T or Yellow Card

[johnnyrao]

Looking for some feedback: I was listening to sports radio today and some reporter was talking about the T called against Syracuse for slapping the backboard (I think it was Syracuse). Anyway, he said Technical fouls in general were unfair for the game because in no other sport does an official's anger result in a chance for the opposing to team to score. His analogy was soccer where if the coach or a player gets upset at the referee they get a card but the other team doesn't get any goals for it. I think his argument is flawed for a couple of reasons:

1) We refs just enforce rules, we don't make them.
2) A shooter still has to make the free throws for a technical, the points are not simply awarded
3) If I gave a yellow or red card to a coach as quickly as soccer officials do for dissenting I don't think any coaches I had this year would have finished a game (and I'm pretty lenient).

Anyway, anyone think otherwise about this? Should we look to change the rules and penalize unsportsmanlike in some other way as opposed to awarding free throws? What if you just warn the coach and give possession back to the other team? If they already have possession give it to them in the frontcourt under the basket. I'm not an advocate for eliminating the technical fouls but I was wondering what others here think?

RAO