Bill Simmons calls out the Refs and Stern
by Blazin'aTrail on May 28, 2009 9:57 AM PDT
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PrintThis article was on the front page on ESPN.com this morning.
<a href="http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/090528&sportCat=nba">Bill Simmons</a>
Now i know many people on this site were getting sick and tired of the "Blame the Ref!" and i have stayed relatively quiet about his topic but at this point you just cant tell me that there is not a serious problem. In the article Simmons throws out some ideas about using the internet to embarass the league into making a change. YouTube clips, high traffic sites and blogs tracking bad/missed calls, things of that nature. Just got me thinking about what us fans could do to start a change outside of turning off the TV. Those of you who agree that there is a problem, what can we do to start the revolution!!
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im an html noob
but that looks ok to me, i gotta go to work but i can’t figure out whats wrong. sorry everyone……..
- Neil
by Blazin'aTrail on May 28, 2009 10:00 AM PDT up reply actions
Link
"It all depends on where his growth will come and we think his growth will come within us" -- Kevin Pritchard on Jerryd Bayless
Here's a link.
Story is about half way down the page.
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/090528&sportCat=nba
My favorite teams are the Blazers and any team that is playing the Lakers.
Huh. For some reason it didn't go all red.
My favorite teams are the Blazers and any team that is playing the Lakers.
by OCBlazerFan1 on May 28, 2009 10:11 AM PDT up reply actions
I reached that point after the Mavs-Nuggets game that should have tied the series 2-2 with the blown call and...nothing
The NBA even admitted it was a blown call, but still couldn’t do anything about it. The same with the idiotic rule that you can review if a shot was before or behind the three point line, but not if it was within the shot clock (unless it’s ending the quarter/game). And If you send suggestions to the NBA, you get back a standard mail that assures you the refs are the best-metricized and controlled group of employees in the world. Thank you for contacting the NBA league office.
One of the Nuggets players
accused the Lakers of paying $50,000 to win the game.
Certified blazer.fangirl
What? Is that serious? Where can I find it?
I'm a really really ridiculously good looking orange mocha frappaccino drinking manhammer sandwich
Ahh
In other words he didn’t say they paid off the refs, he simply is saying that Jackson eating a 50k fine caused the refs to call like crap.
Jackson isn’t a very good coach I guess. Adelman pulled off the same thing for 25k and it might have been free had they not decided to fine Nate as well a few games later.
I have no respect for Bill Simmons
99% of what he types at the keyboard is garbage. Picking on the refs is the ultimate low hanging fruit.
Of course he’s right, but until there’s software calibrated to detect fouls using the cameras on the court in real time, the problem is not going to be solved effectively.
The refs decide the outcomes of games with their foul calls. They do not call games evenly, and they don’t call them consistently even within the same game, sometimes from minute to minute.
The players still need to put the ball in the basket, but taking it inside is putting the outcome in the hands of the guys with the whistles. That didn’t work out last night for Denver.
The league can’t be embarrassed into fixing the problem, no matter how many blown calls they’re shown up on, because they have no solution – you can’t have instant replay on every play.
They can't fix it outright, but they can improve it
It’s fact that some refs call more fouls on the home team than others, that some refs called techs quicker, some refs call more fouls period, and so on.
This is silly. The rules are the same for every ref, why don’t they call the game the same, or at least remotely close to the same?
These guys are making pretty good money to do their job, they should have to go through training to stay good at it. Shoot, doctors are upgrading their training NON STOP and they make way less money than these guys do.
Yeah, I don't know
It seems to me if the refs could get better at their job by doing XXX, no matter what that is, they’d already be doing it. Wouldn’t it be a pleasant novelty for the NBA to have a playoffs without the terrible refereeing not being a major issue?
I’ve got to think the league just doesn’t know how to improve the job the refs do. There’s got to be more to it than just pointing out they need to make more calls against the home team.
*I’ve got to think the league just doesn’t know how to improve the job the refs do*
If this is true it’s a serious, serious problem. There are a ton of ways to improve the jobs the refs do that aren’t being done.
