The new era of NBA refereeing is far from black and white
The NBA wants a fast and watchable game, able to be enjoyed by casual and die-hard fans alike, but the start of the 2019/20 season does not seem to be going to plan.
Refereeing has always and will always be a contentious issue in all sports. Not every person will be 100 percent happy with how every game is officiated, as can only be expected. Referees can make or break a game, can make fan bases turn against each other and some can even be so wrong (or right) that both sides can agree on how bad (or good) a referee is.
As technology improves, every part of our world is seemingly bettered by the use of technology within it.
The world of sports is, however, is a little different.
Every sports league and sports team that I can think of is using the newfound technology and information at their disposal to try to push themselves further into the future, not all are doing so successfully.
The AFL now counts as many statistics as US sports do, as well as having had goal line cameras installed for calls that are too hard for the human eye to distinguish.This causes mid-game delays that have never happened before in the history of the sport.
Most of the world’s soccer leagues now employ video assistant referee (VAR) to either apply penalties that were missed or alternatively strip teams of penalties that were wrongly given, many calls of which are near impossible for the naked eye to see but as clear as day on a slow-motion, high definition image.
Unsurprisingly, all of these technological advancements have been hit with an extreme amount of backlash, the main reason being that a lot of these methods vastly slow the flow of the game and a lot of the time can be things so minuscule that many would consider it useless to even bother looking over.
It does have its perks. As technology allows teams who have been wronged to turn what was originally an incorrect call into a right one, and games can seem a lot fairer if umpiring or refereeing is not marred by human error if done correctly.
But could it all be going too far?
Basketball is well and truly back, and before the season began the NBA referees told teams that they would be going a lot harder on the smaller things that happen regularly in any given game. Uncalled travels and illegal and moving screens are two major talking points that have been a major point of emphasis for the refs in the first few weeks of the 2019/20 season, much to the dismay or delight of many fans, relative to where they stand on the issue at hand.
Some basketball purists love the new push, appreciating that the referees want the rules to be followed effectively to the letter of the law. But the majority of the NBA viewership prefer an ongoing game with fewer breaks and more steady game play.
Coaches challenges are also now a thing in the NBA, where each team’s coach has one challenge and may challenge a personal foul, out-of-bounds calls, goaltending or a basket-interference. For more information feel free to read Jordan Greer’s recap but that’s the main gist of it.
The flow of each game seems to be a lot more stop and start to the naked eye so far this year, offensive possessions being broken down by a lazy screen or a well-timed flop being called more aggressively by the referees. The whistle goes off what feels like every second play down the court and it frustrates the players to no end, not to mention what it does to the spectators and fans.
The average fouls per game has risen to 22.7, as averaged across the league, compared to last year’s average number of 20.97. Although there is only a small sample size of games to go off this season, that is quite a significant jump in blown whistles when expanded across a 30 team league.
This year’s current leader in fouls per game is Phoenix with a whopping average of 28, compared to last year’s leader Atlanta with only 23.6. Another immense difference.
For all we know it could just be a skewed number affected by the first two weeks of this season, and that number will lower itself as the season plays itself out. The referees will relax with the whistle or the players play more to fit what game style the refs are looking for.
I’m not entirely sure whether that will be the case or not, but the eye test is quite often a very good barometer for how things will play out, and when initially backed by the stats it means this could be an ugly year for NBA refs, coaches and players alike.
Coaches challenges, on the other hand, are a lot harder to account for statistically, as coaches are only just figuring out how and when to deploy this new weapon they have to shape the game to better their team’s chances.
Only one game has had a challenge truly affect the outcome of a game this year. With the Portland Trail Blazers leading 120–119 over the Dallas Mavericks with twelve seconds left to play, Dorian Finney-Smith grabs an offensive rebound and is promptly stripped of the ball by lead Blazer Damian Lillard as he attempts to put the ball back into the hoop. The call was originally a reaching foul on Lillard but Blazers coach Terry Stotts challenged the call and on further review Lillard’s strip was clean and the Blazers were awarded the ball and subsequently held on to win the game.
Keeping the challenge until the end of a close game is a smart use of the new rule and a tactic that I believe more coaches will employ as we delve further into the season. However most other challenges have been thrown away on menial calls in the first half or so of the game. Even as a one year trial, the jury is very much still out on this tool so far.
The NFL has also recently updated its review system after a season-changing missed call in last year’s NFC Championship game between the New Orleans Saints and Los Angeles Rams. The Saints were cost a chance to play in the Superbowl and a chance at an NFL Championship because of a missed call which was not reviewable.
The natural next step for the NFL was to implement a rule which would stop such a thing from happening again. Coaches are now able to challenge pass interference calls that they believe have been called incorrectly.
Between weeks three to eight in this NFL season, coaches are one from 21 in pass interference reviews, and seven from 40 across the entire season (including reviews that were done by the league office, not just the coaches themselves). That’s 33 more times so far this season that several minutes had been wasted on a call that was not overturned, in an already slow sport compared to basketball.
The major issue that the NBA at large faces is keeping its content streamlined and watchable in a two to two and a half hour time span but not sacrificing the integrity of the game.
Foul reviews and late-game out of bounds plays are among the time-consuming facets of the game, allowing coaches the ability to now choose when they want these reviews to happen spells trouble for the NBA’s push for faster games. If the NFL review statistics have any significance regarding the NBA, it is a bad sign.
Perhaps this could work out for the best. Games that are fairly officiated should create a more wholesome outcome with less complaints about the outcome itself, but if getting to that outcome means sacrificing the viewers sanity as they are inundated by advertisements both in the stadium and at home it may not be the best path to take.
This seems to be a major case of ‘do not fix what is not broken’ when it comes to the NBA. No matter how much technology is implemented, human error will forever play into the adjudicating of the game no matter how much you strip away from the referees and give to the coaches and players.
Calls will still be missed, challenges will go unchanged and the world’s most watchable game will fall into the trap that every other league seems to be falling into.
A slow death trap.
