NBA referee Ben Taylor ‘has been demoted in the last five games’ after Fred VanVleet criticized him

After Fred VanVleet criticized referee Ben Taylor’s officiating as fucking terrible, the NBA fined him $30,000.

But that apparently wasn’t the only result of his tirade.

According to “Basketball Illuminati” host Tom Haberstroh, Taylor has received fewer crew chief assignments since the incident, despite spending much of the season in that role.

“In the last five games, Ben Taylor has only been a crew chief once,” Haberstroh explained on the Canada show. Sportsnet 590 FAN.

‘He has been the referee [number] two four times since that game, since that rant, which is a real abnormality with Ben Taylor. If you look at his previous 52 games this season, Ben Taylor was the crew chief in 41 of those games. Basically, in four out of five of those games, he was the team manager.

VanVleet called out Taylor for being ‘fucking terrible’ in his post-game comments on March 9.

“Taylor hasn’t refereed two in back-to-back games all season,” he continued. ‘After Fred VanVleet [incident]it has happened twice.

“I don’t know if that’s intentional or if it’s a matter of luck, but certainly, the NBA has taken a different path when it comes to Ben Taylor assignments, whether it’s a punishment or if it’s just [them saying] “You need to relax a bit.”

VanVleet criticized Taylor after the Raptors’ loss to the Clippers on March 9, where the guard received a technical foul, his eighth of the season, in the third quarter.

The 29-year-old said the reason he picked up the technique was because he was imploring his team to play what he thought were some questionable calls, albeit in more colorful language.

VanVleet responded to that call, as well as the disparity in free throws between the teams.

I don’t mind. I’ll take the fine. I don’t really care,’ VanVleet said after the game.

“I thought Ben Taylor was fucking terrible tonight. I think most nights out of three there are one or two that fuck up the game. It’s been like that a couple of games in a row. Denver was tough, obviously.

“You came out tonight, racing pretty hard and I got some bull tech that changes the whole dynamic of the game, it changed the whole flow of the game.”

Of VanVleet’s eight technical errors this year, Taylor assessed three and another came from another referee in a game Taylor was working on. Taylor is in his 10th season as an NBA official.

“At a certain point, as a player, you feel like it’s personal and it’s never a good place to be,” VanVleet said. “That’s not why we lost tonight, we got beat, but it definitely makes it harder to beat.”

VanVleet was penalized for his eighth technical of the season with 7:02 left in the third quarter.

‘Most refs try really hard, I like a lot of the refs, they try really hard, they’re pretty fair and they communicate well.

‘And then you have the others who just want to be idiots and just fuck up the game. And no one comes to see that. They come to see the players.

“And I think we’re losing a little bit of the structure of what the NBA is and was, and it’s been disappointing this season.”

VanVleet is averaging 19.6 points per game with the Raptors currently ninth in the East.