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Originally Posted by Jurassic Referee
OK.
I saw M&M up in a tree once screeching and wanking off. It was in his front yard. I told him to **** off. I was wrong. Next time I'll just laugh at him and say "O, just another Cubs fan".
Thank you, O Wise One.....
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Hey!
How the heck did I get dragged into this? No wonder I'm grumpier than JR...
Well, as long as I'm here, I might as well throw in my two cents. There's always the human factor. I think BBallRef said earlier - the perfect game has never been played, coached, or officiated. No matter how hard you recruit great players, give them great facilities, and give them the best coaching staff money can buy, they will still occasionally miss free throws that will lose a game for the team. The same with officials - you might be able to recruit the best people, give them the best salaries, give them the day off for their kids' birthdays, and they still might have a brain fart on that one, important call. It will happen less often with the better players and officials, but it will still happen. Or, they might just have the one particular angle that doesn't give them the best view. All good officials know it's all about angles; we try to be in position to get the best angle on a play. But, sometimes, we don't get that angle. We could be looking right at a play and it sure looks like that arm got whacked. But when we look at the tape later, we can see there was no contact whatsoever. How many times have you seen a play differently on tape than when you watched it live? The better officials will be in position to see the play more often, but due to the speed of the game, there's no way an official will be in the right place 100% of the time. Just like it will be a long time before we see a player shoot 100% for the season, and a team win 100% of their games.
So, stuff will happen. At some point, there's the law of diminshing returns. Maybe the league can spend a few thousand dollars more to get the % of correct calls up from 92% to 93% (or whatever the actual % is now). But maybe it will cost several million to get it up to 95%? 100% is not possible, so where do they draw the line?
I'm sure you might feel you really are just trying to see to it the league has the best officials. But I think we as officials would feel you have more credibility if you reacted just as passionately in the heat of the moment towards a player that misses a wide-open jumper, or free-throw at the end of a game. If you're in their face, on-camera, as often as you're "in the face" of officials, we might be willing to see that as a genuine passion for winning and a better product. But as long as we see you react towards your players differently that you react towards officials, we don't see you any differently than the average fan - the team is their extended family and they are treated differently than officials. Us vs. Them. Believe me, if I blow a call at the end of a game, I feel just as bad as the player who misses that free-throw. Will you come over and put your arm around me and tell me "that's all right; you'll get it next time" like you do for your player? When you treat your players and officials the same, on and off-camera, you will gain credibility with us. Until then, you appear the same as any average fan, just with more clout.