Why is the NBA the worst officiated pro sports leauge?

[KingdomeCome]

With all of the money put into this sport I have no idea why they cannot get referees who fairly officiate the game?

Watching our rookies play and get called for BS fouls and no calls against them pains me. Then on the other end of the floor if you breath on Gasol and he misses it is a foul. Most of JT's misses around the basket would have gotten him a trip to the line if he was an all-star player in the last game.

I don't want to think that the refs are biased or are told who to call what on, or at least they are over their betting and 2002 corruption but I don't know what else to think.

Is it Stern wanting his NBA stars to look better? That seems stupid, if they are good let them show it like everyone else. I don't care how the game is called, tight or loose, just make the same calls on both ends on the floor even if it is the beginning of the game or the last second.

Basketball seems to have the worst officials with no repercussions, check or balances for retardedly bad calls. In the NFL they have the whole week to review every call that was made and instruct the refs on what to do better next time (they also have a challenge system! But this would never work for basketball).

I don't watch pro baseball, I have seen some bad umps at the Cats games, but baseball is so much more cut and dry you can tell where the strike zone has been being called, and most are very consistent.

In basketball it seems the more subjective calls have to be made; technicals, flagrants, charges, and loose-ball fouls. Rookies and non-stars (AKA the Kings) always end up on the short side of this. How is a young player supposed to get a feel for the rules of the game when they change based upon the years of experience of the player and the time left in the game?

The broadcasters seem to know this as well and just don't show replays on many questionable calls.

I really hate this and I see no way it will change.

 

[sloter]

I can tell you that it's not only a problem with the NBA. The referees internationally, in Euroleague in particular, are even worse.

 

[LPKingsFan]

I think basketball has the double whammy of being inherently hard to officiate, and also, due to its nature and timing, makes replay difficult. In football there's stoppages of play, so you can use replay to rectify mistakes from time to time. There's really no way to do that in the NBA moreso than already used (for checking things like buzzer beaters, etc). And the sport in general, with fouls playing such an important part, seems destined to have the officals always play a large role in determining outcome.

That said, the supertar treatment phenomenon is pretty obvious, and doesn't help the officials' case.

 

[SacKings7]

I said NFL to support my Chargers and the brutal officiating that cost them 2 games this season. But realistically, the NBA probably is the worst officiated

 

[Larry89]

I voted other - The WWE

 

[Superman]

I don't think the problem is with the NBA. I think it's with the subjective nature of the game of basketball. The NBA is guilty of bending the rules and showing favoritism toward the more popular players, but I think what's more frustrating to most people is the inconsistency, especially when it comes to fouls, blocks/charges, etc. And I don't think that's due to favoritism as much as it's due to the subjective nature of the game.

 

[hrdboild]

I think some of the problems with NBA officiating come out of the nature of the game, but not all of them, and some of it is correctable. Like others have mentioned, officiating in the NFL is aided greatly by the use of instant replay. Of the three major leagues, their officiating is probably the best because of it. With baseball, the number of plays which come down to the judgment of the umpire is pretty limited (tag plays, questionable catches, borderline foul balls, etc). And for the plays that are close, it seems like the umpires get them wrong almost as much as they get them right. There's been a lot of problems with the umpires in MLB games, especially if you account for strike zone judgment as well. Last season there were a few home run calls within a week that the umpires missed quite inexplicably which caused them to change some of their rules regarding the use of replays. But unlike the NBA, those problems haven't threatened to overshadow the game. So what's so different about the NBA?

1) Like the NFL there is a clock, but unlike the NFL the clock doesn't routinely stop. This makes it very difficult to rely on instant replay for routine calls. Because the situation changes based on the score, you can't effectively take points back retroactively without replaying everything that came after the bad call. I don't think instant replay would help without dramatically slowing down the game, which obviously is not an option.

2) One of the primary roles of the referees in basketball is to call fouls, which are subjective by nature. Imagine playing a pickup basketball game when you shot free throws every time someone called out "foul". Fouls play a significant role in the NFL as well, but you always have the option of re-playing questionable calls to correct them if possible. Once you call a foul in a basketball game, you've already stopped the play and stopped the clock. Even if the foul is rescinded, a lot of the damage has already been done. Replay doesn't help much here either. It would just slow the process down even more.

3) Basketball is a much faster game than baseball or football, played in a smaller area. A lot can happen in a short span of time which means the potential for missed calls is astronomically higher in an average NBA game. Even if the refs get most of the calls right, missed calls will be a bigger part of the game than in the NFL or MLB as a result of sheer quantity. You could go to one extreme and let a lot of things go, have the refs "swallow their whistles" so to speak, but would that result in a better game of basketball? What the refs choose not to call is almost as important as what they do call because it changes how aggressive the players can be.

So how much of this is actually fixable and how much is just the nature of the game? Well, speaking for myself, I have no problem with refs blowing the occasional call. It happens. You would hope over the course of a season it would even out. In the playoffs each play is more critical, which is why you would expect the best referees would be assigned to those games. That should be determined not by tenure but by actual performance.

