ESPN It's a long article, here's just some of it for brevity. He also mentions why the shot clock is 24 seconds, which I never knew before, among other things. Pretty interesting read.
Fantastic article. I am wondering if Morey and his team of stats guy do some of the ref tracking that Simmons talks about in his article.
a lot of people like to criticize simmons.. seems to be the popular thing to do. Did you read this article? I thought it was pretty good
My thoughts exactly. Morey whips out the stat-o-matic 3000 and start number crunching every single missed or bad call in a game then makes an equation to rank NBA refs efficiency rating. He sends that info in manilla envelope to Stern and demands extortion from the league and the refs or atleast favoritism towards the Rockets next season.
I don't agree with everything Simmons says. But one thing he is absolutely right: The NBA won't change unless it is embarrassed enough. So more public complaints, more media attention of bad officiating, will force the league to fix the problems. I am not a conspiracy theorist, and I don't think the league fixes games, at least not as rampant as some people suppose. I do agree with Simmons that the league is extremely adept in sweeping officiating problems under the rug. And it is beyond obvious that it needs fixing big time. And Stern and his minions won't do it unless they are embarrassed enough.
LA had a 4 point lead when Gasol fell into Nene for his 6th foul. Instead of a travel or an offensive foul, Gasol got 2 FT, hit both - 6pt game. The calls last night were really, really bad down the stretch. They were fair until then. I'm glad Simmons is calling them out. That horrid call I first mentioned was a game changer.
Referee assignments are really really weird and disturbing, good to see Simmions tackling this subject.
I dunno about former players being Refs I would probably have a FIT with any former Jazzholes reffing Rocket Games Rocket River
Solid article. Pretty dead on. Actually, I believe he does. I remember one time he was on 610 and they brought up Joey Crawford, who was going to ref the next game in LA. Morey said something along the lines of 'actually, we don't mind him as much on the road..' but wouldn't elaborate. I would love to see the numbers Morey has on the refs. What's wrong with the question? Am I missing some context here?
Fantastic article. I rarely have the attention span to read every word of a sports article these days... and I read every word of this one. Brilliant stuff.
I am willing to bet anything that Morey DOES track the referees. He has made several comments in the past about "such and such ref being ok on the road" or "at home, this ref doesn't tend to bother us" and things of that nature. Great article by Simmons and I'm glad he encapsulated what all of us have been feeling for a very long time about the refs. I just don't understand how the public has allowed David Stern to gloss over the Donaghy fiasco without any kind of repercussions. Where are the Senate hearings about the Lakers-Kings games in 2002, or the Rockets-Mavericks series of 2005? If baseball has had to go through so much fire and brimstone, why hasn't basketball? Just because the old crotchety men in Washington don't watch basketball does not mean it doesn't have to live up to the integrity of the sport. I'm sick of the double standard that David Stern has been able to get away with for so long, and I would love for someone to wipe that smug grin off his face just once.
Only one thing will make Stern do something about the refs - Revenue. The quickest way to kill revenue is for people to stop watching. Complaining from the fans or media will do nothing. We are talking about Dictator Stern, the guy who admits no fault even when one of his own officials in is prison. If that didn't make him change nothing will...except the NBA going broke. I'm not saying I'm done with the NBA because I'm addicted to watching this Rockets team but I have not watched nearly as much playoff (or regular season) basketball this year as I have for the last 20 years. I can barely stand to watch an entire playoff game and have resorted to DVRing them and watching them later when I can fast-forward through the commercials, timeouts or to the end of games if there is a blowout. The games are not nearly as fun to watch as they were even a few years ago and if a die-hard fan like myself is losing interest I'm sure a lot of other people are. I'm not even sure I'll watch the Finals because Orlando is straight up the most boring team in the league to watch and that was before I could expect to watch 60+ free throws being attempted in a game.
Stern knows fans hate him but nobody will boycott. Even when giving the finals mvp trophy last year, the boos were loud and clear. Stern just passed it off as them saying "truth" instead.
$1.2 Billion for a USA Basketball facility? $1.2 Billion?!? Can someone explain why they need that much money for a facility?
Wow it really make you wonder with the NBA if that thing about making refs pay $550 to tryout is true.....really? No wonder they ended up with friendless idiots on power trips.
