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Originally Posted by boiseball
apparently it was not a must listen; just thought some fellow refs would find it interesting, I figured he must have a chip on his shoulder. I still found myself believing that there is likely some truth to it, particularly his discussion of accountability, how is it that the nba has so many phantom calls, so many calls where you just scratch your head and say, wow that must have been a guess. I do not watch a lot of basketball anymore but my opinion, and it is not something you can prove, is that phantom calls rarely occur in college basketball while they occur regularly in an nba game. And phantom calls are completely different than making calls to benefit superstars (which I hate but may not be the fault of referees if that is what the league preaches).
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I found it very refreshing because you don't hear this type of talk too often. Another thing, Mike is retired, so now the NBA can't do too much to him anymore. Unfortunately, the way this business is, officials don't often speak freely for fear of being blackballed. I loved it and listen to every detail. For instance, the officiating has either just maintained or gotten worse. I totally agree and hears the reason why. Spurs vs. Suns series. Let me preference my comment with these two teams where the best men's teams in the NBA/World for this past season, and they where legit. This was a super challenge for any crew of officials. With that being said, the NBA prouds themselves as being the best in the world, in the best shape, bah, bah, bah.... The level of play was very high in this series, yet the officiating appeared to be behind the whole series. They where getting every 3rd incident. They miss calls because they couldn't keep up, not because they where bad, plus the Suns did something the NBA has never seen before. They would shoot the ball in 7 seconds, and that was a team strategy. The Spurs where good enough legitimately to challenge that strategy and they bought it right back at em, great basketball to watch. This is perhaps the best NBA series of all time because of this stragety. The ref's where lost in transition, imho. It confirms what Mike stated in that I don't feel they where ready, mentality or physically to referee at that level. They mixed crews too, but I didn't see much improvement crew to crew.
I will also say this. The crew that worked the Final Four championship game appeared to me to be too slow, just like in the Spurs series. When the officials are struggling to keep up, they start reaching for calls