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Feb 28, 12:30 PM EST

NBA Refs Protest Colleague's Punishment

By CHRIS SHERIDAN
AP Basketball Writer

All 10 NBA games had one thing in common: referees wearing No. 62. In a rare protest against the punishment handed down to one of their colleagues, game officials turned their jerseys inside-out Friday night and stenciled in the number of referee Michael Henderson.

Henderson's bad call at the end of Wednesday night's Lakers-Nuggets game was publicly acknowledged Thursday by the NBA. Henderson was taken off three job assignments and summoned to the league office, the referees' association said.

"An unprecedented job action was taken against one of their colleagues, so an unprecedented response was necessary," said Lamell McMorris, a spokesman and negotiator for the National Basketball Referees Association.

Referees at every NBA game were expected to take part in the protest, although Eddie F. Rush and Nolan Fine worked the Grizzlies-Bucks game in Milwaukee and did not. The third member of their crew, Rodney Mott, adhered to the protest.

The NBA released a statement from deputy commissioner Russ Granik saying any referees taking part "will be subject to appropriate discipline."

McMorris said Rush and Fine were "intimidated" by refereeing supervisor Ronnie Nunn.

"From what I understand it was typical bullying tactics by the NBA. Ronnie Nunn came in and threatened them, told them if they wore their shirts inside-out they'd be fired," McMorris said.

NBA vice president Stu Jackson did not return a call seeking comment on McMorris' allegation.

In Friday night's games, Cleveland defeated Orlando 112-107 in overtime, Utah surprised Sacramento 102-97, the Los Angeles Clippers edged New York 96-94, Detroit beat Atlanta 105-83, Milwaukee edged Memphis 106-104, Minnesota downed Golden State 91-81, New Orleans beat Indiana 89-77, Houston defeated Portland 89-85, Phoenix beat Seattle 104-99 and Boston topped Toronto 88-75.

Henderson, in his second season as an NBA official, mistakenly whistled a shot clock violation after an attempt by Denver's Andre Miller brushed the rim and was rebounded by a teammate.

The officials huddled and ruled it an inadvertent whistle, resulting in a jump ball. The Lakers won the tip and made the game-winning shot with 3.2 seconds left.

McMorris said Henderson's three-game punishment was unprecedented.

"It's inconsistent with the performance evaluation standards that the league introduced to initiate communication between supervisors and referees," McMorris said. "This has never occurred for a bad call."

Interesting situation, in light of some of our recent discussions. Getting it right gets the ref punished. Not a great message to be sending to your referees.

Say what? :confused: Getting it <b>wrong</b> got the ref punished.

Stern Takes Ref's Professionalism To Task
 

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=1746204

Friday, February 27, 2004
Updated: February 28, 1:25 PM ET


ESPN.com news services
NBA commissioner David Stern has expressed his disappointment with the NBA officials who staged a visible protest of the suspension of referee Michael Henderson at Friday night's games.


NBA referees turned their jerseys inside-out and wore No. 62 -- the number assigned to a disciplined colleague.


"Last night's display was woefully inconsistent with the professionalism with which NBA officials normally conduct themselves," Stern said in a statement on Saturday. "There is nothing more to say at this time."


The league promised more punishment for the referees showing support for Henderson.


The NBA released a statement from deputy commissioner Russ Granik on Friday saying any referees taking part in the protest "will be subject to appropriate discipline."

The officials were responding to Michael Henderson's being taken off three job assignments and summoned to the league office. Henderson's bad call at the end of Wednesday night's Lakers-Nuggets game was publicly acknowledged Thursday by the NBA.


"An unprecedented job action was taken against one of their colleagues, so an unprecedented response was necessary," said Lamell McMorris, a spokesman and negotiator for the National Basketball Referees Association.


Referees at all 10 NBA games Friday night were expected to take part in the protest, although officials Eddie F. Rush and Nolan Fine worked the Grizzlies-Bucks game in Milwaukee and did not. The third member of their crew, Rodney Mott, wore his shirt inside out with No. 62 magic-markered on the back.


McMorris said Rush and Fine were "intimidated" by refereeing supervisor Ronnie Nunn.


"From what I understand it was typical bullying tactics by the NBA. Ronnie Nunn came in and threatened them, told them if they wore their shirts inside-out they'd be fired," McMorris said.