1. Create teams of refs that always stick together, that ways these teams could be reviewed and their consistency could be checked. The teams would also get to know one another better just like real NBA teams do.
2. Actually give refs grades. If a ref does poorly for too long, fire him. The grades could be based on a variety of different things and would be a pain to create, but it could be done.
3. Don’t be afraid to fire refs. If somebody is bad at their job, they should get the boot, period.
4. Assign refs to games randomly a long time in advance. I don’t know how valid Simmons complaints here are, but if the league really “chooses” refs for games, that is ridiculous. They should all be assigned randomly. Even during the playoffs they should choose the 8-12 teams that they think did the best job during the regular season and use a computer to randomly have them referee the matchups.
Just a start.
No one is asking for perfection
that’s obviously impossible, but the thing that bothers me the most is the lack of desire to improve the quality of officiating in the NBA. And the blind defense of the ref’s no matter what happened. The refs pretty much have a license to do whatever the heck they want and there are no repercussions at all.
- Neil
by Blazin'aTrail on May 28, 2009 12:07 PM PDT up reply actions
Pretty sure my point agrees with yours sir :-)
Baduk said that if they could make the refs better, they would already be doing so. I offered why I don’t agree with that statement.
no it does
sorry i just couldn’t help but throw my two cents in there :)
- Neil
by Blazin'aTrail on May 28, 2009 1:22 PM PDT up reply actions
Some possibilities
1. Ref teams – I guess this could work if they didn’t get sick of each other. I’d like to see it tried. The union might oppose it, though they’d have less incentive to do so than the other stuff below…
2. Ref grades – I think they actually do this, it’s just not publicized. Acknowledging a ref is bad is a sure fire way to undermine their authority in calling games. Refs in the league do come and go. The “best” ones stay for a long time, so eventually there’s a concentration of the ones the league considers the “best”.
3. Fire refs – they aren’t generally fired during the season (Crawford was suspended, for example), but they are not hired back for the next season if there are issues. It’s my understanding that this happens regularly (I’d welcome hard numbers here), though it’s less common with more experienced refs. Their union has some clout here.
4. Early assignments – I think they avoid this to minimize the possibilities for tampering and teams gearing their games towards particular refs pet peeves. “Z doesn’t call many hand-checks, so feel free to grab and hold on the perimeter…” They can still do this just before the game to some extent, granted.
One thing I would like to see is greater transparency, as Henry has called for on TrueHoop, if it can be done in a way that doesn’t undermine the refs ability to do their jobs. It would incumbent upon the league to act when refs had a steady diet of blown calls, giving them leverage against the union.
Football has teams that always work together. A lead official and his team.
While refs are graded, there is no demotion for having a bad season, just a HEY DO BETTER NEXT YEAR PLEASE.
There are some good young refs. They should also push the guys who are over 55 out the door. No need for someone that old to still be reffing. Other than to tell Phil Jackson to shut up, or I will T you up like I did when you were a rookie!
Follow the RULEBOOK. I know this sounds CRAZY but actually call the game the way it supposed to be. You know, irregardless of the time in the game or who the players in the game are. They have admitted they dont really exactly kinda sorta follow the rules. The players have to. So should they.
by GreatOden'sRaven on May 28, 2009 4:29 PM PDT up reply actions
Just like some younger people,
some older people are pretty cool, and pretty competent. Can’t make blanket judgements based on age, just like sex, skin color or tattoos. Not that I’m 55 now, but it’s not as far off as it once was… ;-)
You're assuming that getting better is imperitive. I posted a link to a video about incompetence
and how we view ourselves. It can help us understand what the problem could be (ie you get on incompetent person doing the hiring and firing and it is ALL OVER).
The links in the fanshots under OT something or other.
I'm a really really ridiculously good looking orange mocha frappaccino drinking manhammer sandwich
Bill Simons isn't that bad
he is funny and a good writer. You just have to take him fro what he is and realize his basketball knwledge is seriously lacking.
