Athletic: Mavs latest victim of officiating overshadowing on-court product

VF21

Super Moderator Emeritus
SME
#1
If you don't subscribe to The Athletic, you really need to do so. Articles like this are what sports writing should be about:

https://theathletic.com/1627958/202...a-officiating-overshadowing-on-court-product/

Copyright law prevents me from sharing the entire article, but this is a key point (made by Rick Carlisle):

“Not quite sure what happened on the call,” Carlisle said. “Goaltending was called and the whistle blew. Players stopped (playing). And then the basket was good, after the whistle had blown, which is hard to fathom … Just a very disappointing way to end the game. Our guys fought their butts off, from start to finish. It was a good block. My understanding is that if it’s a good block on a goaltend that’s called and reversed, if there’s no control or the other team gets it, it’s a jump ball. I don’t know. It’s baffling, disappointing.”

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Officiating sucks. I know it, you know, the teams know it, Adam Silver knows it. What none of us do seem to know is what can be done. It's so disappointing to be a fan and see a game stolen from your team because of shoddy officiating. Maybe fans should grade the officials?
 

VF21

Super Moderator Emeritus
SME
#2
The last couple of sentences sum up the feelings of a lot of NBA fans throughout the league:

"Would Dallas have won the jump ball? Even if they did, would they have made the clutch shot they’ve failed to convert time and time again this season?
Maybe. Maybe not. But it would have been nice for the players to determine the outcome of a game they played. Instead, the referees did it for them. Again."
 

VF21

Super Moderator Emeritus
SME
#3

VF21

Super Moderator Emeritus
SME
#5
The Athletic is really getting it right, this time with a follow-up article on the "Cuban Whistle Crisis"

Sources told The Athletic that this topic — the management of referees — is one Cuban has brought up at owners’ meetings for years, and that he’s particularly harped on the idea of bringing in outside management.

Essentially, his argument is twofold. First, that people who did a job are not the only people capable of managing people in that job, and that the league should be casting a much wider net for officiating supervisors rather than just promoting older referees. And second, that the promotion of those older referees creates its own conflicts of interest, as they must now be the ones judging their former peers
.

And...

This is a daunting challenge that nobody outside the league talks about it. The credibility of the league (and, less obviously, of gambling revenue that might eventually accrue to the league) is hugely dependent on reliable officiating. But league insiders note that the officiating pipeline in recent years hasn’t had as many candidates … just as the bar for doing this job successfully grows ever higher thanks to faster-paced games and a profusion of new rules, not to mention the massive increase in public scrutiny due to video reviews and high-definition frame-by-frame shots from every game.
This brings up a HUGE potential problem for Adam Silver and the league. GAMBLING REVENUE. Anybody want to revisit the Black Sox scandal?

Mark Cuban drives me nuts but I'm glad he's there to bring up some of these points.