Wednesday, October 21st, 2009...8:58 am
Spurs Excited to Have Refs Back
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From the Express-News (via Slam):
“If the officials have reached an agreement, I say, ‘Good for them.’ ” Spurs captain Tim Duncan said. “I’ll be very happy to have them back, and I mean that from my heart.”
Roger Mason was even more emphatic, saying, “That’s the best news I’ve heard today.”
It’s not official but, according to Marc Stein, they’re getting close. So tell me: How do you think the replacement referees have done? I’ll be honest, I don’t feel too strongly about it one way or another. But I did feel like we had an unusual number of coaches get ejected, given that it was just the preseason.
18 Comments
October 21st, 2009 at 9:24 am
I’m relieved. I got to see every home preseason game and read some disaster stories from the away game. Too many calls, especially of the moving screen variety. Too many times it appeared that the refs were anticipating calls. And too intent on following the exact letter of the law while not use to the speed of the game took the NBA players out of the flow of the game.
October 21st, 2009 at 9:46 am
I think the NBA did a nice job getting a whole bunch of younger refs (mostly younger anyway) some experience at the NBA level. The NBA should retire some of the older and/or struggling “real” refs and promote some of the better-performing replacements up in their spots.
These promoted replacements’ relative lack of skill (if it exists) can be hidden within the confines of a three man unit, with the other two refs being more experienced.
Hopefully these retirements and promotions happen this year, before the playoffs, before Joey Crawford’s irrational hatred for Tim Duncan surfaces again.
October 21st, 2009 at 9:56 am
Good point Chris,
After watching a few preseason games (no spurs though) I was a little frustrated with how often the play stopped. I haven’t been able to watch a full game recently so I don’t know if that’s typical, but it felt like morse code.
I would like to see the NBA pull up refs to train them. They also did a better job than I thought they would initially. Seemed fair if over-enthusiastic.
October 21st, 2009 at 10:03 am
I saw one pre-season game against Olympiacos live, and I remember the refs screwing one thing up procedurally, but otherwise, I didn’t see anything egregiously bad (it is amazing how much better the refs are live when there is no DVR or instant replay around). I do agree though that with the coach suspensions, SJax’s 5 fouls and ejection, and a couple other procedural screw ups highlighted on ESPN, I am glad that the real refs are coming back.
I don’t remember where I saw it, maybe it was true hoop, but stats show that the number of fouls called is WAY up.
October 21st, 2009 at 10:12 am
I attended a Lakers/Bobcats game. All I can say was that I was ecstatic to see travelling called, and frequently. At one point in the game, there were three consecutive plays whistled dead by carries. Sure from an entertainment standpoint there is an incentive to keep the game moving, and there were clearly far too many starts and stops, but I’ll never tire of watching NBA stars (or in this case Josh Powell) look frustrated when forced to follow the most basic of basketball rules.
October 21st, 2009 at 10:17 am
I definitely feel that the NBA needs to come up with a good developmental program to replace the bad referees. I haven’t looked at any of the data but doesn’t it seem that there are generally more calls during the preseason every year. The preseason is used for players and refs alike to get back in the regular flow. It would be interesting to see the data on fouls from preseason to regular season from year to year.
October 21st, 2009 at 11:30 am
It just seemed like a lot more fouls were called, so even though some of the regular refs often draw my ire, I’m glad to see them come back.
October 21st, 2009 at 1:06 pm
I’m for a little bit of give and take with the rules of the game in favor of a decent flow. These preseason games….so many calls away from the flow of the action, terrible calls.
October 21st, 2009 at 3:27 pm
I really liked that the game was called more tightly and I was hoping that the players would adapt and not the refs. Not as many star calls as usual was very nice. But of course they were sometimes a little bit too eager to use their whistles.
October 21st, 2009 at 8:08 pm
I’ve heard the Spurs players were thrilled with the news that the regular refs were coming back, and that is enough to make me equally thrilled. The players know best. They’ve adapted their games over the years to how the regular refs call games and a change would be a big disruption. If the Spurs players are happy, I’m happy.
