The NBA's 7 Most Disrespectful Ballers

Sportsmanship. Some stars have it. Some don't. Even some stars lack it.

What is the lack of sportsmanship?

It's primarily failing to show respect for the game, for your opponents or for the officials. Sometimes it's a failure to show adequate respect for your coach or teammates. 

Some stars, such as Kevin Durant and Derrick Rose, have established reputations as being high-character guys. Others, not so much. 

Think of it this way: You see a player behaving a certain way on the court, and your child says to you, "I want to be like that when I grow up." If you have to dissuade him/her, it's probably an indication that the player is disrespecting the game. 

The irony is that, with many players, the thing that makes them great is also the thing that causes them to disrespect the game in one fashion or another. The competitiveness that drives them to succeed drives them to complain about every call, to challenge coaches or to antagonize opponents.

Some even do all of the above. 

These are the seven worst offenders in the NBA. 

7. Kobe Bryant

Kobe Bryant is one of my favorite players, but it's hard to not put him on this list. 

First of all, he's one of the biggest whiners in the NBA, and  that's not an exaggeration. He has 149 career technical fouls and is routinely near the top of the list. He has been one of the 10 worst offenders since 2006. 

On top of that, he had repeated clashes with Phil Jackson during his first stint coaching with the Lakers, though the two seemed to get along better the second time around. Kobe also has had clashes with other players, perhaps most notably with Shaquille O'Neal, but with others such as Lamar Odom as well. 

Finally, Kobe was voted the second-biggest trash-talker in the NBA by his peers. 

He's matured more in the last couple of years in a lot of ways, but Kobe still has  that chirpiness, and he's still getting the technicals. That's why he falls down to the seventh spot on the list, but not off it all together. 

6. Amar'e Stoudemire

Amar'e Stoudemire is one of the great whiners in the game today. He is just one technical away from his seventh straight season in which he payed more than three games and racked up double-digit technicals Over the course of his nine-year career, he has already amassed 101 technical fouls in just 637 career games. 

Unlike Kobe Bryant, Stoudemire doesn't know when to shut up, either. While Bryant's 149 technicals have led to just 18 disqualifications, Stoudemire has been kicked 27 times in his NBA career. And in comparing him to Kobe, we're not exactly comparing him to the model of patience, either. 

When he's not whining at the refs, Stoudemire is chirping at his opponents, as he was also voted as one of the worst trash-talkers in the league a couple of years ago.

Stoudemire is only disrespectful when his lips are moving, though. Apart from his yammering, he's not as bad as bad as  some of the others on this list. 

5. Blake Griffin

Is it just me, or does it seem like every opponent is complaining about Blake Griffin lately? 

Griffin has his moments. In a lot of ways he comes across as a good guy, but there are others that come across as warmly as fingernails on a chalk board.

What's aggravating about Griffin isn't just that he flops, and it's not that he complains.

It's that he complains about not getting calls after he flops. 

Arguing to get a call on a flop is downright disrespectful. It's not merely disrespectful to the officials or his opponents, it's disrespectful to masculinity itself. 

It normally takes a while to build up a reputation as a whiner, but Griffin's rocketed to the top of the technical foul standings, where he has gained 22 technicals already in his brief NBA career. 

Griffin also dunks on opponents in a way that, whether you like it or not, is downright humiliating. I mean, Timofey Mozgov has a mother! 

That by itself isn't disrespectful, but when you combine the physical nature of Griffin's dunks with the flop and whine defense, it is. 

4. Kendrick Perkins

Kendrick Perkins is both a yapper and a dirty player. His most recent example of each came against the Miami Heat. 

After he was brutalized by Blake Griffin on one of the great dunks of the year and LeBron James had the sheer audacity to appreciate the dunk on Twitter, Perkins came out and retaliated against James with some of the most disrespectful comments you've ever heard: 

"

"'You don't see Kobe (Bryant) tweeting,' Perkins said, according to the report. 'You don't see Michael Jordan tweeting. If you're an elite player, plays like that don't excite you.'

"'At the end of the day, the guys who are playing for the right reasons who are trying to win championships are not worrying about one play. They also are not tweeting about themselves talking about going down to No. 2,' Perkins added, according to the report. 'I just feel (James) is always looking for attention and he wants the world to like him.'"

"

So, basically, James is not an elite player because he has a Twitter account? Is Kevin Durant an elite player?

Let's face it. Perkins was lashing out at James because he got owned on national TV and had it replayed over and over and over again. It was an amazing dunk. 

Then, Perkins swatted Dwyane Wade in the head when the teams most recently met, which earned him a technical foul. His peers also voted Perkins one of the dirtiest players in the league. 

Whether he's taking physical cheap shots on the court or verbal cheap shots off the court, Perkins is just an outright disrespectful player. 

3. Rajon Rondo

Rajon Rondo is best understood by what happened last year when the Celtics were playing the Heat, and he tried invading Miami's team huddle. How much more disrespectful can you get than that?

Rondo isn't just a pest; he tries to be a pest, and then he hides behind his bigger teammates. 

These sorts of antics aren't unique with Rondo. It's his whole personality. 

The disrespect doesn't end there, either.

When the Celtics were shopping Rondo around, the ESPN.com report claimed, "The Celtics have decided to trade Rondo after his attitude and personality have become too burdensome for the organization."

Rondo has an outright and blatant disrespect for the game that goes beyond competitiveness and into the realm of just being a jerk. 

2. Andrew Bynum

Andrew Bynum made it pretty clear what kind of person he was when he went after the "towering" J.J. Barea in the 2011 playoffs. Then, Bynum added to the disrespect when he ripped his shirt off as he left the court. 

In so doing, Bynum disrespected the Mavericks, the league and the Lakers. 

Recently, Bynum took a three-point shot for no apparent reason other than to try something new, which led to a clash with head coach Mike Brown. 

Bynum acts like an overgrown, petulant, tantrum-throwing child. His tantrums and tirades have gotten him either ejected or disqualified in 16 of his 385 games played, which amount to about four percent his games played.

That's just preposterous and shows a complete lack of respect not only for the game but also for himself. 

1. Dwight Howard

Dwight Howard has always been a whiner on the court. His constant complaining has earned him 74 technical fouls and 25 disqualifications in his illustrious career. 

With his constant jibber-jabber, double-speak and throwing his teammates, coach and owner under the bus this year, it's gotten to the point of deplorable. It seemed as though Stan Van Gundy could hardly contain his disdain when Howard slithered up behind him and put his arm around him in the now-infamous press conference. 

What predicated that, though, is one of the most disrespectful moments I've ever seen. Howard's deplorable action in not only sitting out of the team huddle but also encouraging his teammate to do the same was beyond disrespectful. He may as well have dropped his drawers and urinated in Van Gundy's Diet Pepsi. 

Probably no player has lost more respect around the league this year than Dwight Howard, and he's done so by showing none for his coach, his team and their management.