Kobe Bryant: king of technical fouls

Our local hoops superstar, now in his 13th NBA season, has led the league in numerous statistical categories: scoring average, total points, free throws made, free throw attempts, field goals made, field goal attempts and games played. Then last season Kobe Bryant topped every player in tantrums, oops, I mean technical fouls.

Bryant notched 15 T's during the 82-game regular season, topping Baron Davis' 13, an unusually quiet Rasheed Wallace with 12, followed by half a dozen players with 11 each, including Carmelo Anthony and Chris Paul. As Bryant piled up technicals last spring, and collected $22,500 in fines from the league, his coach Phil Jackson worried his star would be automatically suspended for a game if he reached 16. But Bryant quieted down and never hit that magic number. Then, with a clean slate in the playoffs, Bryant got hit with three more technicals during the Lakers' playoff run to the NBA Finals.

Bryant might have finally won the technical foul title last season, but the truth is he's been among the most penalized players for years. In the last five seasons, Detroit's Wallace set the true gold standard for technicals by amassing 97 -- including a whopping 27 T's during the 2004-05 season -- followed by Bryant with 65 in that period. Other technical foul specialists include the Clippers' Davis, who amassed 57 during the last five campaigns, plus the notably intense Kevin Garnett with 53, and Phoenix's Raja Bell with 50.

So the next time you watch a Lakers game, pay close attention to Bryant when the whistle blows. He starts working the referees early in a game, and doesn't give up, and his technicals show it.

-- Barry Stavro

Photo: Lakers Kobe Bryant complains about a foul call to a referee in Game 3 of the 2008 NBA Western Conference Finals against the Spurs in San Antonio. Credit: Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times

Comments

[don't quit your day job.]

do you have anything better to write about?

[lakers]

in actuality, many of his technicals last year came from his new-found trust in his team mates when he often came to their defense when the other teams were punking them around. that's a nice sign from a leader

[Mike]

Well yah, because he gets hand checked left and right and hacked and doesn't get called for it.

[Charles]

To Barry Stavro,
Please get a life,okay? Is it your mission to make Kobe's life a living hell? First of all, He got those technical because he was getting hand checks every time he dribbled the ball. I mean,how do you guard the best player in the world? With that being said,I'm not surprised that Kobe has those technical fouls. And second of all,I'm not that type of player getting technical fouls in a game but what happened to the 2008 NBA Finals was just garbage and I would have got more technical fouls for just watching the Finals live. The Celtics fouled him,used hand check,Illegal Screens from Garnett to guard the Lakers and as usual they needed more to guard Kobe so they doubled or maybe even tripled team Kobe with every possession.