NBA Collects $120K from Brown, Bobcats

Earlier this week, the NBA fined Washington's Gilbert Arenas $25,000 for refusing to speak; today, it fined Larry Brown and the Bobcats a combined $120,000 for Brown talking too much. Brown hasn't been happy with the NBA's replacement referees all preseason, and his frustration boiled over on Monday when he was ejected from Charlotte's game against the Hawks in a contest that featured 61 fouls and five total technical fouls.

The next day, Brown vented about the disjointed flow of the game, although to be fair he seemed to put just as much blame on the NBA rule book and his own players' mistakes as he did the replacement referees.

Nevertheless, the NBA wasn't in the mood to split hairs, giving Brown and the Bobcats matching $60,000 fines -- $35,000 for the ejection and $25,000 for the complaints. If the fines collected were actually used to close the gap between what the NBA league is offering the regular referees and what the regular referees are asking, I think Brown would agree it's money well spent. Unfortunately, that's not how things work, so this might be the last time Brown speaks his mind anytime soon.