The Refs Aren’t Watching
I watched the games with Mark Cuban last night; excuse this rant.
Foul calls shouldn’t be reactionary. An official is supposed to call what they see. If they didn’t see anything at all, there shouldn’t be a whistle. Jameer Nelson should not be called because Chauncey Billups goes in to the splits. The ref should make the call on why Billups hit the floor, not the end result. Dwight Howard should not get rung up because Rasheed Wallace takes an out of control shot. What goes through the official’s mind? ‘Sheed was off balance when he released it, therefore, someone must of hit him? No. Wrong. The official didn’t see a bump ’cause there wasn’t one. Hedo Turkoglu shouldn’t get called for the foul when Rodney Stuckey slips out of bounds with the ball. If Stuckey didn’t cross the line, the whistle wouldn’t have blown. Where’s the consistency? (Whoa, I swear I’m not rooting for the Magic.)
It just knocks me off my couch when I see something called only because the fouled player acts out of the ordinary. In a game of runs and momentum swings, every whistle is huge. I’ve put on some baseball umpiring gear in my day; I know what these stripes feel like. They have to have ignorance towards the end result and how the players are reacting and just focus on the actual event.
Players acting this way will never change. Is it because these referees have little experience actually playing the game? I don’t even know if that’s the case, but it sure seems that way. Maybe Cubes was on to something when he pointed out the little talked about international rule changes. This issue always seems to come about when the stakes are raised in the postseason. Just ask my neighbors.
Comments (11)The Fix Is In: NBA Ref To Be Arrested For Gambling
Whoa boy! This is going to get ugly …
The New York Post is reporting that an NBA referee is being investigated by the FBI for his ties to the mob and betting on basketball games.
The investigation, which began more than a year ago, is zeroing in on blockbuster allegations that the referee was making calls that affected the point spread to guarantee that he - and the hoods who had their hooks in him - cashed in on large bets.
Federal agents are set to arrest the referee and a cadre of mobsters and their associates who lined their pockets, sources said.
The sources indicated the referee apparently had a gambling problem, slipped into debt and fell prey to mob thugs.
The official, whose name was withheld, allegedly wagered on games during the 2005-06 and 2006-07 NBA seasons.
One of the first names being thrown around is Joey Crawford. Darren Rovell reminds us that Joey was one of nine referees who pleaded guilty to downgrading their first class airline tickets, pocketing the money and not reporting it on their income tax returns way back in ‘91. Shifty, bastard.
Of course, it was also the Little Bald Bulldog, Joey, who notoriously ejected Tim Duncan back in April for laughing on the bench. A lot of people speculated that Joey’s odd action was a possible sign that he or someone he knew had a bet on Dallas. Again, very shifty.
But I don’t think its Joey. No. Something tells me it’s a much younger ref, which is why I’m arbitrarily guessing Zach Zarba. Two (stupid) reasons why: 1.) He’s from Brooklyn. The family ties are there. And 2.) His name. You just can’t ever trust a man with that many Z’s in his name.
Book him, boys!
Update: Tim Donaghy is under investigation! Unsilent Majority called it! (scroll down)
Comments (6)We Can’t Podcast — Please Don’t Hate
*** NOTE: There will not be a podcast this morning. JD has run himself thin and is under the weather. We’ll be back in full force with a super-duper show on Monday. ***
So, I’ll babble instead. I watched the Heat and Pacers play the 1st game of Thursday’s doubleheader and there were a few times I was furious with the officiating. It was bad. It was horrible. It was awful. It was horri-awful (O’Neal, Shaquille).
The refereeing was puzzling in the 4th quarter. With about 5 minutes left, Dwyane Wade went to the rack and his lay-in got stuck between the rim and the backboard. The referees blew the whistle and the TNT team said it would be a jump ball. Fine, that made sense. After a long discussion, the refs decided to change the call and they hit Jermaine O’Neal with a foul instead. What?! There was no whistle when Wade threw the ball up; the play was blown dead when old leather got jammed. The replay showed Fivehead trying to get out of the way – there’s no way he fouled anyone.
Now, I might be making too much of this, but this horrendous call took me back to the NBA Finals last year when Wade couldn’t get so much as a Stackhouse fingernail on him without getting a whistle. Speaking of Stack, did you see him sing the national anthem for the Lakers-Mavs game last night? He was actually pretty good. Back to the superstar call. This is something that has to be taken care of. It is so blatant that it’s become embarrassing. I don’t think the league influences the officials in any way in terms of which players should get more calls, but the big names have been getting special treatment for as long as I can remember. This superstar syndrome turns the casual fan right off. With the game being called the way it is – perimeter players allowed to move around untouched – the constant whistle blowing has to be monitored. The league can’t take away the speed and flow, the beautiful parts of the game.