NBA vice president Stu Jackson did not return a call seeking comment on McMorris' allegation.


Henderson, in his second season as an NBA official, mistakenly whistled a shot clock violation after an attempt by Denver's Andre Miller brushed the rim and was rebounded by a teammate.


The officials huddled and ruled it an inadvertent whistle, resulting in a jump ball. The Lakers won the tip and made the game-winning shot with 3.2 seconds left.


"This was an unfortunate call at a highly critical point in the game, and we very much regret the error," NBA vice president Stu Jackson said his statement Thursday. He was not immediately available for comment Friday night.


McMorris said Henderson's three-game punishment was unprecedented.


"It's inconsistent with the performance evaluation standards that the league introduced to initiate communication between supervisors and referees," McMorris said. "This has never occurred for a bad call."


McMorris told SportsTicker he had spoken with Henderson and categorized his mood as "upset, as well as the entire NBRA is upset. He's more hurt than anything."


McMorris has a meeting with the NBA tentatively scheduled for Tuesday morning at the league's offices in New York. Henderson will be represented by McMorris as well as outside counsel.


The referees are currently in the final season of their five-year collective bargaining agreement with the NBA.


"They're in it together. They've got pride," Clippers forward Elton Brand said of the protest. "I guess they're trying to get their point across."


Information from The Associated Press and SportsTicker was used in this report.

According to the NBA Officials Media Guide Henderson is in his 3rd season as a NBA offical. He called 98 regular season games coming into this season. He has 4 years of the WNBA and CBA with five seasons in the USBL. 2 CBA finals and 2 WNBA playoffs.

<b>"Cowardice???</b>

A member of our officiating fraternity made a mistake in judgement, and that's <b>cowardice</b>?

You must be a real treat to officiate with. You'd really have your partners backs, wouldn't you? With a knife in it!

Am I just crazy here. It seems to me that people who are much smarter than myself (jurassic included) are defending this guy. I just don't get it. Am I missing something?

Go away, fanboy! Your only purpose in coming here was to crap on officials. The name-calling is not appreciated.

[Edited by Jurassic Referee on Feb 28th, 2004 at 09:10 PM]

I can understand a suspension for a rule misapplication. I would expect it.

I cannot understand a suspension for an error on a judgment call.

It would seem to me that the officials have every right to be upset.

Isn't the reason he is being suspended is because he affected the outcome of the game by his whistle. If Im correct the Nuggets could have won the game when he blew the whistle. Maybe I'm wrong but that is what I thought

what is going on?
 

hello

im not here too defend michael, but everyone that has worked with him on the court the last 2 years should know how good and official he is. we all make bad calls, you just hope they never happen too affect the outcome of a game, unfortunate for michael this inadvertant whistle did. to me suspending him for 3 games was harsh, we are all human and their will always be error in what we do, what we all need to do is learn from this mistake and make sure it doesnt happen again. this is gonna make michael a better official and you can bet when he steps on that court after his 3 game suspension your gonna see one hell of and official.


tim

Unfortunately i missed the game in question, and i'm sad to say i didn't see any of the friday night games, so i don't know what 3 guys in inside out shirts look like doing a game, but i do know this, we all have blown an inadvertant whistle at some point in our carreers, and this official remedied the situation correctly, why should he face more of a punishment then a player would recieve for physically assaulting a referee?

Good point. Should we be flattered that we are held to a standard of perfection????

Players and coaches make slightly better money than the officials. Players and coaches regularly make bad decisions that cost games. They don't get a 3-game suspension, as a general rule. "Gee Kobe, you should have passed off to Shaq instead of pulling up for the 3! You're suspended!"

Surely if the NBA want more accurate call from referees
all they need to do is use video replays it seems to work in the NFL and NHL

There are plenty of sites dedicated to "bad officiating" -- if you want to bash officials, go find one of them.

Don't be surprised if your attack on an official (especially calling them cowards and/or liars) are quickly and summarily deleted. If you continue posting in the same manner, you will probably find your account deleted as well.

In other words, "Whack! Get out!"

Thanks,
Brad

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.

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.

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.

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???

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]

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

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

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?

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??

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.

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]

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. :p

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.

59 is correct. :)