NBA Refs Protest Colleague's Punishment

[RefSouthAlb]

The rule book has added the "Inadvertent whistle" rule in the rulebook this year to deal with situations such as this.

So we are guided by the rule book in this situation (ie an inadvertent whistle) and handle it as per the rule book and the referee is fined???

Should he also be fined for not calling the travel on the spectacular dunk by the superstar. Calling back 4 or 5 of those dunks would have changed the outcome of the game. How about all the carrying of the ball that KOBE does game in and game out. Change the game of course.

Seems the powers that be are bowing to pressure.

I don't see anything wrong with what Henderson did and I agree with what the other refs did to support him.

[ace]

Gentleman Gentleman! I dont see how any of you guys can sit here and critize the NBA Officiating. Is it becasue we're always critical to higher levels? I've always been taught to not critisize unless you know something about it. The NBA philosphies on officiating are WAY different than they are on the lower levels. I've never read a manual, and yes they do exist because I've seen one and thumbed through it. But the application of the rules is different at that level. To explain it would take forever to type and Im not sure any of you would even listen. The star system does not exist as many of you guys imply. The NBA allows aggressive, not rough play. One of the goals of the NBA is too keep the game moving. That is while you see that anytime there is more than two minutes on the clock you'll see Whistle:signal:BAM! official is gone to new position. Friday night at the rockets game there was a travel call on portland. Official was starting to give the signal as he started to run back down to lead. Total dead ball time was like 7 some-odd seconds.

[ump76]

I support Mr. Henderson 100%. I have had one inadverdant
whistle and what did we do? We went to the arrow. What else could he have done. And if you see the play from where he was at you can not tell for sure if the ball hit the rim.

[ref18]

If they make good on their threat to fire every ref who participated in this protest, that's 27 refs, out of a staff of 50 (i'm not sure about this number, if i'm wrong, please correct me). Who will they use to ref the remaining games???

[Back In The Saddle]

Originally posted by Jurassic Referee

Say what? Getting it wrong got the ref punished.

Getting it wrong would have been to play on while his partners knew the ball hit the rim. Instead, they got together, talked about what happened, and ruled an inadvertant whistle.

Blow calls happen. They happen to everybody once in a while. To suspend a guy for three games because he kicked a call and then fixed it according to the rules is messed up. People who know I ref sometimes ask me if I have aspirations to work in the NBA. I just laugh, not on your life!

[Edited by Back In The Saddle on Mar 1st, 2004 at 04:45 PM]

[RefSouthAlb]

Honestly, I think the best thing the refs could have done as a show of solidarity was actually call the game by the letter of the law.

ie call all travels, carries, grabs, pushes, backdowns, moving screens etc.

That would give the message that the players are not perfect. We let them play, at the same time the benefit of the doubt should be given to the officials in situations like that. The ref knew he kicked the call, and corrected it.

Enuf said

[ref18]

Originally posted by RefSouthAlb
Honestly, I think the best thing the refs could have done as a show of solidarity was actually call the game by the letter of the law.

ie call all travels, carries, grabs, pushes, backdowns, moving screens etc.



Enuf said

That would be an awesome way to protest
I would love to see that.

[ace]

That would have been a better way to protest, But you know the shirts were an orignal idea. And after they took of thier jackets and showed everyone in the arena that they were all 62 It was business from there. I mean they could have let the game become a major fight fest but instead they took care of business as usual with the exception of the shirts. I read an article on MSNBC today with players and coaches all agreeing that was a prettty good message that they sent across, it was uniform with the excpetion of two officials. They'll likely suspend each official one game at a time. You cant suspend your whole staff in mid season. And really, do you think they're going to fire guys like Steve Javie?

[Forksref]

I agree with BktballRef. Error in judgment results in 3-game suspension? Does that mean my next OOB call that is judged wrong results in a 3-game suspension? You think you have a shortage of good officials now??

[SMEngmann]

I was watching a couple of talking heads on ESPN today and one of them had the interesting point that this is media driven. There's the crazy NBA conspiracy theory that's been put forth by people who've never called a game before claiming that the league favors the Lakers. Supposedly because the inadvertant whistle benefitted the Lakers, the league wanted to send a message that they do not favor the Lakers and did so by imposing a draconian penalty on an official and publicizing it. The error made by Henderson was not nearly as bad as Tom White's misapplication of the rules in an NFL game that got him and his crew fined. Bad calls are simply part of the game, and since the error was judgement, unless Henderson showed a propensity to make judgement errors throughout the season, he should not have been punished this harshly. This punishment sends the wrong message to the players and the fans that the league doesn't stand behind the officials and the NBA refs were absolutely right to protest.

[oc]

Most here seems to agree that the ref was unfairly treated because he fixed the inadvertant whistle properly according to the rules. But did he? I didn't see the play but as I read it Carmelo Anthony was rebounding the ball as the inadvertant whistle went off. Why was there a jump ball instead of giving the ball to the Nuggets? As no one has brought this up I am assuming I am missing something. What? Was the whistle before the rebound?



Another question-according to one newspaper I read, Marcus Camby chased the refs down the hall yelling obsenities at them and even threw a towel at them from the door of the official's locker room. Even if the NBA did decide the ref made a mistake this shouldn't be tolerated. Has anyone heard if Camby was punished?

[Edited by oc on Mar 2nd, 2004 at 04:53 PM]

[Mark Dexter]

Originally posted by ref18
If they make good on their threat to fire every ref who participated in this protest, that's 27 refs, out of a staff of 50 (i'm not sure about this number, if i'm wrong, please correct me). Who will they use to ref the remaining games???

I think they're now at 59 total.

Not that I agree with the suspension or the threatened firing, I'm going to go update my resume.

[Brad]

If they fired anyone over the protests there would be a HUGE protest by the NBRA.

The officials had to do something publicly to gain attention to the matter. When Shaq gets suspended (rightfully so) for one game for saying MF and other stuff on live TV every SportsCenter and other sports program is talking about it. When an official gets a 3-day suspension for a single error in judgment no one cares -- the majority of fans would like to see all of us fired.

[dhodges007]

Originally posted by Mark Dexter

I think they're now at 59 total.

Not that I agree with the suspension or the threatened firing, I'm going to go update my resume.

59 is correct.