That being said, the crew seemed to be having some serious problems in the 4th. When Marquis Daniels bounced it off the foot of Mourning and was called for an over-and-back when he recovered it, Doug Collins rightly pointed out the reason the ball went to the Heat was because Daniels looked guilty. We’re awarding possession of the ball due to a facial expression now? There was more. When the Pacers intentionally fouled Wade with a push to the chest an only 4 seconds left, the whistles remained silent.
Listen, I don’t think the NBA is officiated worse than any other pro sport in North America, but there are those select times when it makes me cringe. There are several factors this happens I guess – the speed of the game, all those big bodies in that small space, the difficulty referees have in seeing things all parts of the players’ bodies because of their positioning and because of the massive physiques, etc.
I bitch because I love, ya know.
Comments (15)Etan Thomas Speaks His Mind
SLAMonline.com launched a fascinating new feature today — a weekly column written by Washington Wizards center (and poet) Etan Thomas.
In his virgin post, Etan talks about the frequent, unabashed stereotyping and profiling he’s experienced — both on and off the basketball court.
Here’s a quick on-court example to make you go click:
We were playing a home game against Cleveland, and after a timeout a referee with dark, slicked-back hair (who shall remain nameless) approached me. He said that he had heard that I write poetry, have a book, speak at universities, am into politics, etcetera, and he asked me if this was true.
I replied, Yes.
To my surprise, he responded: “You’re not as dumb as you look.”
Type Casting [SLAMonline.com]
More Than An Athlete: Poems By Etan Thomas [Amazon]
[Note: A quick look tells us James Capers, Ken Mauer, and Mark Ayotte officiated the last Cavs at Wiz game. I’m thinking Mauer’s the slick-dick Etan’s referring too…]
Comments (9)The Official Rasheed Wallace Tech. Count: 4
Sheed picked up his league leading — surprise, surprise — fourth technical foul last night, in a close loss to the undefeated Utah Jazz.
Drawing some Kirilenko contact while he drained a short jumper, Sheed immediately spun around, gestured for a whistle, and got one. Um… the “bad” one.
Yeah, referee Steve Javie — whose “tolerance meter” was set just below “zero” last night — wasted no time in nailing Sheed with a T from the far side of the court.
Needless to say, post-game Sheed was… um… yeah…
“I knew it was going to come down to exactly what it came down to,” Wallace said. “Going down to the fourth, I knew we were going to get [dumped] on. They talk all that [garbage] about making the game better. This is making the game worse. It’s retarded. They ain’t gonna change it, so they’re like, shut up and deal with it.”
Jeesh. Easy, big guy. Try and look at the bright side, would ya? You’re in Utah … at least you didn’t get ejected for “being black”.
Wallace Feels New Rule Targets Him [The Salt Lake Tribune]
(Note: What’s up with the Gallagher picture you ask? Oh, nothing really. Here, I’ll let Kelly Dwyer explain:
“[Gallagher] is what I like to think Rasheed Wallace is laughing at, when he’s giggling across the Delta Center floor. Makes life sooo much easier.”
And you wonder why I say, Dwyer needs his own blog. Hilarious.)
Comments (0)Violet Palmer Talks To The Pope
… Cynthia Pope.
Yeah, I found this odd little video of Bill Simmons’ favorite NBA referee, Violet Palmer. The audio is pretty shit so I jotted down some quick quotes for the sake of your ears:
Violet Palmer does not ask NBA players for autographs:
“These are co-workers to me. They’re not celebrities to me, they’re not superstars. They’re just basketball players.”
She loves the excitement of the game, but she really loves 20,000 people booing her:
“I made a call last night and the whole arena was like, “boo”. And I’m sitting there going, this is pretty good. I like this. I’m demanding that much attention.”
(Um, is that something you really want a professional NBA ref saying?)
She golf’s a little, but not to the point where she drives herself crazy:
“It’s just fun for me. I play probably twice a week with my five-some. … It’s a little competitive, but not crazy.”
She travels every summer:
“I have tones of frequent flyer miles so why not use them for pleasure versus using them for work?”
She runs her own referee camp at USC:
“I only have about 25 campers, and it’s for any and all levels. If you’re trying to do high school, if you’re trying to do college, if you’re trying to get into the NBA, doesn’t really matter. It’s more of a teaching camp. … I have a couple of the guys from the NBA help me.”
She knows how to become a good referee:
“What most people don’t understand is to be a good referee you really have to study your craft. Which is probably in any field. (Ed note: Especially craftmakers!) But a lot of people don’t know that you really have to take the time, get in your rule book… you have to work games, at all levels.”
Violet Palmer Interview [YouTube]
Comments (6)About
The Basketball Jones is a NBA blog and podcast, written and recorded five times a week by J.E. Skeets, Tas Melas and Jason Doyle. Comments, questions and cold hard cash are always welcome and much appreciated. Contact us.
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