They absolutely could have instant replay on every play
The argument against basically says it would slow down the game. That’s surmountable. Put three guys in separate rooms with cams for all the TV angles. Each game is televised now, so it wouldn’t be tough. Every time a ref called a foul, these guys could review it instantly. If they over-rule, they get on the radio and say to correct. Pretty simply and mind blowingly easy to do. It wouldn’t slow the game in the least. It would add people who aren’t tired, can see from different angles, have replay. It’s a no-brainer. If you care that is.
I'm a really really ridiculously good looking orange mocha frappaccino drinking manhammer sandwich
Maybe, but...
They’d have only 3-5 seconds to make the call because the refs need to take the ball to the side or baseline and hand it to someone to play. Which would mean they’d need to be able to review from multiple angles and make a decision extremely quickly.
If the whistle were overruled, the refs would have to accommodate being publicly wrong, possibly repeatedly in a game. This would not be popular among refs, at all. I can see them fighting it very hard. Each overrule is a rebuke, and a ref who had been overruled several times in a game would have a crisis of authority. While this would be justified, it would make doing their job that much harder.
Plus, who watches the watchmen? What if the tape reviewers, due to the limited angles from which they can review plays and the very short decision window, don’t see a foul the ref did? What if they make the mistake? And what about non-calls, where the refs don’t call an obvious foul and play continues? It wouldn’t fix the Dallas-Denver game intentional foul non-call issue, for example.
What you’re proposing is intriguing, but it’s anything but “pretty simple.”
It’s also 90 more guys who draw salaries from the NBA, not counting techs to support them.
One thing he brings up that isn't on the refs themseles
Is the league’s officiating assignments. He states:
“We still don’t know why certain referees get assigned to certain games, why Bennett Salvatore always seems to be involved when a home team needs a win to change the momentum of a series, why Joey Crawford keeps getting assigned to Spurs games [after infamously challenging Tim Duncan to a fight mid-game], why Danny Crawford keeps getting assigned to Mavericks games [Mavs are 1-15 in playoff games officiated by Crawford], why Bill Kennedy would get assigned to a big Celtics game only six weeks after an argument cost Doc Rivers money. We are told that referees don’t matter, but that’s the thing: They do.”
This is 100% in the league office’s hands. Whether or not these officials determine the outcome of the games is up for debate. But the league could aoid so much bad publicity and so many conspiracy theories by simply keeping referees away from the few teams they hae a bad history with. The league officiating pool is deep enough that its almost EASIER to keep these refs away from potential hotspots than to continually and deliberately place them in the spotlight. While i dont know Mr. Stern’s logic for setting up the officials the way he does, i do know its counterproductie to quieting the uproar regarding poor officiating.
This is a slippery slope, isn't it?
If Doc Rivers can’t have a game reffed by Kennedy, can he have one reffed by Bill Spooner, who, let’s say, gave him a tech in April? Or how about Jack Nies, who ejected him from a game in January?
I imagine if a coach were around long enough, like Jerry Sloan, it’d be possible for him to have had run ins with every ref in the league but the rookies, who don’t get to ref playoff games.
Once the NBA admits a bias, they open the door to every possible variation of a basis for it. Where does it end? Is Danny Crawford really the reason Dallas can’t win when he’s working the game? If so, there ought to be evidence to support that claim. Without it, the figure is a statistical anomaly. In the face of verifiable proof, the league would be hard pressed not to act.
If you are bad at you job you get fired
I don;t feel that is true for refs, I am all for not making refs a scape goat but anytime anyone says something about the refs they get fined but what about when ref makes multiple bad calls? It does’t seem like the accountability is there
"Sometimes I catch myself watching him and he's shooting floaters all-net. And just to watch how he's talking trash. I loved it. I loved every minute of it. Rudy's a competitor." - Brandon Roy
Refs make bad calls like players take bad shots
It happens.
BTW. I’m still in favor of banning anything Simmons related.
"I'm at the thingamajig talking the yakety-yak" - Kenny Smith
Most players get in trouble for taking bad shots
Also, the players are SUPPOSED to create the outcome of the game. The refs aren’t.
That would be cool if you could bench the ref for blowing calls.