October 21st, 2009 at 10:08 pm
I love it how the new refs were fair generally and not giving preferential treatment of the stars.
But I agree with Pop, they are what they are.
Who cares? I care more about the instant replay
that would be the Crawford antidote we need
October 21st, 2009 at 11:52 pm
I am very disappointed in the way this was handled because Stern used the good old “there are people in the world who have more problems than you do” in order to sweep the whole problem under the rug.
There are big issues with the officiating in the NBA but instead of looking at them and trying to improve (more consistent calls at least, bad/old refs, refs with a grudge or a star syndrom, etc.), Stern played on old kind of bait and switch. You can be sure his reply to any complaint from now on will be “don’t complain or I bring back the noobs”.
On the one hand “you don’t know what you have until you lose it”, on the other hand it’s a cheap way to make people feel better, and find excuses for the poor situation right now.
October 22nd, 2009 at 3:43 am
I wrote a post on this topic for PTR- check it out, if you like…
http://www.poundingtherock.com/2009/10/21/1094050/a-portrait-of-the-referee-as-an
My short response to the comments that I’m seeing is: you can’t have it both ways. Either there’s an “NBA game” which is governed by an unwritten code that we trust the referees to enforce, or NBA players are like anyone else, and whatever Mr. Naismith wrote down as a foul should be called a foul. Which means games where crunch time features a match up of Theo Ratliff v Sean Marks, because all the bigs have fouled out.
October 22nd, 2009 at 8:40 am
NL is excited to have Spurs basketball back.
October 22nd, 2009 at 9:16 am
Vespa, sorry to say but that’s the easy way out. There is basketball as a sport, and the NBA as a product. Obviously Stern’s job is to manage the relation between both aspects. I personally dislike situations where there is such a gap between the written rule and what actually happens (say, like in Canada where the official speed limit is 100 km/h but everybody is going at least 120 if not more — that’s stupid).
The fact is, every player in the NBA travels and/or palms. It’s almost never called, and when it is it sounds kind of ridiculous. Why not remove this from the guidelines if nobody is going to call it?
It creates a system in which, as a ref, either you’re in the know or you have no way to handle the game correctly. This kind of “locked” system is detrimental to everybody (except the refs).
October 22nd, 2009 at 2:20 pm
Will- I totally see where you are coming from, and in a Confucian sense, I agree that there should either be rules, or there should not be rules. However, can you write a rule that is specific enough to eliminate the “bad” travelling (I think that we can all agree that Shaq covering up the ball like Marion Barber and bulldozing towards the basket from mid court would be bad…) but allow “good” travelling? (Manu, Tony, LeBron, Kobe et al’s spin moves to the basket- you can’t tell me they’re jumping off of two feet…) Do we want an NBA game from which the poetry has been removed? Aren’t we enthralled by the contestants because they can do transcendant things with the ball in their hands? And weren’t the rules designed so that the game would be played in the same way, by all players, on a level playing field? If their talents allow it, and the refs allow it, and the fans enjoy it, why not let it be? “because the rules say it’s travelling” sounds a bit Puritanical. And the main point that I raise is that everyone has been unhappy with the replacement refs who have called too many fouls while trying to enforce the rules to uniformly.
October 22nd, 2009 at 3:03 pm
Yes but… the very word you use at the end (“uniformly”) shows that in a way the new refs are more consistent than the old ones. The issue being that they stuck with the letter of the law instead of its spirit (which is what people are what the old refs are doing).
There is a fine line between giving the refs some leeway in their decisions, and getting in a world of excuses, preferences and special rights. I think the NBA refs have crossed that line way too often.
October 23rd, 2009 at 11:11 am
Well… there were lots of fouls called, yes. I don’t mind that on its own, though. There are usually a lot of fouls called in pre-season. The problem was, these refs just weren’t very good. They didn’t know when to make calls and when not to, and that’s basically the job. Games had no flow, players were confused, and coaches were irate. It’d be disastrous in the regular season.
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