The NBA penalised Trae Young $15,000 on Friday for making contact with a referee. With 6:41 left in the second quarter of Atlanta’s 122-111 loss to Washington on Thursday, the star guard was fined for his actions.
Young was driving left when he was shoved by Raul Neto, and his momentum carried him across the baseline after he missed the shot but didn’t receive a foul call. Young collided with official Ben Taylor as he ran back onto the court, earning him a technical foul.
Young is one of the players who was expected to lose out on some foul calls he previously received after the NBA emphasized this season cutting down on calls against defenders when the offensive player initiated the contact.
Earlier, after the game, he paused in the middle of his comments, perhaps wondering if he was going too far — or sensing that he already had.
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“I don’t want to get fined too much, but it’s frustrating,” the Atlanta star told Associated Press.
“There’s a lot of missed calls,” he said. “It’s basketball. It’s just, it feels that they’re learning, and they’re just — I don’t know. It’s frustrating.”
Young went into greater detail later. This season, there will be a new crackdown on non-basketball moves that are aimed to draw contact. When that happens, officials aren’t supposed to call defensive fouls, and Young and James Harden are frequently listed as players who could be affected.
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“I saw James said it’s about him, but it’s not targeting just one player or two players,” Young said.
Young mentioned Damian Lillard and Devin Booker, a couple other star scorers off to relatively slow starts.
“You can watch basketball. Damien Lillard’s never averaged 17 points probably since his rookie year,” Young said. “There’s a couple guys. I mean, Book’s averaging 18. There’s a lot of things that, when guys are driving straight and guys are getting knocked off balance — it’s still a foul, whether they’re using their lower body or their hands.”