NBA Officiating is at an All-Time Low

[mctyson]

My 2 cents...thought I am not old enough for "all-time."

We need 4 referees and/or coach challenges for central replays.  Even baseball adopted this.  The joke that is incompetent NBA officiating has got to end.

I'm looking at you Tony Brothers.

[BballTim]

  Instant replay sucks. It hasn't made any sport better. It's main contribution to football is to turn long touchdown passes into 3 minute delays and then 1 yard touchdown runs. It adds a lot to the yawn factor in the nba as well.

[2short]

Bold statement

Since the Michael Jordan time of star calls, Tim donaghey telling the truth about ref fixing...hard to say.  World soccer refs are graded, bad job they go down on ladder.

I think nba refs are the worst in prof sports and have been since Jordan.  Scary that lebron probably gets more ref help

I will add some of the obvious travels this year that aren't called are hilarious. 

[Denis998]

I like the idea of having one or two ref chalanges in a game, wouldn't take much from the game, and can probably be handled through Secaucus. I think that College ball already has a system like that.

[GreenWarrior]

I've long felt the NBA refs are the worst in all of sports, though this yr. the NFL is trying to compete.

I've come to the conclusion the NBA is trying to sell referee apparel and market their officials, they even had a show on NBATV. that's the reason for all the outrageous calls. why the hell do I need to know who tony brothers is? why do I know any of these guys names?

a couple yrs ago, 1st rnd playoff series, clippers vs someone I can't remember, the head of officials was there giving his 2 cents when needed. anyway there was a controversial call on an out of bounds play where the ref was standing right next to where the play happened, replay even showed his eyes viewing the play plain as day. on this particular play this ref didn't make the call, a ref all the way down the court with at least 8 people in his view made the call - the wrong call.

so mike breen and van gundy said why isn't the ref standing right next to the play making this call? the head of officials answer is - on this particular play it's not this officials responsibility to make this call.

that was the final straw for me. that play told me this game is fixed or there's a lot of stupid people running this organization. I wish breen and van gundy had hammered the head of officials more....but they're in on it too.

as far as the superstar call goes. i've always felt it shouldn't exist but I found it tolerable up till the Lebron era. yeah Jordan used to get special treatment but Lebron and his teams are getting special treatment. it's gone beyond a single player, it's now that players team. and those teams take on the philosophy that if you just foul all the time, they're not going to call it every time.

Jordan used it strategically and LeBron just completely abuses it. one game this yr I watched the 1st 5 mins. of a cavs game and counted 8 fouls on LeBron in the 1st 3 mins of the game. when LeBron is dribbling what's his other hand doing?

[mctyson]

  Instant replay sucks. It hasn't made any sport better. It's main contribution to football is to turn long touchdown passes into 3 minute delays and then 1 yard touchdown runs. It adds a lot to the yawn factor in the nba as well.

You cannot have a series such as the Evan Turner-Reggie Jackson flop/flagrant happen in the 4th quarter of a close game.  It just can't happen.  Those things change the entire game, and undermine the credibility of a league whose credibility with officials is already low.

I am not asking for much.  1 challenge to start would be nice.

[Rosco917]

Two things... there should no more players arguing, ranting, and crying about fouls. The refs wouldn't be so intimidated to make the wrong call, for the star players. (like Labron)  Arguing would be an instant T. Disputing calls should be left to the coaches.

The questionable or poor calls the refs make need to be reviewed, at the request of the organization or coaching staff. These refs making terrible calls need to be held responsible for some of these game changing terrible calls. 

Frankly, It's getting worse and worse.

[Celtics4ever]

To be honest, it has always stunk to high heaven.  The worst is when they subsidize a star player with fouls to keep their averages up.

[jmen788]

The NBA officiating is still bad, but I do feel it's been better since Silver became commish (I think Stern was rigging like everything).

I do agree with the poster who said the NFL is getting bad - in fact, the NFL seems to be rigged these days at times (e.g. see the Pats game @ Denver where the refs gifted Denver numerous penalties).