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NBA 2009: Referees' Strike
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Just sad, fellas. Try hitting the gym. (AP Photo).
The big news out of the NBA front office is that they are somewhat unlikely to come to accommodation with the NBA Referees Union—meaning that at LEAST the first few games of the season could be officiated by, to use the parlance, scabs.
Rumor is that the league is off from the union’s wishes by about 750,000 dollars—but that the union has already agreed to a reasonably substantial paycut, just not as much as they were requested to.
To which I say, only a little tongue-in-cheek-ly….who cares?
As a Mavericks writer, the irony of the referees getting screwed by the league is too delicious not to enjoy a little.
Look, anyone who watched the playoffs last year knows that the state of refereeing in this league borders on tragic. The same play can be called three different ways—and is—at crucial times. The Magic-Cavs series in particular had me shaking my head. Lebron James 24 free throws to Howard’s 19 in game three for example—as opposed to their combined 12 in game 1—was exactly what the paying fan wants to see.
No one can REALLY say the Mavericks got screwed, in the way they did in 2006, by the non-call on Antoine Wright’s intentional foul—although it would have made the series 2-1 and the Mavs did win the next game—but what really stung is that the refs were apparently the only people in, say, the entire world, who had no idea that that was coming. Next season, when there’s a season-ending injury because Antoine Wright is asked to intentionally foul someone, and he breaks their kneecaps, this will be why.
The league’s complete refusal to do anything about this besides occasionally admit that the refs had made a mistake, an occurrence that not only defines the phrase “cold comfort” but is more often than not denied, to no consequence, by the refs association. They still let Bennett Salvatore officiate Mavericks playoff games, and Joey Crawford Spurs games. You know what Wikipedia says about Joey Crawford? This:
“Crawford is one of the most experienced officials in the NBA and has developed a reputation for assessing technical fouls against players and coaches excessively such as NBA greats like Hakeem Olajuwon and Wilt Chamberlain.”
For some reason I find that hilarious. How old is Crawford?
Apparently he’s like a tourist, but with technical fouls instead of a camera.
Last year, World’s Strongest Ref Ed Hochuli, officiating a football game between the Chargers and Broncos made a call that cost the Chargers the game. He responded with an admission of guilt and Cristal Taylor level remorse.
Bennett Salvatore costs teams games on his days off and then goes and has a sandwich.
All of which is to say, basically, that the Refs’ Union is in a little bit of trouble here. Absolutely nothing is on their side. I believe that if David Stern thought the current group of refs not reffing the league any time soon would be a disaster, he would have settled by now. Since that hasn’t happened, one can assume he believes that
A) In these “troubled economic times”, the refs will eventually want a paycheck
B) There’s not going to be a backlash from the fans.
And there is not. The occasional mistake could be forgiven in such a fast-paced game as basketball—hell, there are usually something like 80 baskets made a game, this is not an easy job. However, the gross and continued incompetence by many specific referees in the league coupled by the arrogance with which mistakes are dealt with, coupled by the apparently complete lack of enforcement of any specific set of standards for foul calls—often within the same game and by the same refs—has squandered any chance at any kind of support from the general public.
I don’t think there are a whole lot of people who think scabs will be appreciably worse than what there is now, and that’s very bad news for the refs’ union. They should have cared about it before and, like, tried harder. Might have helped them now.
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