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From the AP:
Former referee Hue Hollins said yesterday that he brought this up "years ago," when Ed Rush was the NBA's director of officiating.
"These were my exact words: I said, 'Ed, we do not do a good job of refereeing our big people,' " Hollins said in a telephone interview. "And that has been the way since I've been in the league. You can go back to the Patrick Ewings, Yao Mings, Shaquille O'Neals. I said, 'Just because a little guy who weighs 180 pounds runs into the chest of Shaquille O'Neal and O'Neal doesn't fall down, that doesn't mean [the little guy] didn't commit an offensive foul.' "
Hollins said it was difficult to believe that a referee would single out a player.
"I can understand David's point," Hollins said. "You don't want to ever have that kind of impropriety even thought about. I've watched that series... and the times that he has set an illegal pick, I saw the guys call it. I don't think he's getting away with anything that anyone else gets away with."
But Hollins also said that officials don't emerge from their hotel rooms totally unaware of what's going on outside.
"The one thing you don't want as an official is to be surprised," he said. "If you're a crew chief, you'd have a rather thorough pregame meeting. Guys read the papers. Are you going to be more cognizant of a guy doing something? Of course you would. That's human nature... Don't discount this [either]. We have superstar people in this league. Do we want that big man sitting on the bench? I don't think so. Let's be real about this."
The problem for Van Gundy is that if he names the referee, he risks incurring the (sotto voce) wrath of officials. But if he pleads the Fifth - or says he made the whole thing up to make a point, a theory the league is peddling to some - he will have Stern to deal with down the road.
Talk about a Hobson's choice.
"If he was lying, I would think they would have him on a very, very short leash," Hollins said of his referee brethren. "No one wants you to discredit their profession. Knowing Jeff, it would be very hard for me to believe he was lying. I have a lot of respect for him."
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