My favorite teams are the Blazers and any team that is playing the Lakers.
by OCBlazerFan1 on May 28, 2009 1:05 PM PDT up reply actions
Actually most players don't get benched for taking bad shots
Refs probably get a scolding like players.
It would be funny to see a roster of refs.
"I'm at the thingamajig talking the yakety-yak" - Kenny Smith
I think Sergio has been benched for shot selection a time or two.
Roster of refs would be hilarious!
My favorite teams are the Blazers and any team that is playing the Lakers.
by OCBlazerFan1 on May 28, 2009 1:38 PM PDT up reply actions
And poor descision making, bad execution, turnovers, mistakes
screw ups, miscommunications, poor defense…
Anyone got anything else Sergio’s been benched for?
I know less than half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.
by haildablazer on May 28, 2009 3:29 PM PDT up reply actions
Also Simmons thought about players calling their own fouls is... no
Duncan and Kobe would shoot 168 FTs a game… each.
You think a player would say "oh sorry, I touched Kobe when he barreled into the lane, free throws"?
On the playground you can yell all day long for fouls, if nobody believes you there are no free throws.
It’s not a perfectly thought out idea, but at least it’s a new one that would shift the responsibility.
On the playground we didn't do FTs period
But calling your own fouls meant it didn’t matter if the defender thought he fouled you. The offensive guy got to call it regardless. Granted, a defender could call a foul on himself, but that rarely happened when the offensive guy wasn’t already calling it.
Maybe other playgrounds did it different, who knows.
On my play ground it isn't a foul unless a guy gets stabbed or knocked out.
I used to play with Ron Artest.
When I play pick up games
I like the D to call fouls only. As long as you’re not playing with jerks, it’s a good game.
I'm a really really ridiculously good looking orange mocha frappaccino drinking manhammer sandwich
That's pretty much how I remember it.
The D would occassionally call their own fouls, but more often it was the Offense.
And I loved the games where the shooter calls a foul every time he misses. The answer to that was pretty straight forward. Next time down you let him know what a real foul looks like.
hakkaa päälle !
This would be great
How many stoppages for arguing the foul? There would be like so many “shoot for the ball” moments. Can you imagine an NBA final game determine by the ball? Rasheed’s “ball don’t lie” dream comes true. This idea excites me, if only for the probable brawl that ensues after a disagreement on the validity of a foul.
"I'm at the thingamajig talking the yakety-yak" - Kenny Smith
problem is
these guys arnt playing for fun, this is a multi-billion dollar industry, so player will try and get any advantage they can get
bayless leaves over my dead body
sign mike bibby
by thomasikehara on May 28, 2009 2:54 PM PDT up reply actions
Simmons must love the hits he gets from BE
That being said, I’m a fan of his podcasts, less a fan of his articles. Too many words.
What about an alternate?
Would having an in-game, alternate referee standing by help this situation? Basically, the teams would decide on switching out a ref, maybe at half-time, if they aren’t satisfied with the way the game is called up to that point. I think it would have to be a consensus decision, which might be hard to reach, but if a ref is simply blowing calls it would be in the best interest of both teams to trade out that ref, even if some calls go more in favor of one team.
The way the game is called might be significantly altered; if a referee knows that the teams have the right to sit him/her at half-time if they don’t like the calls, he/she might be more inclined to get it right the first time. Also, the penalties for continuously being switched out could include more public admonitions.
I am sure this idea is problematic in some ways, and I know the smart readers of Blazersedge will let me know just how it is, but I just thought it was an interesting idea to play around with. What do you think?
In a related story: Violet Palmer has resigned
Violet Palmer has resigned to take a job in college ball. See http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=4213002
One step at time.
yeaaah
bayless leaves over my dead body
sign mike bibby
by thomasikehara on May 28, 2009 4:05 PM PDT up reply actions
Wow a HALF decent Simmons article
Never thought I would see this. Now if he ever writes an article without mentioning “his celtics” I could possibly find his writing interesting.
