Unsporting T
 

Josh Tiven called a technical foul on Lance Stephenson for this.

<a href="http://twitpic.com/dkxji6" title="Lance Stephenson is not catching any breaks tonight. on Twitpic"><img src="http://twitpic.com/show/thumb/dkxji6.gif" width="400" height="300" alt="Lance Stephenson is not catching any breaks tonight. on Twitpic"></a>

You guys agree? What about at the NCAA or HS level?

Don't know the what happened during the game to precede the T, so I can't say whether I agree with it or not.

It was early in the second quarter. No other confrontations or conduct worth noting beforehand.

For doing what?

Can we stop with the automatic re-peating GIFs? Very annoying (at least to me).

Here's the video and a little more info on the play. This seems to be taunting to some degree.
Video: Lance Stephenson gets technical foul for waving ball in Tony Allen’sface | The Point Forward - SI.com

I wonder if the NBA sent out any communications to the officials and players after the ball fake on Kobe a few years ago that was a similar play that went with a no call.
Matt Barnes Ball Fake on Kobe Bryant's Face - YouTube

<iframe width="640" height="480" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/lxLpaifGurw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Irrelevant. Each action should be evaluated on it's own merits.

You forgot the sarcasm indicator.

Given the extra emphasis on taunting in NCAA and HS, I have no problem with this call at those levels. And, I'm glad it was called in the NBA because what happens there trickles down.

That was my first thought too, Brian. I have no idea if it's true, but it seems like a reasonable guess to me.

BTW, I once worked a 2-whistle juco game with Josh way back in the dark ages :)

I do not see this as a T in itself. If other things have been going on that made this game chippy, then I can see this being called.

Peace

Although I wouldn't make such a call at the professional level, and possibly not in college, I can see this in high school. The reason is that such a thing could cause some type of retaliation which could escalate into altercations up to and including fights.

Fighting is something that I would try to avoid as much as possible. Therefore anything that could be deemed as taunting should be handled right away.

Something tells me that this was a directive in the NBA. We would call anything we are instructed to call at that level if we were working those games.

Peace

Yep, these guys aren't going to just start dropping Ts without directives to back them up.

Apparently the announcer received the same briefing, because he called it almost as quickly as the ref did.