: Sheed, in the nicest way possible (at least for him) calmly tells the official there was body contact. Then he adds some expletives, only for emphasis of course.

NBA rule: “Running directly at an official to complain about a call”.
Video: Sheed heads to the bench but not before he tries to get in the refs face

NBA rules: “Players who use body language to question or demonstrate displeasure”.
Video: How dare you stare in Ronnie Garretson’s direction Sheed. The infamous confrontation during the 2000 WCF

It’s one thing when fans take their angry rants and conspiracies to message boards and blogs.
It’s quite another when those rants are published in a “respected” newspaper.

Apparently, the Orlando community feels so slighted by the NBA and the refereeing in the Celtics-Magic series, they are now allowing fans to publish their letters to David Stern in the Orlando Sentinel.

We’ve now failed as a society.

Here is a brief excerpt from the letter. Feel free at this time to strap on your tin-foil hat.

See, the next thing that happened here, David, is that Redick was given the ball off the rebound. He dribbled a few steps and then called a timeout. He called a timeout. He called a timeout. HE CALLED A TIMEOUT. Over and over Redick slammed his hands together in the shape of a T. Watch the video in slow motion, Dave. Sure, Redick probably shouldn’t have bothered to dribble to half court, but he also called timeout at least 6+ seconds before the end. There was a referee running right next to him. Where was the call? ESPN showed the replay and everyone agreed that there needed to be more time added on to the 3.5 seconds on the clock. What happened? Nothing. Redick was shoved over to inbound with only 3.5 seconds left and no timeouts. I don’t know what you think, David, but an extra three plus seconds can mean light years in basketball.

All in all, I’m going to summarize it for you, David.

Your referees suck.

Slap a fine on that.

Wow.

This guy has been spending far too much time with Rasheed Wallace. Sounds like something straight out of his “refs hate me” repertoire. Ignoring the painful fact that the Magic were outplayed a majority of both games pales in comparison to complaining about 1 second added to a final possession where a shot will likely come from well outside the three-point line?

Again, wow.

I applaud the Orlando Sentinel for allowing any Joe-Schmo to publish something on their website. I just hope the same love is applied when they see my “Fake Moon Landing” essay.

Coach Michael Kman of Our Lady of Lourdes Roman Catholic Church boy’s basketball team might be spending some quality time in a confessional soon. What he did wasn’t necessarily a carnal sin, but nonetheless, it was downright sleazy. Kman attempted to bribe two referees with $2500 in exchange for some shaky officiating in two basketball games.

“Kman stated that he was very frustrated with the officials and felt that his team was never getting a fair game,” wrote Trooper Timothy Reinoehl. “Kman stated that he was never going to pay anyone money, he just thought he could get them (to) give his team a chance on the court.”

State police accused him of solicitation to rig a publicly exhibited contest, rigging a publicly exhibited contest and harassment.

Yea, ok Mr. Kman. I’m sure you were just calling the refs to politely inform them of your team’s tendency to play physical basketball. Man, we’ve seen some shady stuff in the last couple of weeks in amateur sports. Coaches cheating in flag football, cheerleaders peeing in teammates drinks, and even a guy pretending to be a H.S. basketball star again.

But I’m not sure any of that compares to cheating in church league basketball. That’s gonna be an uncomfortable conversation with St. Peter at the pearly gates huh?

Pa. police: Ex-coach tried to fix youth basketball {AP}

Far it be for me to outright accuse the NBA of favoritism, but I find it highly odd that gambling sensation Michael Jordan was given ownership of a team without much scrutiny

It’s not as if it’s a secret either. The stories of Jordan gambling hundreds of thousands of dollars in Vegas, on the golf course, and pretty much anywhere a card game can be played are quite notorious. In a league that is desperately trying to distance itself from the Tim Donaghy scandal, this move makes little to no sense.

