Records of technical fouls, expulsions in shambles… We know that the career of Rasheed Wallace was marked by an intense love affair with the referees. And the NBA champion in 2004 with the Pistons, appearance on the Secret Base showwas sometimes very distant with the officials…
“ I told a referee: ‘If you keep bullshit on me, I’m going to pay someone to burn down your restaurant.’ », recalls having threatened the four-time All-Star, without specifying the context of the match and the sanction he must have received as a result for such comments.
To another referee, when he played in Detroit, he said: “ ‘If you continue to annoy me and my guys with your whistles, I’m going to hire a hacker to get access to your email.’ The referee tried to give me this look, like shocked. ‘Oh, believe me, I know about the email account you got from David Stern (the boss of the league at the time)’. You take this shit for granted. The same way the NBA can watch a lot of things. If I pay a hacker $100,000, do you seriously think he can’t do it? »
We will understand better, with these kinds of anecdotes, why Rasheed Wallace, who celebrates his 49th birthday today, is the holder of the record for technical fouls over a season (41!), has accumulated more than 300 sanctions of this kind in 16 years of career (nearly 20 per year) and paid more than $200,000 in fines.
And how he managed to get excluded for a glance…
