You are David Stern's private officiating consultant, and he has agreed to initiate whatever measures you feel are necessary to clean up the officiating. What's your plan? First, and most obvious, ban Tim Donaghy, and every official he narcs on, for life, no matter how little they were involved. Even if they shaved points off of one game, ban them for life. Then, interrogate every single person that reffed a game with Donaghy the past two seasons. Bring in Kyra Sedgwick on their asses. Find out every single bit of information possible. Second, decrease the number of refs in a game back down to two. The third ref has done nothing whatsoever to make officiating better. In fact, it's hurt the game more than help it. I can't stand it when a ref at halfcourt makes a foul call when he clearly didn't have position. Third, get rid of the late whistles. If a foul is called late, then give the ball to the team that had possession when the whistle was blown. The official scorer will determine whether or not a foul was called late. If a ref calls a late foul, slap a fine on him Fourth, only personal fouls in the act of shooting count towards getting ejected from the game. Nobody wants to see players riding the bench after getting called for two ticky-tack fouls at the beginning of the game. Fifth, punish floppers. Review tapes of suspected flopping, and suspend the chronic floppers. Flopping is the single worst disease that has infected the NBA, and it's quickly spreading beyond the notorious floppers. Sixth, review every single blocking/charging situation. It's the most subjective call in sports and is almost impossible to accurately call in real time. It deserves to be reviewed on an individual basis. It only happens a couple times a game, if that, so it won't slow down the game that much
for sure we gotta punish floppers. i mean, we got PROFESSIONAL officials falling for terribale acting jobs. but aside from that? this might sound crazy, but i'd have a ref in a booth above the court watching replys all game long to help call the game. not quite real-time i realize, but what's more important? calling the foul right away? or making the right call? i'd go with making the right call... i'd prefer to see late calls than bad calls or no calls.
Maybe the 3rd referee could be on the bench looking at replays of questionable fouls, especially the charging/blocking kind. Flopping should get a personal foul and a technical foul FT. That behavior has to be punished or it will continue to get worse.
Set up some kind of challenge system like in Tennis, where the player could challenge a bad call (like shots that clip the line, but called out). From there, they would use their hawkeye machines to review the play to see if the call is legit. For basketball, the NBA could set up a similar system where each team gets 3 challenges through out the game, and maybe 1 more for OT. If the coach or team feels that a bad call has been made (Example: In the Spurs vs Phx game, Tim Donaghy, an outside official calling a shooting foul from HALF COURT) the team could challenge the controversial call, and have the officials watch the replay to determine whether it was correct or not. This system will slow the game down a bit, however, it could possibly eliminate a little bit of prejudice or some TIM DONAGHY as the officials know that their calls are NOT absolute, and CAN be challenged. Part of the reason why I think the quality of officiating is declining is because there are no penalties for making wrong, or ridiculous calls. Refs continue to add their own perception or tweak the games because they know they can get away with it. I know its impossible for officials to make 100% correct calls on the spot, but for officials that repeatedly make unjustified calls, Stern could set up a system where you get fined after a certain number of incorrect/challenged calls. The severity of the fines will increase for repeated offense which will eventually lead to suspension or ban from the league.
The problems with the officiating in the NBA is so big no one knows where to start. Why do I feel college ball is officiated better than the NBA? Anyone feel the same way? Maybe we should just hire new refs.
What about hiring some foreign officials randomly for important games? Supposedly they should be less controllable by the special interests here. Also, at least we won't see Lebron getting all the calls. LBJ himself can also benefit from it and become a better player in the international game.
I think the most important thing is accountability. Just as players/coaches who don't perform get released, so should the refs. If a ref just isn't cutting it, then he should be replaced. I don't know how people get into the refereeing business, so I might be wrong. But will raising the salary help? Higher salary means more people willing to enter this market, which means less job security, which means refs are less likely to be incompetent yet still hold a job. Of course, the NBA is hard to ref, but the problem is that the current refs freaking "anticipate" calls rather than seeing them. It's one thing to be wrong, but don't freaking guess.
Only problem with this is it would be counterproductive to what the NBA is trying to push at the moment. The NBA is trying to promote a fast-paced game which is why they are pushing the new rules and all. So having a referee watching replys and fixing calls would slow down the game.
