Van Gundy said “see the other great players in this league on the bench all the time with foul trouble, especially on marginal calls.” While Barnes said “to stop calling such tic-tack fouls on him." Barnes was referencing the fouls that were called on Dwight Howard.
Instead of doing his job Stern took the easy way out by siding with the referees. According to Stern his rationale "So, our coaches should be quiet because this is a good business that makes them good livings and supports a lot of families. If they don’t like it, they should go get a job someplace else. I don’t mean to be too subtle.”
Stern with this comment is trying to make the coaches look bad, but there's one problem with his comment and that is no one buys it. The reason just take a look at the countless examples of players and coaches calling out the referees for not doing their job.
Last year Doc Rivers was ejected by Bill Kennedy. Rivers stated, "Kennedy stood there and stared me down and stared me down and goaded me until I turned around and said, ‘What?’ That’s when I got thrown out of the game.”
Kennedy was fined or his actions, but the union for the referees was not happy about the fine. The union's president was quoted as saying “as far as we’re concerned, Bill Kennedy followed every rule according to the referees' manual as it relates to handling situations like this."
Even though Kennedy who was clearly the one that caused the incident was fined for his actions and it should have been left at that. Rivers was also fined for calling out t...
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Los Angeles Lakers
