Why Charlotte Hornets center Dwight Howard is flirting with 1-game suspension

Technically speaking, center Dwight Howard is in serious danger of being suspended for a game by the end of this Charlotte Hornets season.

Howard drew his 12th technical foul of this season in Friday’s road game against the Washington Wizards. That leaves him four technicals away from an automatic one-game suspension under NBA rules, with 23 games remaining.

The Hornets continue to chase a playoff spot in the Eastern Conference, despite long odds. They are 26-33 entering Sunday’s 1 p.m. home game against the Detroit Pistons. That is four games behind the Miami Heat for the eighth and final playoff spot, and the Hornets have already lost a potential tiebreaker against the Heat.

Howard is having a fine season, his first after being traded from the Atlanta Hawks to the Hornets. He had 24 rebounds in Thursday’s victory over the Brooklyn Nets, his fifth game of 20 or more rebounds this season.

Howard received his most recent tech Friday after bouncing a ball in anger in view of referees during a stoppage of play. Howard has a long history of techs over his 13-plus NBA seasons.

According to statistics compiled by Fox Sports, Howard has totaled 134 technicals over 1,013 career NBA games. Currently, Golden State’s Draymond Green has the most technical fouls in the NBA this season, at 14. Howard and Oklahoma City’s Russell Westbrook are tied for second with 12.

The NBA has long had a rule that a player is automatically suspended after amassing 16 technical fouls in a regular season. There is a system by which an NBA player can appeal technical fouls, in hopes of having one or more rescinded. Based on a chart provided to media regularly covering the NBA, none of Howard’s techs have been rescinded this season.

Hornets coach Steve Clifford has said his message to the players about technical fouls is to be extra careful not to draw them in the fourth quarters, when they could be most costly.

Howard has twice reached 16 or more techs in a regular season: The 2009-10 season (16) and the 2010-11 season (18), both when he was playing for the Orlando Magic, the team that drafted him No. 1 overall in 2004.

Most recently, Howard totaled 11 techs in 2015-16 (playing for the Houston Rockets) and 12 last season with the Hawks.

Howard has been remarkably durable this season, despite having reached more than 35,000 career NBA minutes. He has started all 59 Hornets games this season.

This story was originally published February 24, 2018 at 8:44 AM with the headline "Why Charlotte Hornets center Dwight Howard is flirting with 1-game suspension."