What I would like to see is some kind of standard for what is and is not a foul that is kept track of and enforced on the officials. You shouldn't have to adjust your game based on who is calling it. I'd also like to see the officials use replay to check their own calls at the end of each quarter. This is when they can see if they've been consistently calling plays right or wrong and make the necessary adjustment before the clock starts again. This should be a regular part of the game. Refs should take pride in improving their craft just like the players do and watching tape is an important part of that. And most of all, hold these people accountable! Refs should be suspended without pay for particularly egregious offenses just like players are. Too many offenses, and you're removed from duty. This would weed out the bad referees and open up spots for better ones to take their place. At the end of the season, there should be a ranking of who the best refs have been and these are the ones that should be selected for playoff games. Anything serious that comes up in the playoffs should be addressed as soon as possible, during the game if at all possible. Not having a replay available in that Detroit game last year to fix the clock was atrocious. Something like that shouldn't happen again, ever.

What upsets me most about the officiating in NBA games is that is seems like the league office tries to hide bad officiating instead of pointing it out where it occurs and attempting to improve the matter. Whether instant replay is part of the game or not, we get to see it on TV so we often know whether the call is a good one or a bad one. Pretending bad calls don't happen at this point is just asinine. Admit your mistakes and show you're committed to making it better. That's what needs to happen.

 

[KingdomeCome]

Awesome post, I completely agree.

The NBA protects their refs, and fines anyone who says anything bad pretending nothing happened.

I want them to be accountable like you said and improving all the time. I want a public stat of missed call % to be the grade for each ref and to determine who gets to ref the playoffs, instead of sending the oldest person with the worst vision.

The problem is that there are so many games and it is difficult to review them all.

You said hopefully the bad call balance out because you will be on both sides of them but it does not for us. It seems teams without big time all-stars and with young players get hosed on calls and no-calls all the time, AKA the Kings.

Do you think an effort to improve refs would ever happen? Do we have to wait for Stern to retire or die before we see this improve? Is there a ref union that protect old blind bad-calling refs from being forced to retire?

I have heard that the refs get together and look at some calls in the beginning of the year and are told how to improve but it seems like there is no accountability and there will never be.

 

[KingdomeCome]

I also think that the refs should just give the kings just about every call to make up for game 6, especially against the lakers. It would just be funny to hear Laker fans whine about bad calls, but they whine about everything anyway, worst fans ever, and unknowledegebly arrogant.

 

[Aenadin]

I voted other - The WWE

i can imagine some one from the bench distracting the refs then out comes salmons swinging at kobe and miller low blowing bynum and then acting like nothing happened

refs dont see it its legal lol

or when kobe celebrates his mvp out comes the starting five of the last team he beat the playoffs and beats the crap outta him lol

NBA to NBE

 

[pdxKingsFan]

I don't believe the NBA is the worst officiated, I'd give that honor to baseball by a mile.

Football has natural breaks in the action - therefore its easy to fix things and rules have been set in place to give teams a few chances to look at bad calls plus during the critical final two minutes of each half reviews are almost automatic on close plays. You can't do that without killing the flow of a game in any other sport except...

...Baseball! Where there was intense arguing over whether or not they should review the most simple of simple calls - whether a ball went over the wall or not. Not exactly rocket science. And what would the harm be in checking close plays at a base which happen maybe a few times a game and could easily be reviewed and fixed but they'd never take away an ump's discretion like that. Then there's the strike zone, which controls the entire game yet varies wildly between umps and can change on a whim if a batter or pitcher rubs him the wrong way.

Basketball, hockey, etc, those are all up and down games where the refs have to be in great shape and aren't always naturally in the best position to make a call. Plus you can't review things without hampering the flow of the game. Sure there are questionable calls that can swing a game at an inopportune time but 99% of the time they are justifiable within the rulebook.

 

[RalphySampson]

Talking about how bad referees are is boring and unoriginal. People for decades always talk about how bad referees and umpires are. It's just the way it goes I guess. NBA basketball is such an incredibly fast sport to referee and there are so many plays that are subjective that it will make those fans who focus on it think that the referees are horrible. The truth of the matter is they are not horrible. It is amazing how many plays are called correctly. The NBA actually charts each whistle now and has a huge database of each of their referees. I heard a stat once that typically the average NBA referee gets like 97% of the calls correct. But naturally, everybody will focus on the 3% and say how bad the refs are.

Now in no way am I excusing some of the crap that went on with the Kings-Lakers or the Donaghy situation. I'm just saying that the referees are a lot better than you think. Focus on all the bonehead plays that Brad Miller and Beno make instead of the 3-4 calls that are missed each game. You will find that the players actually make a lot more mistakes than the refs do.

 

[pdxKingsFan]

Oh the irony...

 

[RalphySampson]

Oh the irony...

Please elaborate....

 

[Dave McNulla]

i voted nfl. they routinely miss a call that affects 1/4 of all the points scored and they do not have enough calls to build in any balance in the bad calls. they don't have enough games to balance a poorly called game.

they royally screw up instant replay. a dude from the chargers got tossed last week because a ref thought he saw a punch thrown - never happened.

nfl by a long ways.

 

[hrdboild]

Speaking of which, it occurred to me that my comments regarding the NFL were actually related to college football. I almost never watch the NFL, so I was just assuming that there wasn't that big of a difference between the college game and the pro game. I've seen some bad calls in college games, but nothing that I thought ruined the integrity of the game. You might be right about the NFL though. I can't really speak on that.