Kenyon Martin's Flagrant Foul a Day Late

On Monday, the NBA announced that Kenyon Martin was being fined $25,000 for a foul that occurred in the first quarter of the Nuggets' Game 1 win over the Mavericks. The play in question saw Martin play some physical defense on Dirk Nowitzki, get whistled for a foul, and then shove Dirk to the ground once the play was over.

Martin was given a technical at the time, but the question is this: Why are the officials so afraid to make a definitive and punitive call during the game, when it would clearly have the strongest effect?

Here's the play in question, and there's no doubt that this was (a) not a basketball play, and (b) came clearly after the referee's whistle blew.



Nowitzki had started off the game hot, so this was likely a move that was meant to intimidate him and cool him off a bit. I don't have a huge problem with the play, and if those were K-Mart's intentions, that's fine, and they seemed to do the job. But the referees need to call it as such at the time it happens, and not leave it up to the league a day later to determine it was worse than it was believed to be at first glance.

How do you not call that a flagrant foul at the time? A personal foul followed by a technical in that situation doesn't even make sense, really. The play should have either been upgraded to a flagrant foul, or, if it was deemed to be separate than the initial foul and so egregious, then why not an ejection?

Referees in this post-season have been afraid to make high profile decisions like this in real time; if you don't believe me, look no further than the multiple cases involving apparent golden child Rajon Rondo.

I'm not saying I want players kicked out of games or suspended for every little thing, and I was against the idea of suspending Rondo for Game 7 -- despite the fact that his throwing of Kirk Hinrich to the scorer's table in Game 6 was deserving. No, Rondo should have been tossed for that early in Game 6 -- when the play actually happened.

A lot is made of referees trying to get control of chippy games, when they make multiple calls in a short period of time to slow the aggression. But letting plays like Martin's (and to a larger extent, those of Rondo) go down with nothing more than a slap on the wrist, well, it's setting a bad precedent as the playoffs become even more competitive in the later rounds.

At some point, a player is going to go too far in an attempt to intimidate an opponent, and that opponent or his teammates will take matters into their own hands to retaliate. And the referees will have nobody to blame for it but themselves.