Soapbox: NBA Referees

http://celticsgreen.blogspot.com/2014/08/sq14-14-soapbox-nba-refs.html







Name all the NBA referees you can.  Now name half that number in any other sport.  That is a problem, or at least a symptom of a problem. When did these judges of fair play morph into preening potentates of privilege?  They threaten to become just as arrogant and entitled as players, with all the negativity that aspect entails.  This isn’t how it is supposed to be.

Google referee + ego and you will find about a billion references to guidelines of its proper role in adjudicating sport.  And about another billion about how, and how often, and how completely, it goes wrong.  We shouldn’t expect our referees and umpires to be perfect, we should, however, expect them to be fair and unbiased.  I’ve chosen just a couple of quotes, which I have referenced only loosely since they could and should be the hallmark of any sporting league, from youth to professional, anywhere in the world:

From a youth soccer intro clinic:
The best referees are those who are not remembered after the game because they have allowed the players to play

From The Referee and the Rules -- South Carolina Swimming:
Truly competent officials don't let their ego get in the way of doing a good job

As for our purveyors of professional basketball propriety, when did a blocking call become a 6-hop stage move parodying Madonna?  An ejection requires a throwing pantomime that carries the performer halfway across the court, really?  Does a continuation foul really call for a series of  contortions worthy only of pop singer’s backup dance group?  Why does the league office suspend players for stumbling into a referee, but a puffed-chest and bristling striped-shirt baiting players is hushed and swept under the rug?  Joey Crawford?  Don’t get me started!  He should have been fired outright long ago and featured on a training pamphlet for NBA referees on how NOT to do it!

Let’s be clear, professional basketball has to be one of the hardest sports activities to officiate.  Sports, almost all of them, are games of inches, but home plate doesn’t have to “establish position’ before the ball arrives, tennis doesn’t have “incidental contact,“ and football gives the refs nearly a half minute to rest between most plays.  Basketball is a contact (just not collision, supposedly) sport that takes place at breakneck (just ask the Pelicans’ Ryan Anderson) speed with complicated (one forearm but not both, forearm but not hand, both feet out of the lane) rules, and seven more players to watch than there are men to keep an eye on them.  Referees have to run almost as far (we're talking miles here) as the players in a game, but they don’t get subs and have to often run backwards to keep an eye on the action.  Almost every night someone gets hurt, sometimes badly, occasionally horribly--and emotions and tempers run high.  Let’s just say it isn’t a cushy job at a desk and, oh yeah, there are tens of thousands of people yelling, often at you, and most of the time at least half of them are pi$$ed at you specifically at least a third of the time.

Referees certainly deserve protection from player, coach, owner, and fan abuse, be it physical, verbal, or any other extreme expression; but their “protection” from their own actions has gone waaay tooo far.  Let’s figure out a way to reward competence, not conceal incompetence and misbehavior.   At the very least, there should be available one blackball for each team in each playoff series by which they could prohibit a ref they feel is biased from working their series; maybe even all their games that season.  And they should be able to cast a vote/strike at the end of each season--three strikes (10% of the league) and you are out, at least of the next season, or at least down to the D-league for reeducation on proper conduct and a reminder of how good they have it on the lime-lighted stage at the top of the basketball heap.

The league has been very conscious of distancing themselves from convicted ref Donaghy, and rightfully so since even the hint of fixing threatens the integrity of their multi-billion dollar sport (and TV contract which is considerably higher than that of professional wrestling, so maybe show-time doesn’t trump true competition).  We should not expect, nor desire, automatons since referees need strong character and a healthy ego in order to not be intimidated, influenced, or bribed.  However, flamboyance is not called for and does a disservice to the legions of hard-working arbiters of propriety and gamesmanship in all levels of all sports throughout the world.  

Double the number of refs, lighten their load, and allow decompression time so they aren’t in what is admittedly a pressure cooker so constantly (after all, rumor is that they are, indeed, human).  Treat the D-league as a farm team for referees, as it is, slowly, becoming for teams.  Counter the fact that there is currently far too little (or perhaps no) accountability--rotate through the D-league the bottom 5? 10? 15? rated NBA refs to be replaced by the top 5? 10? 15? rated in lower league.  I know the league does something to grade referees but I rather like the following formula:
Rating = good (calls + no-calls) / (bad calls + missed calls)

Return for a moment to name recognition.  This is great for players, for teams, for attendance, for branding, or for selling sports memorabilia.  Not so good for referees; in fact it is a poison pill for the game and competitive standards in the sport.  Name recognition? If it is not for least-biased or top-rated-correct-calls for the year--suspend the top three (or rotate into D-league) for next year.  I consider it that much of a threat to the game.