Please do not feed the B-Rex
I don't get all the Simmons hate
I never understood it. I find him quite entertaining and its not like he isn’t knowlegable. many of his ideas are sound. He just has to present them in a certain format cuz thats his style. Yes he loves Durant. More than anyone. But I dont think we would be complaining if it was Oden he was in love with. We as a group are VERY sensitive to the Oden/Durant debate. Sure he loves the Celtics but his job is not to be objective. He is what Henry Abbott would be if he could. and ESPN would let him. Of course Simmons is also governed by the rules of ESPN, so his current articles and podcasts while funny arent as good as his pre-ESPN stuff when he could say whatever he wanted.
As far as calling your own fouls goes, that will never happen unless the ego gets put in check. so never. Now he is 100% right, the refs do suck. Its awful. there are a few good new guys, but they dont ever replace the older ones.
by GreatOden'sRaven on May 28, 2009 4:26 PM PDT reply actions
Are refs actually worse?
Simmons is entertaining, but he is the master of the blanket, unsubstantiated assertion. Like assigning Salvatore to a game where the home team really needs a W. Is that true? Who knows-seems like something you could look up if you wanted to.
I agree that the refs were way too involved in Game 3 of Orlando-Cleveland and Game 4 Denver-LA, and that Nene got hosed last night, but any close game is going to have calls that aren’t correct IMO- there were some calls last night that I thought the refs missed that were actually good calls, but I could only see it on the slo mo replay.
I think Simmons has taken to wearing some rose colored glasses on a couple fronts. One, the idea that ball in the 80’s was just as physical, but the refs let them play. He references the 84 Finals as an example-go check it out on Youtube (at least games 4 and 7 are on there)-there’s no way that game is as physical as it is now. Also, that series averaged 56 fouls/game, just two less than the apparently intolerable Game 3 of this years ECF. Also, I think he forgets how awful the Riley thugball was to watch in the early-mid 90’s-it was just about as bad as the pre-shotclock thugfests he refers to at the beginning of his article. Remember those Knicks-Heat series? Have close series ever been so unwatchable? I would rather suffer through the occasional too-tightly called playoff game than go back to that era.
ct66
I think you are right on with these observations. Thanks for doing the legwork on those. It does show that Simmons often refuses to admit certain things about what he does not want (often featuring celtics teams). What it does show is, and which some don’t want to admit is that Jordan represents the birth and the death of the NBA playoffs in ways that no has seemed to fully process.
Also, beside the finals series in 04 and 05 (featuring the pistons) there has been significant superstar quality in the finals and its possible that this is what the league needs to look at, especially in relation to lbj and kobe, and examine whether there is similar contact on those two that are called fouls which aren’t on other players.
It may also be interesting going forward, because of Kobe’s declining “going to the basket” game, whether Lebron and his head down, back up and drive game is inherently bad for the game.
All this being said, there has to be something done about drives to the hoop where players have no practical possibility of getting a shot off. I would be all for more no calls in the association
by 8volumesthick on May 28, 2009 9:12 PM PDT up reply actions
Simmons is entertaining, but he is the master of the blanket, unsubstantiated assertion. Like assigning Salvatore to a game where the home team really needs a W. Is that true? Who knows-seems like something you could look up if you wanted to.
That’s exactly what Simmons is advocating; check out this (somewhat lengthy) quote from the article:
At the very least, we can pressure Team Stern to fix its shaky officiating. That’s why I’m calling on the Internets. If you want a blog that gets traffic, start tracking bad playoff calls. Read the rulebook, familiarize yourself with it, watch each game with a fine-tooth comb and jot down every missed call and incorrect call. Chart how the fouls go up and down depending on the quarter. Chart the inconsistencies. Chart the number of calls, as well as the types of calls, that each referee makes and see if there’s some sort of common theme. If you do a good job, I will send you traffic and so will everyone else. It’s that easy.
One other thing to chart: Does the NBA “control” the outcomes of certain games by assigning referees with certain call patterns? For instance, the 2008-09 Celtics were the most physical team in the league. Let’s say they were leading a series 3-2 and the NBA wanted a Game 7. Would it assign some of its most whistle-happy refs to that game? Or let’s say the NBA needed Utah to pull out a must-win game at home. If it had one or two refs with a history of being intimidated by tough crowds, would it feed them to the wolves in Utah? So let’s see this stuff on paper. We have hundreds of stat-obsessed lunatics tracking Derek Jeter’s defensive range or unearthing new ways to rip off VORP; we couldn’t find a few of them to pick apart officials and assignments?