Set up a referee operation independent from the NBA or any other league who can supply qualified referees to any league, including NBA. It can also expand to other sports too. That may solve the problems.
The no late call rule is a good idea. I propose four refs sit courtside each one equiped with three monitors from different angles centering on the ball. A call must be called within 2 seconds following a foul. Three calls out of four refs calling the same foul makes it a legit call, just like the jury system. Less than three votes on a foul makes it a bad call and no whistle is blowed. It's gonna be a tad more difficult to buy three refs to fix a game. Also, more angles from different monitors make it clearer and easier to call.
do you remember all the b****ing that went on about the refs during the NCAA tournament this last year? it was constant, every round people b****ing no matter what (and while they may be less anticipatory than nba refs, they are FAR more inconsistent). and every time an international tourney happens, the inconsistency of the refs is a HUGE deal. certainly less star-oriented than NBA refs, but overall even worse than college refs, and even someone like fran fraschilla, who watches a lot of international ball and seems to like the game, is always cringing about certain calls that are just missed by so much. and that's the thing, people think the refs suck horribly in every single sport there is. nba refs suck, nfl refs are terrible, college football refs suck (and whichever conference someone is a fan of has the worst refs of the bunch), college basketball refs suck, FIBA refs suck. i think a lot of it is not that the quality of reffing has gone down, it's just that the quality of replays has gone up. we see every play 8 times from 4 different angles and can see anything that went wrong. back in the day, you were lucky to get a replay, and if you got one, it was from whatever angle happened to be convenient. as athletes get bigger, faster, and stronger, and replays get more prevalent, people start to realize just how fallible humans have always been at calling games. and one suggestion you often see is to make the refs accountable by fining them. that just isn't productive. for one, it acts as if refs aren't accountable and aren't graded all the time. second, you would only fine them if you thought they were purposely screwing up. if you think you have the best refs and they're doing their best, fining them isn't going to make them suddenly call a charge/block better. it's not as if they're not trying. now you can fire them if they suck, but fining isn't going to make a difference. thirdly, and most importantly, it'll be really counterproductive when all your best refs start quitting. if you had your salary deducted every time you made a mistake at work, even while doing your best and even while you are better than everyone else out there, are you gonna keep working there? most likely not. and that brings up the only real solution to me. if people really think the people doing the job just aren't up to it like they used to be, then you have to find those people in the job market who are up to it and who want to do it. and raising salaries would seem to be the only way to do it. fining them, punishing them, criticizing them all the time isn't going to draw the best talent to that profession and in fact would be more likely to drive it away, giving you an even worse product. all you can do is hope you have the best people possible doing the job, and that they are doing their best to enforce the rules fairly. and maybe get rid of a few replays.
I can't believe everyone is proposing technical fouls for flopping. That's really cleaned up soccer, hasn't it? For the fans, the worst thing that you can do on every flop is stop play. The worst possible punishment for a flopper on defense is that they are laying on the court while the offensive player has a clear shot to the basket. NBA refs need to be re-trained on the no-call in those situations.
I've been saying this for a long time. The only way to get competent people to do a job is high pay high accountability. High pay will attract enough competent people to compete for the job. High accountability will eliminate most of the incompetent ones. The GMs, the coaches, and the players, all follow this high pay high accountability principle. There is no reason why refs can't be included.
I think they should have a vote every offseason on whether a ref should be fired or not. If 2/3 of the players or 2/3 of the owners think a ref isn't good enough, the league should fire that ref. There are refs that officiate for years that get 15 and 20% approval ratings on their year-end reviews.
same thing you did with the players. players get into fights---> get rid of the thuginess therefore, referees start manipulating games---> get rid of the crackerness
Hire some college refs, tell them to call the game by the book, and solve the problem. Gone are: carries traveling aka switching the pivot foot at will over the top flops pick stepping out on screens star treatment eating the whistle in the last minute of the game (think Malone bear hugging Drexler) etc.
The exact same thing we do in my company. Random poligraphs. I know those tests are not 100% effective but it sure would be one hell of a dissuasive measure to prevent any refs looking for any extra cash. Also the NBA needs to be aware of every refs financial situations. Say audits twice a season to see if any refs are in debt or hurting for cash etc.
Use more refs, but not all at once. Have 12 refs for a game, and let each of them ref just one quarter. That will lower their impact on a game, and if they really want to effect it,they will have to be more blatant.