Here are just a few of the strange circumstances regarding Michael Jordan over the years

-Richard Esquinas claimed Jordan lost $1.3 million to him in golf bets during a 10-day period in 1991. He had cancelled cheques as proof.
-In 1992, during a police investigation into the death of a man named Eddie Dow, three checks from the superstar totaling $108,000 were found – more gambling losses.
-Under oath Jordan had to admit he’d lost $57,000 to a man named Slim Bouler, who was on trial on drug and money-laundering charges. Initially, Jordan claimed that money was a loan.

This doesn’t even touch the constant sordid rumors surrounding his mysterious first retirement or the random murder of his father. I question if somebody with a similar ugly past, like Isiah Thomas, would be welcomed with such open arms. But then again, this is a league that continually referred to Tim Donaghy as a “rogue referee” and a “bad apple in the bunch”. Thus, performing a Pontius Pilate hand-washing and absolving themselves of any blame.

After all, The NBA, its FANTASTIC!

With the Pistons down 3 points and 1:40 remaining, Will Bynum tipped the ball to himself and went in for what appeared to be an uncontested breakaway layup. But Lebron James swooped in at the last moment and took the ball almost from the cylinder as a referee looked on. One of the most egregious non-calls ever.

The Pistons and the coaching staff expressed their displeasure after the game

“Bad call. They know it was a bad call,” Pistons coach John Kuester said. “It’s a shame. That was a momentum-breaker. But, hey, that’s the NBA.”

Then there was a call where the officials gave James the continuation after he took three steps before completing a conventional three-point play. But you kind of have to expect that kind of stuff against arguably the top player in the league.

“Those are some tough calls,” Villanueva said. “Those were momentum-changing calls, I’ll say. I felt like we was getting in a roll of things. But the refs, they’re not perfect. They make mistakes and whatnot. We just have to live with it and deal with it.”

Thankfully, as the NBA has told us numerous times before, Tim Donaghy was a rogue referee and acted alone. Take that, Lee Harvey Oswald conspiracy nuts.

LeBron James’ triple-double sinks Pistons {Freep}

If you’re a NBA fan or if you’re just a fan of scandal, rumors, lying and cheating than you need to do yourself a favor and read some of these excerpts from Tim Donaghy’s unpublished book.

Every fans worst fears about officials fixing games is realized…

To have a little fun at the expense of the worst troublemakers, the referees working the game would sometimes make a modest friendly wager amongst themselves: first ref to give one of the bad boys a technical foul wouldn’t have to tip the ball boy that night. In the NBA, ball boys set up the referees’ locker room and keep it stocked with food and beer for the postgame meal. We usually ran the kid ragged with a variety of personal requests and then slipped him a $20 bill. Technically, the winner of the bet won twice-he didn’t have to pay the kid and he got to call a T on Mr. Foul-Mouthed Big-Shot Du Jour.

After the opening tip, it was hilarious as the three of us immediately focused our full attention on the intended victim, waiting for something, anything, to justify a technical foul. If the guy so much as looked at one of us and mumbled, we rang him up. Later in the referees’ locker room, we would down a couple of brews, eat some chicken wings, and laugh like hell.

See, I used to think Rasheed Wallace was a conspiracy nut and just off his rocker when he thought officials were out to get him. In particular, Sheed once challened Tim Donaghy to a fight outside the Portland locker room years ago.

And even if only a handful of these stories are true, its extremely damning to a league that just turned a blind eye to such strange activities.

While we’re at it Mr. Stern can you look into that phantom foul against Bill Laimbeer in Game 6 of the 1988 NBA finals. I’m still pretty perturbed about that one.

Oh yea, and you rigged the 1985 draft. Stop telling us you didn’t. Come clean.

Well, what goes around, comes around. You screw the wrong people on a bet, and it’ll come back to haunt you.

This is straight out of a scene from the Sopranos…

Donaghy was injured during an assault in November of 2008. During the assault, another inmate claiming ties to the New York mob beat Donaghy with a heavy object. Donaghy suffered severe knee and leg injuries that will require surgery.

