As a fan of basketball I am fed up with the poor performance of NBA officials night in and night out. From the "superstar" treatment calls, to the wait to see if the shot rolls in before blowing the whistle, to the calls influenced by the whining crowd, to inconsistency on the block/charge, to the falling for obvious flops. I'm tired of it. I'm sure I'm not the only one who shares this sentiment, so I started this thread with the idea of change. I understand there will always be the element of human error, but a lot of the times these are egregious mistakes that affect momentum, morale, and the outcomes of games. Something must be done. I think the NBA should open up a department in charge of keeping referee statistics or grading system for officials and the worst officials should be repremanded for poor performance. I also think they should have an overseer sitting courtside watching that can consult with the officials at halftime and even show them the awful calls they made during halftime and after the games. This might seem radical, but something needs to be done. These refs are totally out of control!!!!
they keep adding more and more rules that give the nba refs more power.... i.e.( new delay of game penalty)....
When I heard there was a rule that you can get fined for talking bad about the referees, you know something is up.
Keep in mind that there is a lot of fan bias as every single fan thinks the refs hate their team. I suspect that an arbitrary review would affect everyone equally. Although I do think there has been some funny business in a few high profile playoff games. Hard to believe much goes on in the regular season, esp. after the Donaghy scandal.
The issue isn't rigging, it's competence. And a lot of it seems to stem back to the rather large inclusion of new refs that happened before last season. They're bad, really really bad. Last night for example i only got to watch the first quarter, and i couldn't figure out what the refs were doing regarding screens, like they literally wouldn't call a foul on one, even a cpl of Deandre's egregious "fouls in the 80's" screens (I was amused they put one into the highlights package, way to go nba) after they've hammered the league on any and every violation regarding them.
the thing is, i'm almost sure if you just gave random fans the whistles for a few weeks, aside from them missing tons of calls, almost all of the things you described would happen just as much if not more. while it's easy to see superstar calls as some insidious way to promote certain players/teams and make more money, a lot of it is probably just human nature. if lebron drives to the basket and misses a layup and you can't quite tell if there was contact or not, are you going to assume the best finisher in the game just missed or that some random power forward probably hit his arm? if chris paul gets a steal and you can't quite tell if he hit all ball or got some wrist, are you going to assume the guy with some of the quickest hands in the game wasn't accurate this time or that some random point guard got the ball stolen? and what happens if you really did miss the call and now guys like lebron and paul and durant are yelling at you on national tv? you'd probably like to T them up but what if they keep going? are you going to be the ref who throws them out of the important game and has people saying you're an egomaniac who wants it to all be about you (like they say about joey crawford)? and has the league wondering why it can't send you to a game without its marquee players ending up in the locker room before halftime? humans are just going to naturally take the path of least resistance, even if only subconsciously. and that path leads to superstar calls. same thing with the home crowd calls. humans are going to eventually give in a little to not wanting to be booed call after call. a few refs over the years have proven to be good road referees but it seems to simply be a natural thing that home teams get calls. at some point you're going to throw a few 50/50 calls the home team's way. unless we get robots to referee the games, i don't think superstar and home team calls will ever completely go away. and as much as i would like the refs to get the other calls right, they certainly seem to do it better than college refs and much better than FIBA refs. at some point, even as i complain about refs during games also, i just conclude that apparently basketball isn't easy to ref and has such an incredible amount of subjective calls that someone will always feel they got the short end of the calls. that's not to say that there is never a game where more of the bad calls go against you. probability says that will happen. it's just probably not as much as we all like to think. based on articles in the past about officiating, they review every call of every game. i assume things like national tv, playoff and finals assignments are based on these reviews. one thing i do wish is that they would get better about not rewarding floppers. while lots of people flop, there are certainly those players more known for it than others. the refs have to see in the game reviews that they are being tricked by certain guys over and over. just stop giving them the benefit of the doubt. it's like they can never bring themselves to take away that benefit of the doubt for the guy that falls down. even if you end up missing calls in the other direction, it will almost certainly alter the behavior of the player and probably having you miss fewer calls in general. but maybe that's just has hard as not making superstar or home team calls? i don't know.
Do you watch soccer? If you do, then I don't know how the hell you could even make a statement like this. And if you don't, then go watch soccer refs, absolutely terrible.
Great post Francis4Prez, you made some valid points about the refs being human. But my thing is, a ref making any presumptions about what he thinks happened based on who a guy is is exactly what's wrong with the game today. Youre saying it's human nature, but that's why there are 3 referees strategically positioned to make the calls. If you don't see it, how can you call it? If you see it, call it!!! No matter who the guy is, call the foul. If there is a foul, WHY ARE YOU WAITING TO SEE IF THE BALL GOES IN OR NOT TO BLOW THE WHISTLE?!?! I also have a problem with the refs not being able to decipher shooting fouls and non shooting fouls. Just because a guy throws his hands in the air when the whistle is blown doesn't mean he was fouled. There are a lot of things that annoy us all that won't get fixed. Sad.
Put a body suit to every NBA players with sensors. Same for ball and floor. And have computer analyze to determine whether foul occurred or not. Future baby!
Not even close...in soccer you have 1 ref & 2 linesman for 22 players on a field that's 110 yards long & 60 yards wide while in the nba you have 3 officials for 10 players on a court that's a 90 feet long and about 24 feet? wide. That's basically one ref for every 3 players. There's absolutely no excuse for how pathetic and bias nba officiating is.
I feel like these get bribed so bad for calls to go to the home team. Think about it. Hey look who it is, tony brothers or Joey Crawford. They act like they're superstars on television.
If refs were held accountable Harden would be a 15 ppg player getting called for 20 traveling violations a game and Dwight would foul out or get ejected every other game.
What drives me crazy is how the Refs decide to not call fouls on 'big name' players in foul trouble unless the foul is extremely hard, almost flagrant level. I favoritism occurs while watching my team play.. But when my team plays I'm also not so much focused on the refs as I'm more focused on what the players are or are not doing right/wrong I notice the epic flaws of the NBA refs when I watch other basketball games in league pass that I don't have an bias for either team. The NBA has some of the worst professional refs in the nba and I've always thought something needs to be done to TRY to fix it. I don't care so much if it gets fixed or not, AS LONG as new ideas and things are implemented in TRYING to fix this problem.
Think my point went over your head. My point was the Rockets aren't exempt, stop making a fu** ton of stupid threads about reffing people.
