Okay, I have to admit that I don't watch a ton of college or NBA basketball outside of the Houston Rockets and the TCU Horned Frogs. However, even before this scandal hit it seemed odd to me that you didn't hear near the b****ing about conspiracies on the college level that you do at the NBA level. So, this leaves only a few possibilities open to me. Obviously, some of you folks are more basketball savvy than me, so maybe you can point out where I am offbase. 1) There are conspiracies in the NBA This falls under the where this is smoke there is fire routine. The NCAAs have an established product in the tournament, so maybe they don't care as much about who makes it through the tournament. The NBA definitely has the appearance of having bias in terms of marketing. 2) The pro game is more difficult to officiate I find this hard to believe. Shouldn't the NBA have the best officials in the world? Is the NBA game really that much more superior than the top flight Division 1 games. My father used to officiate in the SWC. He's been with Cuban on the officiating. He says it is terrible and I tend to go along with him. Is it terrible because the bodies are that much bigger and faster? 3) The NBA doesn't pay enough for officials I can see some legitimacy to this. The NFL can get away with paying less because of the nature of the business. Guys could keep their day jobs and simply show up on the weekends and do their games. NBA officials have to do it full time, so that is their job. They are away from their families for much of the season, but don't get the millions that players do. How much of a raise is enough to recruit the best? 4) I am out to lunch I don't follow the college game that much, so maybe I am missing out on these conspiracy theories. I know a lot of people think Duke gets too many calls. I don't know if that is sore fans being jealous or any kind of legitimate claim. Overall, fans will complain about calls not going their way, but I have never seen more conspiracy theories than I have in the NBA.
I don't think the NCAA officials are considered any better than the NBA. It's just that there's less reason to think "conspiracy" instead of "it's a difficult job" or "they are incompetent" since there's less need for big market teams to do well, etc.
No kidding. Not to mention you have most of the summer off, working only for 9 months out of the year. Get me in on that gig.
Well, it IS about money. Just a matter of how much. After all, I'd kill for a job that pays me over a mil a year for 9 months worth of work... but Bonzi Wells certainly didn't think so last year. Just because officials make very good money does not mean they're getting paid enough. Like many high-paying professions, you really have to pay your dues and work your way up to make it into the NBA. So it's very debatable just how juicy people consider the job to be. Sure, making 200K/yr is good, but would you be willing to work high school/college games for many years to do so? On the other hand, what if the salary for an NBA official matches that of doctors and lawyers? I guarantee the type there would be a much larger pool of talent who'll want to get into the field.
More to the point, the vast majority of high school and college refs have high paying jobs during the day. So, in order to get these guys they would have to give up that job. What happens if you are selling insurance or working some other job that pays you 100K? You factor in maybe 50 combined college games for maybe 500 a piece and you are looking at 125K total. Sure, 125 to 200 seems like an easy decision in the abstract. I remember my dad saying he was scouted by the NBA for awhile, but never really considered it. He was making good money at his day job and didn't want to leave us. When you consider that the NBA does monitor its refs and there is an attrition rate, there is considerable risk in leaving a stable job for the NBA life. If you could make maybe 500K or 1M then it might be worth the risk. Who knows how many talented officials you could get? I still remember going to summer league games with Moses Malone, Hakeem Olajuwon, and Michael Young. I had never seen a game go to 100 points. One team was at 99, but they had to cancel the game because Malone refused to leave the floor after being tossed. I think a few F bombs were thrown out, but I was too young to know what was being said.
