As rockets fans, we are well aware of bad officiating. However, is bad officiating good for the NBA as a whole. Fans are intrigued by controversy and drama. That is why people keep posting Skip and loud mouth on the boards even though they don't really believe what they say on television. Name an easier way to control the amount of drama, than hiring consistently bad officials. It's like the WWE or the kardashians. Any drama is good drama
Not as crazy as it sounds. I watched two officials staring at the same play miss one of the most obvious calls of all time last night. Cannot tell me that it was just a blown call. There was a directive given to them on that one. Firmly believe that. Two officials attempting to do their job properly do not miss a call like that at the same time.
It's bad for gambling, which is good for the NBA. It creates variability, which makes it harder to nail down spreads. At least, that's the only good I see from it.
yes, when you favor the team that the general public wants to see win. cheating the rockets in game 7 was good for the nba because it kept the golden state money train rolling and gave the people what they wanted, the unlikable rockets losing and continuing the "harden playoff choker" narrative.
I don't know if I would go that far. An actual directive? Like, did they get something that said "this message will self destruct in 30 seconds"? My guess of why they missed that one is simple: both refs were more focused on the position of the ball, not the player, and the lack of contrast between Durant's shoe and the ground made it hard to see initially. What compounds their incorrect call is the fact they did not (or maybe could not) go back and review it to allow or disallow the basket. Matt's 4th official idea is really sounding better and better after each pass.
I would buy this is if it was even REMOTELY close to him still being in bounds. It wasn't though. He literally was out of bounds for 4 steps BEFORE touching the ball, and then was a good 2 or 3 feet out of bounds when it was touched. The refs were standing on BOTH out of bounds lines. It was an unmissable call that was missed. Cannot tell me that BOTH refs honestly just missed it. They chose to swallow their whistle regardless what happened on the court.
Years ago, FIFA president Sepp Blatter said the lack of replay was good because it caused controversy for people to debate over.
I might have a low opinion of the world, but generally I feel like incompetence is much more rampant than malice... but I do see where you're coming from, and don't think you're wrong. I just don't think I have enough to prove I'm right either.
The problem is that there is no explanation, defense, or discipline handed out when stuff like this happens. There are 50/50 calls, there are bad calls, and then there are unmissable calls. That was an unmissable call. I agree it's probably incompetence more than malice, but my thing is why is the NBA happy to accept incompetence? Why are they not hiring better refs or holding the bad ones accountable? Imagine if that happened in a playoff game. Imagine if it happened in an elimination game.
I was literally just saying the same thing on Twitter. My issue is, as progressive as the NBA is, why are they still reluctant to better use tech? RFID tags for balls, a 4th official or a more coordinated replay center, stuff like that. It isn't a matter of cost for some solutions, and I think we could easily get this streamlined as to not slow the game down.
That Durant out of bounds was one of the most blatant missed calls of recent memory. Some calls are judgement calls and sometimes refs "just let the team play" meaning they do not call near as much contact. That is why the playoffs are so tough because they let a lot of stuff go but an out of bounds call requires no judgement unless someone is right on the line. Durant took three steps out of bounds with an official looking right down the baseline. That bad call was made on purpose to help the NBA's golden team.
The only way to ensure that the refs never missed any call was to have instant replay. After every single play. And that sounds miserable. Otherwise, there will be missed calls. Some of them will be toss up, could have gone either way kinds of calls. Some of them will be not so obvious in real time but then you slow it down to super slow motion and it will be like "how in the world could any one possibly miss that?!?". And sometimes, like Kevin Durant standing approximately 3 feet out of bounds, really are just a terrible job by the refs. We can speculate if the NBA is partially rigged and trying to favor certain teams/players, or maybe the NBA isn't but certain individual refs have their own biases or preferences, or maybe they are just human and they miss things, sometimes badly. Whatever it is and whatever the circumstances are, missed calls and bad calls have and always will continue to happen. Part of the nature of sports. And here we are, on a Rockets fan site, talking about a missed call against Durant almost as much as the absolutely amazing come-from-behind win and one of the most incredible individual performances I have ever seen from a Rockets player.
