That's right. Nobody can guard Lebron if you let him walk more than 3 steps going to the basket. "It's a hard game to officiate" is the official excuse. First, these are not high school refs. They are pros. They are paid to do their job. If they can't do a better job, let someone else do it. Pay better and you'll get more competent refs. Second, it's not just some questionable calls. It's the whole culture of non-accountability that permeates the NBA officiating. Third, there are definitely things they can do to improve it. We are not asking for perfection. We are asking for EFFORT to improve. If a guy like JVG was the commissioner, I can bet you that things would be improved. But year after year, nothing has been done to change anything when everybody and his granny knows where the problems are. BTW, if there is certain player or play is truly unstoppable, maybe you have to change the rule. They used to wonder how they were going to stop a tall player from standing under the basket and swatting the ball away every time the opponent shoot. Well, there came the goaltending rule. The bottom line is, the refs are supposed to call the game by the rules. If it's the rules' problem, then change the rules. If it's the refs' problem, change the refs.
Again,if its so easy,more people would be capable of doing it. I think they do as good of a job as any other official in other sports. Baseball has the floating strike zone and the phantom double play tag. Football have basically no calls on offensive wr pick plays and bs hitting the qb calls. The nba have their issues,but its all the same. This stuff about jvg making it better is speculation at best. What is he gonna do? Are the officials the reason why he lost to utah despite having home court? Whatever
the point he is trying to make is accountability and a transparent effort to improve and rectify. some people just need an explanation and closure and some people will be more understanding and sympathetic that way. i think it is moreso the fact that the nba is more secretive and protective than any other sports league about their referees. in the nfl when bad calls are made, there are press statements made the day or week after with an apology and an explanation. it has also been documented that the nfl, for example, punishes its refs more severe than the nba does, which does not publicize anything involving its referees or the calls made.
Again, we are not asking for perfection, just effort to improve. Are you saying that there is nothing the league can do to improve officiating? Are you serious? For example, there have been tons of discussions of how to stop flopping. How about holding refs accountable for blatant mistakes? Is it not reasonable for any employment?
The media is very protective of NBA officiating, which is probably why so many fans point it out. The media and ESPN takes up for NBA officiating, yet they want rules changed and make huge deals out of one or two bad calls in other sports. The media wanted replay in baseball when those games are long enough, they acted like it was too much for the NBA. I watched college basketball one afternoon because I was waiting for Jim Rome to come on. After one or two bad calls, I knew ESPN would have a field day with it, and that's what happened. Mike Greenburg ridicules people for mentioning NBA officiating, yet he's referenced the officiating being biased whenever it suited his argument. Ryen Russillo once said that NBA officiating is not influenced because all games are not fixed. All games being fixed would be too obvious. I never thought it was fixed, just heavily influenced sometimes. ESPN is only critical of NBA officiating when using it for teams/players they like or dislike. Kevin Blackistone once said the Lakers weren't treated favorably against the Spurs in 2008 because Kobe shot no more than a handful of free throws one game. I've never agreed with the theory that a star must shoot a ton of free throws nor do I agree that being in the paint should translate to automatic free throws. It depends on the actual game itself. Lots of fouls happen on the perimeter, while some players get most of their calls, legit or bogus, on the perimeter. I also don't judge by how many free throws teams usually average. Skip Bayless usually says what others won't, yet he acted like there were only 2 bad calls favoring the Lakers in the 4th quarter of the 2010 finals. There were at least 11. He pointed out all the calls Cleveland got against Orlando in 2009. It was said that the refs helped Dallas against Portland last year because Dallas shot more free throws one quarter. They didn't elaborate, nor did they name any specific calls. Other times they indirectly admitted Dallas gets unfair treatment because of Marc Cuban. ESPN blamed the refs for Boston winning game 2 of the 2010 finals, the officiating was bad for teams. They didn't say anything about the Lakers getting calls in the first games of the 2010 finals and WCF. One call is brought up to defend Phil Jackson for losing the 1994 ECSF, his teams benefited from many calls. Recently, Miami possibly getting the benefit of the doubt over Boston is being mentioned yet the officiating & Jerry Stackhouse suspension during the 2006 NBA finals didn't get much publicity. There were arguments about the Spurs not getting calls because they're a small market and because of their ratings. The Spurs got calls in the past. The low ratings of the finals in 1999 and 2003 could be partly contributed to MJ retiring and 2 defensive teams in the finals. They have star power also. Calls they got in the past might also have to do with who they're playing (Phoenix). Some may use the "jump shooting team" argument, but in 2007, there were numerous no-calls, blatant fouls on the perimeter and in the paint favoring San Antonio. The calls against Dwight Howard have nothing on how Yao Ming used to be officiated, and I'm not talking about that 2005 series against Dallas. Houston commentators pointed this out too. For the past 2 years, I've been satisfied with the playoff officiating for the most part. That and more teams on the rise made it fun again.
I forgot to mention in my last post that there's not much wrong with bad calls. There's a big difference between questionable calls and lopsided calls, especially in important regular season games and playoff games. In the past, lopsided calls helped some teams and players get accolades that they probably didn't deserve. That doesn't only apply to the NBA. However, that happened in the NBA more than other sports.
My parents were watching the Thunder game yesterday, and didn't understand the foul calls and why sometimes they called it and other times they didn't.
Nba players are allowed to miss shots, no? Sometimes wide open ones. Refs should be allowed to miss calls, sometimes blatant ones. Only way to solve this is by making the game more physical, that way the threshold for a foul is much larger so it's easier to call a foul because it takes a more obvious and blatant hit. Unfortunately that does not get ratings. But what is ruining the league is superstar calls.
Yeah, but if a player keeps missing wide open shots, he wouldn't be able to make the same kind of money as someone who can consistently make shots. I am not sure if NBA refs are paid according to their performance. Basically, you are supposed to be accountable for your job performance. That's a simple principle for any line of work. NBA officiating has very little accountability as far as we can tell. No business would give such a lame excuse as "Well, it's just too hard, so whatever they do is acceptable."
100% agree. If an NBA player consistently performs poorly they could at worst be out of the league or at the very least loses rotation minutes and sits on the bench. If an NBA ref consistently performs poorly that just secures their spot to ref playoff games i.e. Joey Crawford. Joey Crawford and Violet Palmer are consistently 2 of the worst referees in the game. Joey Crawford is blinder than Mr. Magoo and has this ego that makes him think everyone is there to see him ref instead of watch actual basketball, much like an overzealous traffic cop working an intersection. Violet Palmer is a "momentum ref". Instead of making the right call, often times she will just make a call based on which team has the momentum knowing it will get a rise out of the crowd. This is painfully obvious during charging/blocking calls. There just seems to be zero accountability for poor performances by the refs.
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