NBA Referees Discuss Points of Emphasis for the Upcoming Season

Filed under: Suns, NBA Referees, NBA Previews

PHOENIX -- Before Tuesday night's preseason game between the Suns and the Jazz, the referees working the game -- along with the NBA's Vice President and Director of Officials, Bernie Fryer -- held a session with the media to discuss this season's points of emphasis.



There were two distinct parts to the presentation: the part about the actual rules of the game that will be watched more closely, and the more controversial part about trying to limit players' complaining by cracking down on emotional outbursts with increased technical fouls being issued for these violations.



Some of the rules that the league will be looking at with more scrutiny shouldn't really be that surprising (or interesting) to most fans. They're fairly basic things like traveling before putting the ball on the floor or changing pivot foots, players setting screens with their legs positioned wider than the width of their shoulders, charge/block situations where the officials will use whether or not a defender has established a "legal guarding position" to determine who's to blame, and giving the defender the benefit of the call in situations where contact has been made in the air and the verticality principle -- where the defender jumped up, and not toward the man with the ball -- has been met.



The emotional component, however, is going to be a bit tougher to quantify.

 

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Full story at http://nba.fanhouse.com/2010/10/13/nba-referees-discuss-points-of-emphasis-for-the-upcoming-season/