At one point late in the first half of last night’s Lakers/Rockets game, after a series of horrendous calls by the refs (a not too unfamiliar sight during these here Playoffs), ESPN’s Jeff Van Gundy and Mark Jackson time and again railed against just how awful the officiating was.
Their criticism got so heated that I was sure David Stern would have them assassinated at halftime.
Jackson and Van Gundy were completely right, of course, which is precisely the problem. That’s according to David Stern, who’d prefer you not listen to clear-eyed criticism of his referees, who’ve been giving out flagrants like they’re going out of style.
From the Houston Chronicle:
NBA commissioner David Stern disagreed with coaches and players in the Rockets-Lakers series who said the events in the first few games of the series pointed to a need for greater clarity as to what constituted a flagrant-1 or flagrant-2 foul. He blamed game broadcasters for much of the confusion of controversy, but did not claim the rules are always clear.
“In our sport? Is it clear?” Stern said. “(Officiating) in the paint and trying to give a consistent interpretation? It is the most difficult sport there is to ref. But our referees do the best they can, and we do the best we can to adding clarity.
“Let them put it up on the screen, rather than have the color commentator say, ‘I don’t care what the rule says, that shouldn’t be anything.’ That’s a terrific way to have 60 members of the (officiating) staff to have a good call. But we need to do a better job as well. People are confused. But we would hope our broadcast partners would put the rule up, understand it and then indicate the difficult job referees have.”
Instead of putting the onus on television talking heads to explain to the viewing public just how tough it is to officiate NBA games, wouldn’t it benefit the League more to work harder to ensure competency from its officials? Or would that make too much sense?
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so far in the playoffs reffs have been on their knees.. blowing.
ugh.
NBA WHERE BAD REFFS HAPPEN.
I don’t want to defend the refs too much, because they just haven’t been good at all during these playoffs. But I think Breen consistently exaggerates and sensationalizes the severity of fouls/contact on the floor. I don’t think he does it on purpose, he just can’t talk about anything besides “the rulebook” and sound intelligent.
also, sad to hear Tisdale gone. i remember the tv special on him about how positive he lived his life after his leg got cut off. the world has lost a good soul. RIP big guy.
I wish we’d get referees from jail: those brothas wouldn’t call nothin unless blood was spilled.
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Maybe then the Shane Battier call wouldn’t have been missed.
I mean, it really is incredible how out in the open it is. And yet…
blame it on stern, when he gonna learn?
And all david stern can do is stutter and say uh and lie .
David stern took the game and sh*t on it ,lost all integrity , and its as fake as wrestling .
Wtf?!
If basketball games are hard to officiate it’s because David Stern is trying to make the refs call certain games certain ways, and that makes it a challenge.
Quick fact: at one point over 11% of the NBA refs were convicted of tax fraud, and lying to the NBA. Have you ever worked at a job where over 11% of the workers had seen jail or prison time for tax fraud. And none of the refs lost their jobs for it!!! All NBA refs were found to have violated the specific terms of their contracts with regards to gambling, and several broke the gaming laws of their states.
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