NBA experiment

[so cal lurker]

While the title of the article -- wanting an extra NBA official solely dedicated to watching for travelling -- sounds humorous, some on here might be interested to hear that the NBA is actually doing some experiments in the development league with using 4 and 5 officials.

http://www.sfgate.com/warriors/artic...n-10793776.php

[diehardmason]

A friend is an NBA official and we talked about this over the summer. 5 is too much. 4 may be too much. At some point there is a human aspect to the game. 4 or 5 still won't catch everything. We can't be perfect.


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[Nevadaref]

They should just remove the officials from the court and adjudicate the game entirely via video.

[Thumper68]

Originally Posted by Nevadaref

They should just remove the officials from the court and adjudicate the game entirely via video.

They could just hire Jay Bilas! He could anounce the game and adjudicate it at the same time. Save some money while they are at it.

[crosscountry55]

Originally Posted by diehardmason

A friend is an NBA official and we talked about this over the summer. 5 is too much. 4 may be too much. At some point there is a human aspect to the game. 4 or 5 still won't catch everything. We can't be perfect.

BNR may remember this....I was fortunate to be in a teaching session with Donnie Vaden two summers ago and we talked for darn near an hour about the idea of 4-person crews. He mentioned that other sports have consistently been adding officials/umps, if not for the regular season at least for post-season....so why couldn't the NBA as well? Then we went into various theories and proposals for how the 4-p mechanics would work. It was a scintillating whiteboard demo. Donnie sold Mark Cuban on the idea and evidently, since we're now at the point of experimenting during actual D-League games, he sold enough other people as well.

Hopefully some of our gurus can get some clips of these games and post them for our entertainment and debate.

[Raymond]

Originally Posted by crosscountry55

BNR may remember this....I was fortunate to be in a teaching session with Donnie Vaden two summers ago and we talked for darn near an hour about the idea of 4-person crews. He mentioned that other sports have consistently been adding officials/umps, if not for the regular season at least for post-season....so why couldn't the NBA as well? Then we went into various theories and proposals for how the 4-p mechanics would work. It was a scintillating whiteboard demo. Donnie sold Mark Cuban on the idea and evidently, since we're now at the point of experimenting during actual D-League games, he sold enough other people as well.

Hopefully some of our gurus can get some clips of these games and post them for our entertainment and debate.

I hate the idea. 3-man is ideal, IMO. Of course, I'll never work at a level that will implement this, so I am unaffected.

[jTheUmp]

Adding officials in other sports (especially football) makes sense, but I'm not sure it makes a whole lot of sense in basketball.

Basketball has 10 players in a relatively small space, so each official has to watch, on average, 3-4 players.

Football has 22 players on a field that's about 4.5 times the size of a basketball court. With 7 (or 8) officials, each individual official needs to watch 2-3 players at a time. With 5 officials, each official is watching 4-5 players, again on a much larger playing surface than basketball has.

I'm over-generalizing, of course, but my basic point still stands.

With that said, I'll be interested to see what happens with the NBA experiments.

[SNIPERBBB]

Originally Posted by jTheUmp

Adding officials in other sports (especially football) makes sense, but I'm not sure it makes a whole lot of sense in basketball.

Basketball has 10 players in a relatively small space, so each official has to watch, on average, 3-4 players.

Football has 22 players on a field that's about 4.5 times the size of a basketball court. With 7 (or 8) officials, each individual official needs to watch 2-3 players at a time. With 5 officials, each official is watching 4-5 players, again on a much larger playing surface than basketball has.

I'm over-generalizing, of course, but my basic point still stands.

With that said, I'll be interested to see what happens with the NBA experiments.

Old man mechanics...6man basketball 2 old guys on each endline and 2 guys stuck in the middle.

[Camron Rust]

Originally Posted by jTheUmp

Adding officials in other sports (especially football) makes sense, but I'm not sure it makes a whole lot of sense in basketball.

Basketball has 10 players in a relatively small space, so each official has to watch, on average, 3-4 players.

Football has 22 players on a field that's about 4.5 times the size of a basketball court. With 7 (or 8) officials, each individual official needs to watch 2-3 players at a time. With 5 officials, each official is watching 4-5 players, again on a much larger playing surface than basketball has.

I'm over-generalizing, of course, but my basic point still stands.

With that said, I'll be interested to see what happens with the NBA experiments.

How about tennis? There are up to 11 officials for tennis, with 2 players.

Using tennis as a reference, we should have 55 officials.