'Ben Taylor was f***ing terrible tonight': Fred VanVleet calls out NBA officiating
Raptors guard Fred VanVleet didn't hold back on calling out NBA official Ben Taylor after the loss to Clippers. VanVleet also discussed officiating as a whole in the league and why it has to change.
Video Transcript
FRED VANVLEET: Definitely In the third quarter there. I mean, I don't mind, I'll take a fine. I don't really care. I thought, you know, Ben Taylor was [BLEEP] terrible tonight. I thought that most nights a couple of the, out of the three, there's one or two that just [BLEEP] the game up. You know? And it's been like that a couple of games in a row. Denver was tough, obviously. You come out tonight, you're competing pretty hard. In the third quarter, I get a [BLEEP] tech. Changed the whole dynamic of the game. Changed the whole flow of the game.
Most of the refs are trying hard. I like a lot of the refs. They're trying hard. They're pretty fair. They communicate well. And then you've got the other ones who just want to be dicks and it just kind of [BLEEP] the game up. Nobody's coming to see that [BLEEP]. They come to see the players. I think we're losing a little bit of the fabric of what the NBA is and was.
It's been disappointing this season. You can look up, most of my techs this year have been with Ben Taylor officiating. So at a certain point as a player, you feel it's personal. And it's never a good place to be. That's not why we lost tonight. We got outplayed. But it definitely makes it tougher to overcome.
I think that there's been certain times this year where I feel our team is getting consumed with the way the whistle is going, especially after the night we just had in Denver, the way that finished. So there was a couple of calls early that we all disagreed with. If I say to my team, "Come on, guys. Let's keep playing through the [BLEEP]," and that warrants a tech, I think that's a little bit crazy. You know what I mean? I think that, like, what are we doing? You know what I mean? There's a fine line, obviously. I understand that. But I think the jurisdiction and the power trip that we've been on this year with some of our officials in this league is getting out of hand. And I'll take my fine for speaking on it, but it's just [BLEEP] ridiculous.