Remember this: The league will change only if it’s embarrassed enough. Web sites tracking official statistics and playoff calls would embarrass them. YouTube clips edited to include every bad call from every playoff game would embarrass them. (For instance, an edited reel of questionable calls from Wednesday night’s Game 5 would be eye-opening, especially Nene’s last two fouls and the 73 times that ’Melo got hacked without a whistle.)
He specifically calls for some sort of internet database in order to shame the league into bending to the pressure to improve officiating. Could it work? Hard to say. But I think that a blog like that, with enough credibility and enough publicity, could make waves.
PUT BATUM IN NOW: Rallying cry of the BBIQ appreciation club
Just keep swimming, just keep swimming...
by rockingharder on May 28, 2009 10:37 PM PDT up reply actions
Just throwing out an idea.
How about player refs? Have Sheed ref a few games when he’s off. Or Tim Duncan, Iverson, K0be. I know, it would never work. Would be funny though.
My favorite teams are the Blazers and any team that is playing the Lakers.
Simmons is great, although he is dead wrong on his prediction about Oden never making the all-star team. To wit, here are some forwards and centers (decent but not great players) who made the team over the past 20 years:
Otis Thorpe
Wally Szczerbiak
Cliff Robinson
Theo Ratliff
Anthony Mason
Kenyon Martin
Jamaal Magliore
Christian Laettner
Andrei Kirilenko
Steve Johnson
Juwan Howard
Tyrone Hill
Tom Gugliotta
Chris Gatling
Cedric Ceballos
Kevin Duckworth (twice)
Zydrunas Ilgauskas (twice)
It’s one thing to say that he won’t be a perpetual all-star, or he won’t be as good as Durant, but NEVER an all-star? Let’s face it, if you have a good run in the first half of the season, and/or you’re on a great team, and/or the conference is down this year, and/or a player or two at your position get injured, and – boom! – you’re an all-star.
MLB2PDX!!! (someday...)
by The Cactus Leaguer on May 30, 2009 3:46 PM PDT reply actions
Yes and no.
I agree that is seems ludicrous that Oden would never make an all-star team, especially given the above list. But I don’t think we can say Simmons is “dead wrong” until G.O. actually does make an all-star team.
I don’t agree with Simmons’ stance on Oden thus far (injury-prone bust, waste of the #1 pick, etc). However, with some of his assertions, there is no way to prove them one way or the other until G.O. has had some time. Once he makes that all-star team, then we’ll be able to say Simmons is wrong. Until then, though, Simmons saying that Greg will never make an all-star team is just as valid as you or I saying he’ll make 12 all-star teams.
All we’ve seen from Greg so far is that he’s an incredibly unlucky center who’s shone flashes of brilliance. We have every reason to believe that he’ll be great, once he shakes off this injury bug.
PUT BATUM IN NOW: Rallying cry of the BBIQ appreciation club
Just keep swimming, just keep swimming...
by rockingharder on May 31, 2009 1:11 PM PDT up reply actions
That’s a fair point, but I am trying to extrapolate based on what I have seen and based on past history. I don’t know what kind of logic Simmons is using in this situation.
One other thing – as Yao and Shaq decline, can you point to two other centers in the West who will for sure be better than Oden every year? Bynum? Nene? Bonner? Chandler? Dampier? Okur? Marc Gasol? Al Jefferson? Kaman? Spencer Hawes?
The only player that definitely has better all-star potential going forward at center is Al Jefferson. Bynum and Chandler have good potential as well but they have equal or worse injury issues as Oden. Maybe Okur but he’s playing out of position (assuming Utah even retains him). That’s about it.
MLB2PDX!!! (someday...)
by The Cactus Leaguer on May 31, 2009 4:53 PM PDT up reply actions
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