NBA Officiating: Worst of All Major Sports?
Written by ProdigalSun, Monday June 01 2009
We all know NBA officiating has its problems, but is it really the worst?
Dan Bickley, in a recent article on azcentral.com, touched on the sorry state of NBA officiating. There was also an online poll in the article that asked the question "Which major sports league's officiating is the best?"
As of the date I write this article 1,931 people have participated in that poll, and the results are:
NFL: 45.68%
MLB: 39.41%
NHL: 12.74%
NBA: 2.18%
The NBA only mustered 2.18% of the vote?! Now let's put this poll in perspective, here. The majority of the participants in the poll were most likely Suns fans, and it's no secret they're not exactly fond of NBA officials or the NBA front office, especially since Robert Horry's infamous body check of Steve Nash and subsequent suspensions of Amaré Stoudemire and Boris Diaw for leaving the bench area.
Phoenix Suns fans trust NBA officials about as much as they trust a scoop of ice cream not to melt into a gooey mess within minutes on a hot Phoenix summer day.
Still, only 2.18%?
It makes me wonder what the vote totals would be in a national poll. I have to believe that even though the percentages might be different, the order would be the same.
Bickley noted:
"During the regular season, [Lebron] James averaged only 1.7 fouls per game while playing an average of 37.7 minutes. That's remarkable. He also received 22 first-place votes for defensive player of the year, an award that normally requires physical, aggressive play. Yet James never had more than four fouls in any of the 81 games he played during the regular season."
(I must admit, I was happy when Orlando destroyed the Cavs in the Eastern Conference Finals. I was sick and tired of all the Kobe-LeBron hype. But I digress.)
Contrast that with STAT (Amaré Stoudemire). I don't have the specific numbers, but sometimes it seems that if he looks a guy funny, he gets called for a foul.
I was listening KTAR on the way to work one morning, and Ron Wolfley did point something out that really stood out to me. He said that basketball is the most difficult sport to officiate. I would have to agree.
Still, is there not something that can be done about the blatantly obvious problems? If the fans don't trust the officials, how do you think the players and coaches feel?
Yet...for all the problems, us basketball fans keep coming back for more! Why? Because darn it, we love this game.
Maybe, if we really love it that much, we need to stay away from it for a while until Stern and Co. get a clue.
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One of the reasons I cannot watch much NBA is the bizarre officiating. What is a travel one day is not the next. What is a charge for one guy is not for the next. Shaq got away with countless aggressive fouls in his career. And, the drama that the players are forced to bring multiple times a game in order to get the call--nauseating. In the NFL, there are usually only a few issues a game with the conception of pass interference or not, but in the NBA, particularly in the playoffs, I see the same poor judgement which leans toward the institutions favor repeated over and over again. Then there's the gambling problem that the NBA refs have, which I am sure was not limited to the one scapegoat. Anyway, you make a great point, and for a guy who doesn't pay much attention to the NBA relative to his passion for the NFL, I say--"great article." Thanks!