The bad news is that we’ll have Steve Javie, Bill Spooner, and Violet Palmer.

If you give some one a wildly inaccurate fire arm and let have them run a few box’s through it then give them an almost mediocre fire arm it seems like an improvement

They should be up to speed by New Year’s.

We have enough violence on the streets.
Why do we want to bring that kind of stuff onto the court?
Err…uh…oh, Violet Palmer.
Never mind.

Clearly we can’t just wait for all the veteran refs to retire or die before we replace them because we’ve seen what raw replacements do to the game. The league should start bringing in new refs and get them trained with veteran officials in real NBA games. Maybe I’m overblowing it, but it seems like the average age of referees is twice that of the players.

they were consistent. they made A LOT of calls but they did so against all teams and all players.

Oden did not get in to much foul trouble… hopefully that does not change with the refs.

“We cured your cancer, but in doing so, we inadvertently gave you the AIDS and you now have two years left to live.”

This is like coming home when you know you are about to get punished.

   Even though I could tangibly hear the one beat drum roll and cymbal crash at the end of the first paragraph (Hey, it was funny) I’m glad the refs are back in place.

   Having said that, I still think the N.B.A. needs to revamp, restructure and reevaluate it’s entire system. It’s pure instinct but there is something rotten in it. Something wrong with The N.B.A. being so paranoid and so adverse to any criticism that they meet any public questioning, complaining or griping by coaches or players with huge “shut up” fines.

    To me in a way, it was too bad the replacement refs were so bad. Pre-Season the fans were too often painfully trying to watch a basketball game while the refs seemed to be officiating a Quidditch Match. At some point I expected a whistle to be blown and it to be announced that Brandon Roy had captured the Golden Snitch. (Drum Roll, Cymbal Crash)

   In anycase, since I think The N.B.A. has real problems with their established system, I’m sorry to see things play out the way they did. The replacement attempt was so bad that the league has lost any leverage they might of thought they had. Stern needs to create a secret island where he can start training decent replacement refs for the next time the contracts expire.

   Anyway, I’m glad but not particularly happy. I think the N.B.A. has real problems with their officiating system and so we’ve basicly gone from replacement refs who had good excuses for being horrible to the “Old School” Refs, who are now going to feel they are even more powerful and more irreplaceable than before.

What I did like about the replacements: less superstar calls; a travel was a travel (sorry Wade, LBJ, et al); less superstar calls; and less superstar calls.

Also, a little less of what I call “JordanNBA” – where if it looked amazing (and sold tickets, got played on ESPN, etc), it must be legal. Sorry son, that’s a carry, a travel, and a charge.

What wasn’t fun? The pace of the game was destroyed. Kinda reminded me of baseball (which I love, don’t get me wrong) where the ball is actually in-play about 10 to 15 minutes in 3 or 4 hours of a game.

And NO the “independent agency” that supposedly looked at the NBA under a microscope was an absolute joke as is the pathetic yes man, Major General Ronald L. Johnson, “its senior VP of referee operations.” The guy is a tool.

Every NBA team is now ready to roll, and these refs, having missed all of pre-season, will now spend the next 8 games practicing on us! Oy vey…

that because the refs didnt get to see Gregs great pre season performance, they will only have last years performance to go by. Will they give GO the credit he deserves or will he be called for traveling or fouling every time he touches the ball? The replacement refs seemed to give GO the benefit of the doubt and he was able to play way longer minutes because they werent calling him for cheesy fouls or travels. Will these “real” ref be as nice or will they still be whistle happy vs GO?

I will say that GO has obviously worked very hard this offseason to be the player worthy of a #1 pick. That should be enough to make a big difference in how the refs treat him. Other bigs like Dwight Howard and Bynum get the benefit of the doubt because of their star status, now its GOs time.

By the way Greg averaged 13.5points and 9.2rebs per the 7 games in the preseason. With his best games being games #2 and #4 where he had 20pts and 12rebs in game #2 and he had 17pts and 13rebs in game #4.

Getting back to the refs, if they like GOS play this year, I think Greg will end up being considered for the all star game. We could have 3 possible allstars this year if you figure LMA is worthy and Brandon being a shoe in.

bwah bwah bwah hah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

because they’re hard of seeing

well done Dave!

Thank God.

That last game vs. Utah was so bad I’m pretty sure I could have made some of the calls they missed.

I love it

wooooo. Wake me up when we want to get serious about calling the rules correctly. Until then I’ll buy into the fantasy that this is really basketball!