Article: Calling out the refs

[Supergirl]

This is a pretty accurate, scathing review of NBA refs in general: http://msn.foxsports.com/nba/story/3588876

[Shelly]

Would instant replay be a good idea in the NBA?


Both of Monday night's horrible calls could have been overturned by replay. Give coaches two challenges per game or per half, or one per game, but give them something. Anything to avoid officials deciding games. If throwing the red flag has already been taken, maybe they could roll a red-white-and-blue ball onto the court to signify a challenge.

[Supergirl]

Absolutely! I think it has been very important in the NFL - I've seen refs take a look at tape and retract what have been some really bad calls.

[Phenomanul]

Good article....

Unfortunately Stern is a stern and stubborn man... He won't change that aspect of the game because it would mean he would have to concede his only way of deciding/contributing to the outcome of games.

[Supergirl]

The players ought to push for instant replay rules in their next bargaining. It benefits them all.

[Gummi]

I've always said that referee's make mistakes and both teams benefit equally. A call here and a call there, usually the refs do their job fairly good, but last night was the worst game I've seen ever. I've always liked Dick Bavetta, but he was off last night.

Thankfully we didn't lose the game when Duncan got the "phantom" foul in the OT. That was unbelievable, but I've seen calls like that before, if a player looses his feet they just call a foul even though it shows that the player slipped.

[ctpsb]

Don't the supposedly experienced refs know a slip from a foul? You would think after so many years of officiating they would know the difference?

[boutons]

I think restricted instant replay/challenges could be useful, but how about 4 refs?

[Summers]

Don't the supposedly experienced refs know a slip from a foul? You would think after so many years of officiating they would know the difference?

Especially since he was right in front of him when it happened.

Great article and I agree with it. I just thought this was funny:

"There's a reason so many calls are missed in the NBA — it's an almost impossible game to officiate. If you've ever been courtside when the combustible mixture of freakish giants and blazing sprinters (and freakish giant, blazing sprinters) all collide in pursuit of a rebound, you know it's simply impossible to have a perfect night as an NBA ref."

[TwoHandJam]

Already posted in this (http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=14850&page=2&pp=26) thread.

I already posted a response in that thread but I'll repost here:

Seeing this article gives me hope but makes me angry at the same time that Stern is so belligerent about protecting his blessed officials.

Here is a post I wrote back in March: link (http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?p=178827)


Have you ever tried to get a friend to start watching the NBA? Usually the first comment out of their mouths is "I don't understand what a foul is." That's because from one game to the next - and even within the same game, what qualifies as a foul seems pretty subjective at times. The refs just aren't as good as they could be imo.

The glaring problem with NBA refs is that they are allowed to police their own. They are supposed to review and reprimand any underperforming refs with the ultimate authority being the director of officials - himself a referee.

This. Never. Works. Any psychology undergrad will tell you that people cannot be trusted to police themselves because they always have their own best interests at heart. Nobody wants to fire one of their own for incompetence. It's the reason that any investigation in police misconduct for example is invetigated by the department of internal affairs - a separate and presumably more neutral third party organization.

I think the NBA could do two things to improve the quality of its refs:

1) Create a neutral third party to review referee performance and hire/fire refs.

2) Change the rules such that each coach could challenge a call once per half. I don't think this would have an adverse effect in terms of slowing down the game. You could even remove one full and/or one 20sec timeout from the current allotment to compensate as I think they're too many timeouts in games anyway.
How many times have we seen a blown call on a big screen instant replay with no repercussion for the ref? Too many times for my liking. With a challenge system like in football, the ref could get immediate feedback on his error and it would be very public as to just how good a particular ref is over time. The penalty for an erroneous challenge could be something like 2fts and loss of possession. I don't think one challenge per half would be detrimental to the speed of the game.

Here are some of the highlights of the article above:


Antoine Walker can get suspended for making contact with an official — in what had been the worst-officiated game of the playoffs prior to Spurs-Nuggets last night — and Van Gundy can be fined 100 large for divulging certain details of a private conversation and then not giving up his friend, but when will NBA officials be publicly held to account for doing a poor job?
Stern's answer seems to be to come down hard on the complainers and hope it will distract the fans from the larger problem. But he's missing the solution.

Replay. Replay, replay, replay, a thousand times replay!

If it's good enough to see if a shot was released in time or if a toe was on the line, why not to see if a player was inbounds when he made contact with the ball?

Both of Monday night's horrible calls could have been overturned by replay. Give coaches two challenges per game or per half, or one per game, but give them something. Anything to avoid officials deciding games. If throwing the red flag has already been taken, maybe they could roll a red-white-and-blue ball onto the court to signify a challenge.


