Women Refs in the NBA

[Raymond]

Originally Posted by BillyMac

I'm not sure, but I believe that we have a Forum member whose two children did pretty much what Kansas Ref described, going professional (G League, WNBA) at a very young age.

They worked HS and lower level college games with me. So did their cousin who is now an NBA official.

You don't just "join up" to the G-League. The NBA has scouts who attend HS and college games, camps, and higher level AAU type tournaments to see officials who are on the radar. The NBA also has all sorts of Grassroots camps to identify talent.

The NBA does prefer getting their hands on officials before they been indoctrinated by the local vets with bad habits. If you are athletic and can run very well, they figure they can teach you how to officiate.

My HS commissioner and his top trainer are NBA officials. They really don't want the longtime, grizzled vets imparting too much advice on the up-and-coming officials who have potential to break into the NBA or D1 basketball.

[BillyMac]

Originally Posted by Raymond

They worked HS and lower level college games with me.

I didn't mean to imply that they started in the G-League, or the WNBA, but they seemed to go professional at a very young age. I only became an online friend of their Dad a few years ago and maybe I got the wrong impression regarding their age and amateur experience. Dad's seems to be a nice guy and is a good online friend, but please don't tell him that I said that. By the way, he's not the third best official in the family, it's his lovely wife, or the dog, and you can tell him that I said that, he's heard it from me before.

[SC Official]

Originally Posted by Raymond

My HS commissioner and his top trainer are NBA officials. They really don't want the longtime, grizzled vets imparting too much advice on the up-and-coming officials who have potential to break into the NBA or D1 basketball.

This.

Because often the "advice" you get from high school officials who have been "doing this for 30 years" is quite frankly, garbage.