Tuesday night’s late game on TNT was supposed to be a battle between two of the best teams in the Western Conference, as the ascendent Phoenix Suns traveled to Los Angeles to take on the defending champion Lakers. But fortunately for all zero people who tune into basketball games to watch the referees, Devin Booker got ejected in the third quarter of a tight contest for no particular reason.
With 7:10 left in the third, Deandre Ayton was called for a foul against LeBron James. It didn’t look to be a particularly great call, but we’ve certainly seen more egregious ones in the history of basketball. Still, Booker opted to stand up for his teammate, and apparently, he said something that one official did not like, which led to a technical foul.
After Booker got frustrated because of [see end of last sentence], he threw a bounce pass with slightly more power behind it than usual to a second referee. Then, a third referee stepped in, called another tech, and sent the All-Star to the locker room early.
Devin Booker gets ejected after bouncing the ball at a ref 👀 pic.twitter.com/kEj0hoMRNz
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) March 3, 2021
This isn’t even a “Booker crossed the line and got booted” sort of thing, it legitimately comes off like the referees were unhappy he didn’t totally respect their authority and he got tossed as a result. At the time of his ejection, Booker had 17 points on 7-for-12 shooting with six assists, three rebounds, and three steals. But unfortunately, he, like the rest of us, will watch the remainder of the game, with the very obvious difference between Devin Booker and folks like us being that he should be playing in it.
