NBA: Are New Technical Foul Rule Additions Technically Working?

The 'Association' has continued to find ways to improve the game and how it is played out. No rule further accentuates this than to take the whine out of personal and technical fouls. Commissioner David Stern instilled an addition to personal fouls by allowing NBA referees to add on a technical foul if a player complains, argues, or questions a call.

This was in hopes of giving referees more power, and keeping players from questioning every call, thus delaying games.

Shockingly, the new addition has had some effect, according to a league stat (teamrankings.com).

Technical fouls are not highly accrued in the league, with an median being around 0.5 of them a game. Sounds normal, right?

So far this season, 11 teams have seen a dip in their technical fouls called against them per game, 2 have had no change, and 17 have had an increase. The largest increase has been by the Denver Nuggets, who averaged 0.5 last season, and have 1.1 this season.

Yes, more teams have had an increase. But to say a stat that does not touch 1 called per game to remain that high with so many teams is hardly expected to stay that high. No team averaged 1 per game last season, and only one, the Boston Celtics, averaged higher than 0.7 per game.

It can be rationalized that the spike for most teams could be due the adjustment players have to make to follow the addition, you may have seen it in the games you have watched so far this season.

Case in point: J.R. Smith.

Normally a hot-head, Smith took the high road in a recent game. Thank you True Hoops for that nifty nugget.

If guys like J.R. Smith, a 'T' regular, can adjust, who says no one else can? An even better question is who has had to really make any adjustments?

There is only a small sample size to base an opinion off of, but so far, so good, technically.