Only 51 days until training camp.





bob
MY NOTE:  I've enjoyed a lot of this author's work (his handle, btw, is Lee Lauderdale and he's the guy who wrote about "2.9 schemes" etc), but I disagree with this one.  On basketball, the so-called "Golden Age" of basketball had well-known, even famous, referee personalities like Earl Strom, Mendy Rudolph, Norm Drucker, Sid Borgia, Richie Powers and Darrell Garretson.  None of those guys, none of them, took crap from players or anybody else.  They didn't tee them up like Steve Javie (I always thought that Javie's propensity to constantly blow technicals on players was an officiating version of penis envy, but maybe that's just me not liking bullies and tyrants), but they weren't exactly timid little wallflowers neither.  If we can name more NBA referees than we can for other sports, maybe that's because we spend more time thinking about basketball than other sports.  Ask a soccer fan of the names of the referees who reffed World Cup games and see if you can keep up.  Soccer refs are recognized in public, when they're out having dinner in a restaurant.  And maybe it's because we can actually see the refs, up close, in basketball while in baseball they're behind a mask and in football they're spread out.  

Do refs blow calls?  Absolutely, but is that symptomatic of bad reffing or of the fluid nature of the game.  As he points out, there is no home plate the ref can freeze behind and have the play unfold in front of them.  In basketball, the angles are changing constantly.  I think they should swallow their whistles a little more, not just blow fouls upon what they assume must have happened, listen for the slap of flesh and not just the scream of the player but it's still going to be far, far from easy or pretty.



.

Well written article and I agree with the vast majority of the authors claims.

The NBA, under the direction of Czar Stern became a league focused on superstar players above all else. In the race to sell more LeBron, Carmello, Kobe Durant gear - refs were gently nudged in the direction of protecting said stars. There exists a different set of rules for the stars, and there in lies part one of the problem.

Part two is centered around all of the advantage being given to the offensive player. Kicking out your leg on a three, a gather dribble and then 2 additional steps, crab dribbles, crossovers which are in fact carrying the ball, jump stops which are often travels - literally ALL of the major rule changes in the last 20 years have been implemented to favor the offense. And after all of that, the league wide scoring is still down vs the 80s.

Last and most importantly is the general lack of oversight and merit based decisions when it comes to officials. Refs in the NBA are protected to the point that they believe they are above the rules - and act so on a nightly basis.

Joey Crawford (or the Six Flags Guy as my wife refers to him) actually challenged Tim Duncan to a fight - and years later, is still on the court with his 3 ring circus act every night. Ken Mauer was on house arrest for 5 months and 15 other refs were indicted on charges of tax evasion - yet continued to work. Not a record of accomplishment that anyone should be proud of.

I do think that officiating NBA games is difficult, but no more difficult than many other sports. Hockey is a much faster game and Soccer has only 3 officials for a pitch that is much larger and a game that is much more constant (zero time outs). As for Bobs contention that we know their names because we pay attention more - dont quite get that. Of the top 50 more watched sporting events in 2013, 46 of them were NFL games. The NBA is a blip on the radar compared to a full screen NFL.

I have faith that Adam Silver will make changes necessary to mitigate some of the more egregious offenses - but in the end, the NBA is all about entertainment and a ref who follows the direction of his bosses in NYC is going to keep his job longer than one who does the right thing and calls an offensive foul on King James - even if it is a D League player taking the charge.

In the 1960's there were about 73 free throw attempts per game vs about 47 now. Watching the officiating back then, through the eyes of the stop action-slow motion camera on all close calls, might have made one more critical of the refereeing. There is a lot more physical contact now then back in the 60's, to further complicate the application of the rules. I enjoyed the game then and I enjoy it now. Just stop playing official and I think you might have a better perspective about the game.

swish

Bob

Always felt and still do to a degree that basket ball officials should almost be like boxing officials. seated on the sidelines perhaps even more than three and "blow" (no pun intended) the calls from there. There is the ref in boxing but the judges sit ringside.

Add this to my "other" beef about more room out of bounds and the refs couls be in the out of bound zones with out ever stepping a foot on the court.

How many times do we see the ref get in the way?

Anyway crazy idea, perhaps but ........

beat

I believe it all boils down to the fact that referees are human.  Expose a human being to an environment which is geared toward entertainment as much as to the game itself, and human nature can err in the direction of showboating.  Expose a human being to a game with increasing complexities and he's increasingly likely to blow some calls.  Expose a human being to a game in which he has to keep up with the players and keep from having his vision blocked, and he may even get in the way occasionally.

Yes, I'm sure some referees are better than others, who could use more and better instruction.  But, instead of simplistically blaming the refs for inaccurate calls, I'd like to see more emphasis put on how to make their professional lives more feasible.  Beat's suggestion for getting them off the floor (and maybe more elevated) is an interesting one.

Sam