Atlanta Hawks: What Mike Budenholzer Incident Means

Mike Budenholzer’s altercation with referee Ben Taylor could have negative long-term effects for the Atlanta Hawks.

The NBA is a weird and wonderful place, which is part of the reason why we love it. That’s an equally effective way of describing the way in which the Atlanta Hawks have started the season too.

Following on from a disappointing defeat to Detroit on opening night, the Hawks went on a seven-game winning streak that immediately helped to bring to mind the imperious runs they put together throughout last season while on their way to 60 wins.

More recently though things have taken a turn in the opposite direction. Atlanta has lost four of their last five games, seen a slew of injuries start to pile up, and on Saturday night during their Eastern Conference Finals rematch against the Cleveland Cavaliers they hit a whole new low.

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Hawks head coach and reigning NBA Coach of the Year Mike Budenholzer was ejected midway through the second quarter after coming on to the floor during a live play and making contact with game official Ben Taylor.

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Budenholzer has had a challenging start to the season. The DUI case dating back to before he even coached his first official NBA game as Hawks coach continued to rankle and drag along through the offseason, while more recently Budenholzer was also forced to miss Atlanta’s game with Boston due to a family emergency.

Those events were significantly compounded for him by what played out on Saturday though.

Frustrated at a foul he felt should have been called on Richard Jefferson, who hammered Justin Holiday in the face at the rim, Budenholzer encroached on the court from behind Taylor, put his hand on his arm and bumped him in the back.

It wasn’t clever, nor was it acceptable. The contact was minimal, but it’s the intent that really riles up referees, and the act itself is enough to cause a problem. It’s a matter of respect.

Budenholzer has subsequently released his own statement to apologize for his actions, and reveal that he had done so directly to Taylor too.

From Hawks PR, statement from Mike Budenholzer on contact with referee during CLE game and subsequent fine: pic.twitter.com/QGuw0lZzSh
— Kevin Chouinard (@KLChouinard) November 24, 2015

Coach Bud was ejected, and rightfully so. The NBA also stepped in with a $25,000 fine for Budenholzer on Monday, an unprecedented fine by the league’s usual structure for technicals and ejections, yet for the National Basketball Referee’s Association that was not enough.

The NBRA released a statement which was highly critical of the penalty imposed upon Budenholzer by the NBA, via their general counsel Lee Seham:

"Referees operate in an environment in which an influential NBA team owner has repeatedly mocked the efficacy of fines as means to change bad behavior. Recent League precedent dictated that a coach who aggressively charged onto the floor during live action and physically interfered with a Referee would be suspended. We are now operating at a lower level with less transparency, degraded safety, and diminished respect for the Game. Coaches should compete by creating better teams, not by physically intimidating officials."

For as totally unacceptable as Budenholzer’s behavior was, the NBRA’s statement is dangerous hyperbole.

Degraded safety? Budenholzer should have shown more respect towards the official without question, but there was never any fear of him manhandling the ref, as there never has been with any other coach in the association either.

The final sentence of the statement not only appears to be some form of barbed jibe at the Hawks, but it’s also unprofessional enough to make it seem like the NBRA are trivializing the very event they’re fighting for justice on.

The intent is clear. The Referee’s Association are trying to set a precedent, yet by speaking of Budenholzer and the Hawks in such a fashion, there’s a real danger of them creating agenda.

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Officials in all sports band together, often like tight-knit brotherhoods. It’s a natural human instinct, as often it can quite literally be the referees against the world. What does a statement like that encourage though?

The NBRA had every right to call for Budenholzer’s suspension, if that was indeed what the NBA’s recent guidelines had agreed upon, yet the way in which they did it creates a precarious tension going forward.

Next time Budenholzer pleads for a call along the sideline alongside an official, what’s going to be in the mind of the official? Bud made his own bed, but the NBRA may have created an inherent bias.

Budenholzer’s mentor Gregg Popovich reacted to the NBRA’s statement with predictable disdain:

"I think it’s just a case of an anonymous suit trying to gain 15 minutes of stardom more than anything. It’s comical … A lot of people trying to get famous on Twitter. And I guess this particular suit is one of them."

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On both sides of the sideline, there’ll be a lot of people watching Atlanta’s upcoming games incredibly closely.

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Atlanta Hawks: What Mike Budenholzer Incident Means Moving Forward

By Adam McGee | Nov 24, 2015

Mike Budenholzer’s altercation with referee Ben Taylor could have negative long-term effects for the Atlanta Hawks.

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