Was it a foul, or not?
 

Hello guys. Long time lurker to this board. HS Ref from NC.

I wanted to get your opinions on what was a very controversial call from last night's OKC Thunder/ Utah Jazz game:

NBA admits missed foul call in Oklahoma City Thunder-Utah Jazz game Tuesday night - ESPN

Regardless of whether you think it was a foul or not, IMO the NBA basically hung their refs out to dry on what was a very borderline judgement call.

I know NBA officiating is tough, but damn...how can you work in an environment where you're subject to be hung out to dry in a moment's notice for the toughest of calls (or no-calls)?

Anyway, thank you for your responses in advance.

Personally I thought it was a foul when I saw it live and was surprised that it wasn't call. The Thunder also defended the possession before this play horribly leaving Deron Williams wide open but I regress. Missed call, it happens...I'm sure Tony Brothers wishes he could have that one back.

As far as the NBA coming out and saying it was a missed call, that's the nature of the beast in professional sports. Same thing happened during the playoffs last year in both the NBA and MLB. The NFL is also known to comment publicly on controversial rulings.

Here's how your linked story read:

OKLAHOMA CITY -- The NBA announced Wednesday officials missed a foul in the final seconds of Utah's overtime victory over Oklahoma City the previous night.


Here's how the story should have read:

OKLAHOMA CITY -- The NBA announced Wednesday officials missed 114 travel calls in Utah's overtime victory over Oklahoma City the previous night.

114?
 

C'mon Padgett......I've told you 1000 times not to exaggerate! ;)

Should it have been called a foul? Probably.

My questions are these: Would the NBA comment about a missed foul in the first quarter? If not, wouldn't those have been missed points that could affect the game's outcome?

If you're not going to comment about something that happened earlier in the game, then why do it at the end? To do otherwise is simply giving into emotion, and not sticking with consistency.

While as officials, the call early in the game is as important as the late one and we want to get every call correct no matter what, the simple reality is that to everyone else, this is simply not true unless it involves someone getting hurt/ejected. Of course a missed call in the 1st could result in missed points, but no one is going to remember that unlike a play like this. I'm not surprised to see the league offices comment on the play.

With a controversial play that everyone sees on video, of course the league has to comment. What would happen if the league says no comment.

We all make mistakes, we all miss calls, we all try to justify it. learn from them and move on...

If you had a controversial play in a local association and one of us made a wrong rule interp that changed the complexion of the game do we need to be hung out? if there was an issue we need to acknowledge it.

With a missed call in the 1st Q, the team has plenty of opportunities to overcome it. Even if they surrender or miss out on a couple of points early in the game, they can adjust how they play in the future action. They have the chance to tailor their strategy to the situation.

With a missed call right at the end of the game, the team will not have the ability to recover in future game action and if the play happens right at the buzzer, as this one did, they have no chance to employ any sort of strategy to deal with it.

That's why it's different.

The league has kept their mouths shut on plenty of controversial plays before. And this wasn't a rule interpretation; it was a judgement call. A call, I might add, that was so close that you had to have the camera zoom-in to see where contact was actually made. It wasn't as if it was displacement or a clear hold.

But I "understand" where that came from, as that apology was due to the politics within the NBA and a future superstar within the league, and not about the officials themselves.

It was a make up call, 12 years later...

Jordan pushes Russell 1998

Sorry, the fanboy in me comes out ocassionally. It won't happen again.:)

The reason this no call is huge is that it DECIDED the outcome of the game.

Dude: smiley, blue font -- something? ;)

Wrong rules interps and missed judgment calls are two completely different and disparate animals imo, and should be treated as such if you have to answer complaints about either.

I agree fully that any legitimate complaints that come into a local association should always be truthfully answered. I think that anyone responding to complaints on either a wrong rules interp or a missed judgment call should be right up-front. However the responses should be different. On a missed interp, you tell somebody that, yes, the official kicked the rule, has been told about it and it shouldn't happen again. On a missed judgment call, that's exactly what you should tell the complainant. You tell them that it appears that the official may have missed the call, but it was a judgment call...and as all officials are human, we will miss a judgment call now and then.

We should get the rules interps correctly; since we're human, we will miss the occasional judgment call though. And imo, we definitely shouldn't hang officials out to dry for a missed judgment call.

JMHO.

There's the fallacy. When you look at it in total, the truth is, every call can decide the outcome of the game, especially in a close game.

Let's say a ruling like this took place within the first three quarters. Those are points a team can never get back, and that situation will affect the score at the end. While Nevada points out that players can "overcome" it, can they really? All they can do is move on and keep playing, and all we can do is move on and keep officiating, but players will never get those points back on that incorrectly called play. Errors will indeed happen, but don't con yourself into believing that they only matter in the end.

Just because people don't remember a (non-)call, doesn't mean it isn't what it is. A game is always decided in 32, 40, or 48 minutes, never just one.

(Aside to Jurassic: +1)

Let's talk about the play from a learning perspective.

There are three things I notice in the play:

1) The slot gets completely straightlined --

2) His partner in the TRAIL needs to identify this and step down into the play more to get a cleaner look at the shooting arm that the slot normally would pick up.

