SPORTS: Larry McNEILLLLLLLLLLLLLL

Kirk Snyder got kicked out of tonight's NBA game between the Toronto Raptors and Snyder's Minnesota Timberwolves. It was a tacky second technical foul that earned Snyder the early shower. Come to think of it, the first one, an after-the-whistle slap at Carlos Delfino was just as ticky-tack.

The second one came when Snyder caught the basketball after a just-made basket and slammed the ball against the stanchion before trying to in-bounds the ball. Well, 'slammed' might be too strong. Flipped would be closer to the truth. But it's an automatic tech in the NBA, potentially dangerous to fans sitting in the area and more often a show of temper by the player. And THAT's the point of this post. So, forget Snyder from this point on.

Grumbling at officiating has reached endemic proportions in the NBA this year. Chuck Swirsky and Leo Rautins commented on it during the broadcast. At one point, one of the T-Wolves big men, Al Jefferson or Craig Smith, got called for a foul, having been caught grabbing the jersey of a Raptor player. It's the basketball equivalent of being caught with the other guy's stick in your hand while playing hockey. Hard to miss, hard to debate. But debate he did.

As Chuck pointed out, when you harp ALL the time, it sounds to the referee like "The sky is falling, the sky is falling" rather than "This guy is fouling!" The player doesn't get any credibility and certainly doesn't get the doubt anytime later. But basketball players, the collectively dumbest of the big four team sports, just don't clue in. And that's nothing new.

Back in my Continental Basketball Association days with the Toronto Tornados, we had a player named Larry McNeill. A star with Al McGuire's improbable NCAA-winning Marquette Warriors (Al and the team nickname are long gone, now), McNeill was on his last legs as a basketball player. He'd spent the year before in the Phillipines, where basketball is a national obsession. But he was desperate to take a job on this continent and landed with the expansion Tornados. This was 1983.

I was the PA guy for the team and, when McNeill made a basket, I'd make a 20-second long production out of saying, "Tornado basket by number 22, Larry McNeillllllllllll!" Starting with a lungful of air and gasping for breath when I finished, fans in the stands assumed McNeill was my favourite player.

Hated the guy.

He carped at the referees ALL the time. On EVERY play where he shot at the basket, make or miss, he'd run back up the court slapping his shooting hand with his other hand, indicating to the referee he'd been fouled. EVERY play. Surprisingly, he never got a call. I believe every referee hated him on sight, if not on hearing.

These days, the NBA talks tough about too much talkin', but can't justify handing every Kirk Snyder or Nate Robinson a "You Talk Too Much" notice when the leading woofers are guys like Tim Duncan, The West Coast Smirker (Kobe Bryant) and LeBron James. It demeans the game and encourages trash talking. And the young'uns pick up on it. Yapping is endemic on playgrounds. And that trash talking leads to violence.

All because the NBA won't hand out T's to the stars and non-stars alike. Wish it were different. But it won't ever be.