Quote:
Originally Posted by Nevadaref
Definitely a technical foul.
Now since you have a player who is clearly unhappy with the amount of contact which you are deeming incidental, you may wish to reconsider your thinking on that point.
When players are airborne, they are at risk of injury and cannot control their balance when contacted. Thus officials are instructed to "protect the shooter." Basically, what this means is that we have to diligently scrutinize any contact on an airborne player attempting to shoot, pass, or even rebound. The amount of contact may be far less than when players are in contact with the floor, but may have much more impact upon a player's body movement, ability to make the desired play, or under how great of a risk of injury it places the player. Such factors form the difference between marginal and illegal contact.
Key points to help us determine the legality of any such contact are the positioning of the players prior to becoming airborne, verticality, and who is the initiator.
So rather than simply discount the player's expression of displeasure as an example of poor sportsmanship which one should penalize and then move on from, I would advise considering it an opportunity to re-evaluate how much physical contact you are allowing on drives to the basket and subsequent airborne players. What kind of feedback are you getting from the players, coaches, and your partners? Is this the only incident of an unhappy participant which you've experienced or are you getting a few complaints a game?
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The start of your post is "Definitely a Technical," but then you immediately change to reconsider and reevalute the amount of contact. One or the other!!
I agree with the stance of not quite enough for a T for me. That is assuming that the statement wasn't accompanied by some theatrics, such as throwing his arms up in the air, or some stare-down. However, I also wouldn't let it go without a "that's enough" comment, or something similar.