Fred VanVleet’s press conference after the Raptors’ 108-100 loss to the Clippers was one of those talks at length. The base attacked the arbitration not only of this match, even clarifying that he believes that this defeat was not due to it, but against certain current trends of the referees and specifically against Ben Taylor, who commented that it seems that he has something personal against him .
“I don’t care, I’ll take the fine but I have to say it: Ben Taylor has been fucking horrible tonight,” he said. «I think that most of the days there ends up having one referee of the three who screws up the game. He takes us spending several nights in a row. The Denver thing was tough, obviously, and today we were competing until suddenly in the third quarter they whistle for a shitty technique and it changes the whole dynamic of the game.”
“Most of my techniques this season have been when Ben Taylor was whistling, and there comes a point where you feel like it’s personal,” he continued. “We have not lost because of that, they have played better than us, but the truth is that this is something that makes everything more difficult.”
Ben has whistled six games against Toronto so far this season, and in those six games VanVleet has received a total of five technicals, three of them pointed out directly by Taylor. In the other 49 duels he has played this year, Fred has been assigned three techniques. It’s not clear why he was called this morning given that the broadcast was offering a replay, but he reportedly addressed his teammates saying “we’re going to keep fighting through all this shit” after a foul was called on Scottie Barnes.
The Canadian wanted to try to clarify that he considers that the majority of the referees do their job well, but that this is overshadowed by those who assume a more leading role than they really do.
“Most refs do their best, and I like a lot of them. They are fair and they speak out, but then you have others acting like jerks and the games are destroyed. Nobody comes to see that, they come to see the players. I think we’re losing a bit of what the NBA is and has been. It’s been something very disappointing this season.”
(Cover photo: Rob Carr/Getty Images)
