Lately coaches have been fined by the league for criticizing the officials... The league has been dissing out fines basically for anyone who even questions anything about the officials for a long time now. My thing is, if no one is able to say anything about the officials, how can officiating ever improve in the NBA? I know the league has a reason but in my opinion, officials do make mistakes but if no one is able to call them out on it, how will they ever fix it? A lot of times, I don't blame the officials for the outcomes in games because their only human and will make mistakes. Other times, a few bad officiating cost certain teams important games. I understand the professionalism of not putting the blame on officials and it can get out of hand at times. But sometimes, a team will get most of the calls while the other team is getting clobbered every time down and no whistle. I was never a big fan of Mark Cuban over the past and I still don't care much for the Mavericks either. But one thing I do respect about Cuban is that he will email the league consistently asking for fairness. If the officials would call a foul on one end, then they should do the same for the other, if its a clear foul. The officials should call it as they see it. But even with all of Cuban's email to the league, they would usually ignores him or email him back with nasty emails. Back to the topic... If no one in the NBA is allow to discuss or criticized the officials on their mistakes, how will officiating improve? Teams, coaches, GM, owners and players all make mistakes but the only way they will improve on it is to learn from their mistakes and work on it. That goes with the officials as well. Stern should be more lenient on this type of topic. I know that a lot of times when teams played badly that night, they would at times point the fingers at the officials. I understand that those are the things we do not want in the NBA. But when the officials are just flat out terrible that night and it is clear to everyone how bad the officials were and how lopsided the game was, I think coaches and players has the right to call them out. That's the only way the officiating will improve. Right now, we be lucky to see 60% of all calls are accurate. I know Stern has added a few things to help the officials to get the calls right, like allowing the officials to see replays of certain possessions. But that alone is just not enough. I think either Stern allows coaches, GM, and players to email in their complaints about officiating and actually look into it instead of covering for his officials or add a 4th referee into the game to have an extra pair of eyes to the game. I know many here will probably disagree with me on this but I just want the game to be called fairly. I'm tired to seeing lopsided games where a bump on one end is a foul while the other team is getting clobbered up and the officials ignores it. Officials will always make mistakes but some are biased and will have a grudge against a certain team, owner or player... I just want all of that to be clean up from the game. If Stern continues to ignores players and coaches and constantly covering for his officials and dissing out fines for anyone who would questioned anything the officials did, the officiating will never improve and most likely will probably get worse over time..
That's fine. But my point is that how would the officiating in the NBA will ever improve if no one is able to speak up about it? Its like the officials can make whatever calls they want and no one can do anything about it. I think officials should be held accountable also. I'm not saying like they should be held accountable for every single mistake they make because officials make mistakes all the time. But I think coaches and players should be able to say something about it so officials can look into it and improve it lately down the road.
once current referees all retire and fresh refs from the collegiate level take over without any influence from the league.
If anything is going to get change to happen, it's from media attention. Just like people discuss controversial calls in the NFL, commentators and casters need to put just as much emphasis on bogus calls from NBA refs.
It's the same in English soccer. Managers and players get fined all the time for criticizing refs. Is it like that in MLB and NFL?
You're right, he should've clarified that statement by saying, '40% of the NBA calls against the Rockets are wrong...'
No. In Adam Silver, David Stern has found a crony who will maintain his legacy even after he dies. You play the game by accruing more and more big name players who are more likely to get those borderline calls in the last 5 minutes. Harden is one. We need another.
Are you serious? How many times did we see Lin got fouled and no call at all though replay showed it was a foul?
I feel the OP's pain. My eldest son doesn't watch the NBA any more because of the uneven officiating. My stance is "if it's a foul for 1 team/player, it should be a foul the other teams/players". Also, if it's a foul, blow the whistle. Don't wait to see what happens to determine whether to blow the whistle or not. All this WWE officiating makes my blood boil! On the other hand, Stern keeps all officiating issues in-house. This is how it should be in any work place. I really hate saying anything nice about Stern, but good bosses praise in public & criticize behind closed doors. Stern does both behind closed doors. Now when the refs are posted for our games, we'll view them equally unless we have a past experience with them. The refs will get less heat from the fans, coaches & players that way. Baseball & football operate the same way. In short, I can se why Stern runs the refs the way he does, But I really wish the would call the rule book for everyone!
I don't see the point of having officials. We have the technology today to implement systems that would be able to make the correct call in every instance in which a rule has been broken without human officials. It seems to me that the only reason to have human error be a part of the equation is to make biased calls. In other words, the league office tells officials that they need to keep a special eye out for Yao Ming traveling to the extent that they make incorrect calls in an effort to do as they're told.
@John Don't think we do, not for basketball. The rules for a foul call are so different than other sports, I don't think tech can make the right one. For NFL tech is obvious. That holding called should have been made in the superbowl. One reason I hate basketball is superstar calls. Doesn't make any since. Wish we were in the Jordan Era. You won't see many tacky calls like in today's game. It slows the game down and makes it boring when get tickle is called a foul.
I seriously doubt having players or coaches complaining about calls will do anything at all about improving officiating. A good system would involve an internal and private process to review game tapeand grading the referees on their performance. Good performances are rewarded, and bad ones are punished. Refs that can't keep their quality up can get canned. I know the NBA does something like this, though I don't know how strong the incentives are that are linked to the evaluation. There will always be mistakes, but you need a standardized process to keep quality as high as possible without favoritism. If you're relying on the proactive complaining of owners, coaches, players, fans, whatever, you'll end up with uneven justice and reward those who give you the most grief. That's a bad recipe.
Refereeing is an inexact science. It's never going to be perfect and if it was you'd still have titty baby whining from coaches and players because the call went against them. Bad calls are part of every game.
It's never going to be perfect true but let's look at the ridiculous tossing of Cousins. I could've been avoided had the referee just talked to the guy. The fact that in 99% of the cases referees do not want to talk or explain a certain call when a guy is simply asking, is a reflection on the way Stern rules the NBA. They get away with it, because they are protected to the point where nobody may question their authority, both during and more importantly after games. That is to me the biggest issue i have with the nba refereeing and if they would change this, would make it way more transparent.