You’ll still never convince me that Donaghy was the only ref in on the act.

H/t: FanIQ via USAToday

1. If a game breaks out on the Prison Basketball Court and you are asked to ref, what kind of bribes are acceptable?

2. Would you consider a comeback as a ref in my 8 year old cousins parks and rec league?

3. Which term do you prefer: “Federal Pound Me in the A** Prison” or “Federal Grab My Ankles Prison”

4. Do you think you should have fought Rasheed Wallace when you had a chance?

5. Who’s a better gambler….you or Pete Rose?

6. How many months before you get started on your tell-all book?

7. You got about 30k from the bookies, but how much did the NBA give you to keep it quiet for so long?

8. You and David Stern, three rounds, no holds barred….who wins?

9. If you could be one animal what would it be? I’m thinking a hyena

10. Has Vince McMahon called you yet?

11. Hypothetically speaking, if there is a game you want fixed in the NBA, other than yourself, who do you want reffing?

12. Where were you during the 1985 NBA Draft?

13. What casino did you and Michael Jordan gamble together at?

14. Who’s a bigger flopper, Wade or Ginobili?

15. Got any inside tips?

Lost in the Josh Hamilton Home Run Show and Brett Favre fiasco was an interesting story from Fox News.

A story the NBA probably wanted hidden. A story the NBA probably wanted to drop on Super Bowl Sunday so nobody would notice.

But not even 28 HRs in one round of Derby nor a fake retirement of one of the NFLs most popular player could upstage this.

In a nutshell, the evidence makes it look that scandalous referee Tim Donaghy was mired in a conspiracy with another referee(Scott Foster).

In fact, in one season, Donaghy made SEVERAL calls to Foster.

How many is several?

Well, he made 134 phone calls.

So unless Foster and Donaghy are hiding a secret, romantic relationship, something stinks here.

And while Stern has done his best to label Donaghy as a “rogue, isolated criminal” this evidence makes him look…….well, it makes him look like a huge liar.

Either way you look at it, its bad.

If Stern didn’t know about referees gambling under his nose, than he’s truly a moron and no better than the CEOs of Enron and Worldcom who claim they didn’t have sufficient information to provide investigators.

If Stern did know what was going on, then the NBA is as corrupt as everybody thinks it is.

Again, I hate to beat the same drum over and over but some of the most mysterious calls in playoff games have come from the same pool of referees.

Is it that far fetched to think that Donaghy had an accomplice or two in the NBA?

Many laughed at me when I wrote this a few months ago.

So really the only solution is:

Let every single NBA referee who has ever officiated a game go.

Give them their pensions, give them severance pay, whatever.

Will you be getting rid of very good referees? Absolutely.

But you know what, the integrity of the game is at its lowest point and you need to show the fans that you are serious about restoring it.

The negative of course is, bringing in “less than” officials will hurt the NBA for a year or two. Replacement refs that they grab from lesser than leagues will need time to adjust to the speed of the game.

But Ill take it. Ill take two years of college or European League officials. Ill take two years of poor officiating because at the very least, you can tell your fans, these guys are clean, they aren’t on the take.

And at this point, that’s the most important thing.

So did the NBA have to hit rock bottom before real changes are made? I don’t know….but I will say this….

I will NEVER watch a NBA game again and not question whether a ref will pull a Donaghy on my team.

NEVER!

Looks like Sheed wanted to kill some time with an extra day off in the playoff series so he did what any normal person would do.

He started a blog.

Not really informative with his first post, but its Rasheed, and I’m hoping for something classic real soon like:

The Art of the Technical Foul

How to make your own NBA Championship Belt

How to Dance like Me

Trash talk like the Pros

How to Shoot From Long Range

and finally,

Why I Should have kicked this guys ass when I had a chance….