For Your Readng Pleasure ...

[crosscountry55]

I'm surprised that some of the comments so far have been negative. I thought the article was very good, fair and accurate. Perhaps some of us officials resist change?

Of the suggested changes, the only one I had issue with was the expansion of the lane. I like the idea in principle. But it's not really about rebounding free throws, as the article makes clear, but about pushing post players out, i.e. forcing them into more touch/hook shots and fewer hard moves to the basket. The reason I'm not a fan is because we already loathe calling three second violations, and this rule change predicates that we do exactly that to make it effective. Parts of the article already discuss how officials have simply been given too much to officiate in the lane (hence why the block/charge rule reverted this year and why the 3-ft RA should be expanded to 4-ft). So expanding the lane, thus necessitating a POE on 3-second violations, provides another distraction from what should be our primary focus: refereeing the defense.

Overall I loved it. "Today’s referees don’t lack competence. They lack empowerment. Give them a set of rules to make things better, and they will enforce them." Excellently said, as long as:

A) we don't put the officials in the position of "observation saturation" like we did with the combination of the small RA and the "upward motion" aspect of LGP, and

B) the rules and rule changes focus on the objective rather than the subjective, i.e. let's not make changes that challenge officials' judgment like we did with freedom of movement last year (look how well that worked out) but rather make those that are black and white for officials and put the burden of adjustment on the coaches.