It was a frustrating night for the Sacramento Kings and Domantas Sabonis on Monday against the New York Knicks. Trailing by 14 points with a little less than five minutes to go, the two-time All-Star ejected after a rough foul call that he disagreed with.
Sabonis was ejected after this play pic.twitter.com/dUiuFQKmQN
— Kings on NBCS (@NBCSKings) March 8, 2022
The Kings would go on to lose this game, but it appears that there are some serious repercussions coming for Sabonis following this ejection.
The NBA announced that Sabonis will miss Wednesday’s game against the Denver Nuggets due to the technical foul and ejection against the Knicks where he seemed to inadvertently bump into the referee.
Kings center Domantas Sabonis has been suspended one game for aggressively confronting and making contact with a game official.
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) March 9, 2022
This got the NBA world talking, with many thinking that this wasn’t on purpose by Sabonis and that the suspension is a little bit of an overreaction by the league.
“Aggressively” https://t.co/nIg9a2US14
— Eric (@EricSperlazza13) March 9, 2022
Something crappy happens to the Kings at least once a week. You can just pencil it in. https://t.co/H5592rdMoF
— Matthew Tynan (@Matthew_Tynan) March 9, 2022
https://twitter.com/DaveLack/status/1501625519497879552
https://twitter.com/BenRossTweets/status/1501623666664034310
Many are also pointing out that a similar scenario happened to Knicks forward Julius Randle against the Phoenix Suns last week, but he was only issued a fine with no suspension involved.
Julius Randle gets ejected for pushing Cam Johnson near the end of the 3rd quarter.
Cam responds by scoring 21 of his career-high 38 POINTS (9/12 3PT) in the 4th quarter, including a buzzer-beating game-winning three! pic.twitter.com/U32vqhnks2
— Ballislife.com (@Ballislife) March 5, 2022
NBA went easy on Randle, a game for that? Sheesh. https://t.co/IRVV2rYXvT
— Brett Alper (@TheRealAlper) March 9, 2022
Sabonis was notably involved in the blockbuster trade that sent Tyrese Haliburton to the Indiana Pacers. While Haliburton has been excellent for the Pacers, Sabonis has been equally as impressive for the Kings. While neither side of this trade is in any position to compete in the near future, it will be interesting to monitor both teams to see who eventually got the better side of this deal.