What's Causing These Hard Fouls?

David Stern decided that enough was enough.  He had to crack down on the players complaining to the referees.  That's awesome because if he hadn't let it get so bad in the first place, this wouldn't be an issue.  Or if he hadn't decided to employ referees who end up run by mob bosses.  Or if he hadn't set a precedent of letting players, especially of certain teams and cities, get away with whatever they want.  But good for him for deciding to try and fix the problem he caused in the first place!

But seriously in the preseason we saw some seriously absurd technical fouls given out.  Grant Hill and Reggie Evans apparently were a little too aggressive, when they gave each other a pat on the butt.  Kevin Garnett did what?  I must've missed it.  Even my boy Kyle Korver, who epitomizes badass, gets hit up with the most questionable of the three.  Good Lord, David Stern is out to gain back the power he never had.

Now that the regular season has started up, the technicals have curbed a little bit, but that's only in comparison to the preseason.  Players have started to learn what is okay and isn't (and by those videos, it appears anything more than a pat on the arm is technical-worthy) and it seems like there is less bitching on a game to game basis.  But, on the flip side, and perhaps not coincidentally, hard fouls have seemed to increase.

Elton Brand "lays out" JaVale McGee.  Hilton Armstrong drops Joel Anthony and immediately gets shoved over by the enforcer, Juwan Howard.  And most recently, things in the Blazers Clippers game got chippy with this "hard" foul and this missed call that ultimately resulted in a one game suspension for Andre Miller.

Maybe it is just because I haven't been able to watch games while I am abroad, but this year there seems to be more hard fouls and chippiness between the players.  I believe that there is a connection between the riffs with the players and the increased rules on technicals.

Let's take the Andre Miller and Blake Griffin incident.  If Miller truly feels like he is getting shoved around badly by a rookie, as a veteran of the league, he'll probably go voice his displeasure with the referees.  But today, he has to worry about receiving a technical.  So what does he do?  He gets a little bit of revenge with a hard foul.

Now how is delivering a hard foul different from receiving a technical for complaining?  Well, even if the end result is the same, possible ejection and free throws for the other team, at the very least Miller will have made his point to Griffin.  That may cause Griffin to think twice next time he decides to put a forearm in a player's back.  The result is the same, but a clear message was delivered by Miller.

It seems to me that since the league is restraining the players from the referees, the next best thing they can do is take it out on the other team.  If I had more free time and I were getting paid to do this, I would look up the number of technical fouls called up to this point last season and the season before and compare it to this year.  Then I would do the same for flagrant one and two fouls.  Alas, I do not hit either of those prerequisites so it'll just remain a theory unsupported by facts.

It'll be interesting to see if the hard fouls continue to occur or if these are just isolated incidents that coincidentally occurred around the same time.  All I know is that I would hate to see David Stern's reaction to the equivalent hit in the NBA that Heath Miller sustained on Sunday night.