:hat

[grjr]

I would like to know why veteran NBA officials have no idea what travelling is. How many did they get wrong last night 2? 3? There were several others in the first three games also. What's the deal?

[2centsworth]

The players ought to push for instant replay rules in their next bargaining. It benefits them all. Hell no, instant replay in basketball would suck. Basketball is a fun, FAST PACED GAME. last thing we need is to slow it down. Bad calls in basketball don't have nearly the affect as a bad one in football. At worst you're going to be -5 points due to bad calls, remember they usually work both ways. 5 points in basketball is manageble. In football a loss of a touchdown because of a bad call can be 50% of all the scoring in the game.

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

I've always liked Dick Bavetta, but he was off last night.

You're crazy. What you saw last night is what you always get when Bavetta is refereeing a game in similar situations (2-1 games, 3-2 games).

Bavetta is David Stern's designated series extender.

[TwoHandJam]

I think that's a better idea. Too many instant replays would just result in momentum being killed at crucial times, and near 4 hour games like last night.
Honestly, how much could one challenge per coach per half really slow the game down? Look how much all the timeouts slow the game down right now. If you were to remove 1 full and 1 20sec timeout and institute the challenges, I doubt the game slows down at all.

How many times have you wanted to review an obvious call that totally screwed momentum or even helped decide the outcome down the stretch because it came at a critical moment? I can tell you that if you're JVG or a Rockets fan, that piss-poor call on Barry is one you'd like to challenge and be able to throw in a ref's face for all to see. That call may very well cost them their season. How would you feel today if Tim's ejection caused us to lose last night's game?

Not only would the challenges keep the officials honest and on their toes because of the instant nature of the feedback, but stats could even be kept that allowed the public to know the win/loss challenge ratio of any official in the league. No longer would we be kept in the dark about the competence level of any given official and the secretive "evaluation procedures" of the director of officials. Some objective data would be out in the open for all to see.

[boutons]

I thought about the delays of official timeouts to review challenges, but the official timeouts would be used by the teams so there would some overlap.

[SequSpur]

Players should be fined for flopping and acting like they got fouled. Game film should be watched and if a players misrepresents himself or commits play time fraud, they should be fucking fined.

That would police up everything.

[rwb]

I think instant replay should be used the same as with football. That ridiculous last foul on Duncan last night should have been overruled. But 73 fouls called?? If the game had gone into a second OT no one would have been left to play on the floor to play it.

[baseline bum]

I don't like the thought of an NFL-like instant replay. Say your team just hits a shot close to the line in the last few seconds of a game and you throw the flag saying you thought it was worth three... then the other team can't run back to shoot quickly, and you get a hue advantage by allowing your defense to set up.

[gospursgojas]

I agree that last night's game was hard to watch with all the whistles, but wouldnt IR slowdown the game just as much???

I dont know just a thought

[Guru of Nothing]

I don't like the thought of an NFL-like instant replay. Say your team just hits a shot close to the line in the last few seconds of a game and you throw the flag saying you thought it was worth three... then the other team can't run back to shoot quickly, and you get a hue advantage by allowing your defense to set up.

Inherently, that is a huge problem; play stops after a bad call in the NFL.

[TwoHandJam]

I don't like the thought of an NFL-like instant replay. Say your team just hits a shot close to the line in the last few seconds of a game and you throw the flag saying you thought it was worth three... then the other team can't run back to shoot quickly, and you get a hue advantage by allowing your defense to set up.
That's why you could institute a penalty for a failed challenge, something like 2 FTs + possession. Then you make absolutely sure that challenges aren't thrown with impunity or for the wrong reasons.

[Guru of Nothing]

Stern can easily fix the problems with NBA refs with this little thing called MONEY.

What is the pay range for an NBA re? 200k-600K? Why not make the range say, 200K-5M? Then, have the refs graded by an impartial third party.

It's that simple. Instead, Stern gets a hard-on for Van Gundy.

[TwoHandJam]

Stern can easily fix the problems with NBA refs with this little thing called MONEY.

What is the pay range for an NBA re? 200k-600K? Why not make the range say, 200K-5M? Then, have the refs graded by an impartial third party.

It's that simple. Instead, Stern gets a hard-on for Van Gundy.
I feel an impartial third party is a must, regardless of their pay scale. It just makes sense.

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

Y'all act like Stern wants to fix the "problem".

:lol

He doesn't.

[Spurs Biggest Fan]

I don't like the thought of an NFL-like instant replay. Say your team just hits a shot close to the line in the last few seconds of a game and you throw the flag saying you thought it was worth three... then the other team can't run back to shoot quickly, and you get a hue advantage by allowing your defense to set up.

I would think that only on a call made by a ref that actually stops play could be challenged.