3) Kevin Durant is one of the most prolific shooters in the league and the ball comes up 5 feet short -- even if you are "unsure" of whether there was illegal contact or not because of your angle, you can come in a little late and pick that up by watching the trajectory of the ball.

With the play on film, it doesn't do any good to not admit a foul was missed.

We as officials, need to realize that 1 win could be the difference in: a team making the playoffs, a coach getting fired. Remember this next time you walk on the court and you see why some guys get so jacked up.

I'll remember it, then I'll give them a T.

#3 is completely rediculous. Contact could have been on the ball or hand. If you don't see it, don't guess.

That may be but Nevada's point is still valid. Suppose you mess up the toss in some way that gives the wrong team the ball. That's about as insignificant a mistake as you can make. Arithmetically it costs one possession but geometrically, it doesn't even significantly move either teams chances of winning. But if you miss a call at the end where you take a possession away from a team you may move there chances significantly. It's the same arithmetic affect, but the geometric effect is much more pronounced.
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Child Avandia

I'm talking SPECIFICALLY about this play (and similar ones) where from the lead you can see no contact on the ball or hand but questionable contact on the forearm... When you see someone who shoots well have a shot come up 5 feet short, its a good indicator of illegal contact.

I guess I'm at a loss to think of how you could see definitively there's no contact on the ball or hand if you can't tell whether there's contact on the arm. If you see definitively that there's contact on the forearm and it affects the shot, by all means get it; but you're not guessing. If anything, that calls for a patient whistle.

Are you saying you're sure there was contact, but need to determine if it was illegal? If that's the case, your angle really has nothing to do with it.

I am NOT going fishing in anothers pond for "questionable contact" when theres a capable official right on top of the play.

I follow the 3 Bs when expanding my PCA:
1. Be late
2. Be needed
3. Be right

I like the three B's.

Yikes I'm tired - meant this whole conversation to be about the Trail... Lead stays the hell out of this play haha.

I'm saying as the trail to have awareness of being "needed" because of the slot/center being straightlined

That's the problem I had with the entire play. If you need a zoom-in replay to tell definitively whether contact was made, and WHERE it was made (and in this case, the replay still isn't conclusive), then can you really call that a foul?

And should the NBA front office step in and make such a statement on such a close visual call in the first place?

Not attempting to completely change subjects, but if you watch the replay, the contact occurred directly above the defender. Isn't this the principle of verticality? Why is this a foul on the defender when the offensive player has his arms outstretched well in front of his body?

Well, you made me watch it again, but I'd say the defender came out of his vertical space to make contact.

"Geometric," Young? Not sure what you mean there. The court dimensions are the same throughout the game.

It really all comes down to emotion, perception, and how we deal with both. When we miss most calls, people get mad, then move onto the next play, and the anger usually subsides. ("The ref screwed up that play.") If the call is missed at the end of the game, the sequence would still be the same, with fewer steps: people get mad, then... that's it. Nothing to follow, so the anger carries over into post-game, and sometimes the next day, often skewing the error to appear far greater than it really is ("The ref screwed up that game!"). In reality, it was no different than any other mistake, but emotions often overtake logic in such circumstances.

That leads to my point: If the NBA or any other league is going to apologize for an allegedly bad call at the end of the game, it better do so for mistakes at all other times of the game, or not apologize/acknowledge at all.

What I mean is that one way to look at things is just to assume every mistake has an effect on the score (which I call arithmetic effect). An alternative way is to evaluate the odds of winning if not the mistake versus in the case of the mistake (which I refer to as geometric effect). The mistake at the front of the game just doesn't change the odds of winning much.
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VAPORIZER REVIEW

It's also a good indicator of a partially blocked shot. You only call what you're sure of at any level. You're guessing if you try to go by indicators.


Always call what you know, not what you think you know. If you're unsure, swallow your whistle.

You have just received a citation from the Spelling Police.


http://images.cafepress.com/image/15320283_400x400.png

Yeah, it didn't look right when I wrote it. Not my first, won't be my last.

The Spelling Police could contract with Brad to monitor this board. It would be a full time job with lots of overtime. If he paid them by the correction, he'd go broke quickly.

I would be a full time job for them all by myself.:D

I know what he's trying to say.

It is very possible that an official can definitively see that there was no contact in one spot because there was nothing near that spot (hand/ball) but you could see that the defender's hand was near the elbow but couldn't directly tell if they hit it or not---another player blocked your view of the elbow at the last moment. However, you could, to a great accuracy, tell whether there was contact or not from the effects of the possible hit....the arm twitching sideways in an unnatural way or the ball leaving the hand in an abnormal way.

Well, since you put it that way....

:)

Jordan for the win...Swish!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! take that Jazz:D

Defensive challenges on these plays can be hard to officiate. Often, the official with primary coverage is in bad position or caught up in another aspect of the play...feet, body contact, etc. The contact to affect a jump shot is usually subtle. as Bradford pointed out, Kevin Durant doesn't airball that shot without contact... However, we can't guess or assume the player missed because of a foul.

Speak for yourself, I guess every time I blow the whistle.