Technical Foul

In basketball, a technical foul (also informally known as a "T" or a "Tech") is any infraction of the rules penalized as a foul which does not involve physical contact during the course of play between opposing players on the court, or is a foul by a non-player. The most common technical foul is for unsportsmanlike conduct. Technical fouls can be assessed against players, bench personnel, the entire team (often called a bench technical), or even the crowd. These fouls, and their penalties, are more serious than a personal foul, but not necessarily as serious as a flagrant foul (an ejectable offense in leagues below the NBA, and potentially so in the NBA).

Technical fouls are handled slightly differently under international rules than under the rules used by the various competitions in the United States. First, illegal contact between players on the court is always a personal foul under international rules, whereas in the USA, such contact is, with some exceptions, a technical foul when the game clock is not running and/or when the ball is dead. Second, in FIBA play, players foul out after five total fouls, technical and personal combined. The latter rule is similar to that in college, high school, and middle school basketball in the United States. However, in the NBA and WNBA, players are allowed six personal fouls before being disqualified, and technical fouls assessed against them do not count toward this total. However, unsportsmanlike technicals in the NBA carry a fine, its severity depending on the number of technicals the player has already obtained, and players are suspended for varying amounts of time after accumulating fifteen technicals in the regular season or seven in the playoffs.

In most American competitions, ejection of the offender, be he player, coach, or otherwise, is the penalty for being assessed two technical fouls in a game, if charged directly to him (some technicals committed by a player are charged to the team only). In addition, any single flagrant technical foul, or a disqualifying foul in FIBA, incurs ejection. FIBA rules do not provide for ejection for any number of non-flagrant technicals against a player; however, two technicals on a coach or a third technical on the bench results in his ejection.