Referee Brutality

By Paul Peete

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I’m a life long NBA fan and have watched the game evolve since the days of Wilt and Bill, Magic and Bird, and of course the Jordan era (he stands alone), up to today’s era of multiple super stars. For the most part, David Stern has made moves that improve the pace and feel of the games. Eight seconds to get it past half court, fourteen on a kicked ball, even requiring players to arrive suited and booted has proven to be a positive change.

The league has many international players, garnered intense international interest, and of course the love of American fans. Apart from the lucrative TV contracts, the NBA licensing fees, and record attendance throughout the league, Sports books and betting are over a billion dollar a year business. These are indeed great times for the league, but all this success masks a serious and potentially devastating problem. I’ve somewhat jokingly titled it as Referee Brutality due to the finality of their impact on play at the moment similar to that of a policeman’s in the field.

At the beginning of this season, a new rule issued by the league, allowed referees to assess a technical foul if a player exhibited any negative reaction to a foul call. While I too am chagrined at the “who me” mentality, players, with few exceptions, exhibit whenever called for a foul, I also see that occasionally the foul call, or lack of a call when one should have been made is frustrating to players, and tacking on technicals to boot for a human reaction to a perceived indignity is unwarranted. The league adjusted the new rule after the first couple weeks of its enforcement, in recognition of its overly zealous enforcement refs engaged in. This was an effective adjustment.

But the real problem is that the impact referees can have on a game borders on the sinister. Look at the league’s most seasoned ref, Joey Crawford’s ejection of Tim Duncan in an important pre-playoff match up between the Mavs and Spurs. The loss knocked the Spurs out of contention for the number two slot in the Western Conference. Here are a few of the “knowns” to avid NBA fans and announcers about the world of officiating games. NBA facts: rookies gets called more stringently than vets; stars receive different treatment than journeymen; the hometown crowd’s psychological impact on referee calls has been argued pro and con for years; refs are human; player preference and favoritism colors calls, and the real threat; enough money can buy a call or two, the difference between one or another team advancing in the playoffs in the right situation. Bench a super star, hot shooter, or effective defender in a close match and the outcome becomes predictable.

Mr. Stern, every other professional sports league, recognizing the importance of the impact of penalties, has some form of review of calls. Even the NBA acknowledges the importance of getting the call right at the end of a period and allows review of the shot to insure it leaves a players hand before the buzzer sounds. As noted above, the NBA strives to keep the fluidity of the game intact and rightly so, and recognizing that unlimited foul reviews would slow the game, I suggest that at least in the playoffs in future years, the NBA must offer some form of instant replay that can challenge calls a coach deems critical against his team. Limit the number per game similar to those in the NFL and charge the timeout to the losing challenger. Then all the big guns in the NBA management have to come up with is how to handle the obvious no calls like the occasional elbow slap on a jump shooter or the foul on stripping the ball handler that goes uncalled. Us fans would appreciate it, the players would too, I am sure. And those inclined to wager on the sport can feel that the outcome relies more on the match ups than the mark ups.

Big Tent or Big Top

By Paul Peete

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The Democratic takeover of both houses of Congress by slim majorities, unable to override executive vetoes, is revealing a few tatters in the Democrats “big tent”. On the most important vote of the new Congress, as numerous polls reflect the Iraq war as the most significant issue, the Dems were forced to tack on embarrassing pork to entice enough Democrats to vote for a timetable attached to the war appropriations. Even the Hispanic Caucus is fractured along gender lines as evidenced by the resignations of some of its female members. With a political spectrum as wide as the differences between Murtha and Lieberman positions on the Iraq war, it’s inevitable for rifts to surface from time to time.

Jim Webb, D. VA; former Republican, will differ with Barack Obama D. IL on a number of issues I’m sure; though both are opposed to the President’s mismanagement of the war on terror. Yet the Democrats are entrenched in a battle with their congressional Republican cohorts, so accustomed to following the White House talking points like lemmings; in addition to a President unaccustomed to any dissention in the ranks. The funding of troops disagreement, or the flap over the US attorney firings will in all likelihood wind up in the courts to settle related issues.

That’s when the American People will recognize that we are witnessing a three-ring circus: an isolated Executive Branch, a Supreme Court so tilted to the right through Republican Executive appointments over the past 30 years, and A Democratic Legislative branch unable to effectively counter Bush’s vetoes. The only way to force this circus to fold up its tents is to elect a large enough majority Democratic legislative branch and Democratic president in the ’08 elections. Only then will the Republicans obfuscations yield to the centrist majority in the Democratic Party. As long as the Republicans can block legislation and investigative efforts aimed at holding this president accountable to the American people and not the narrow interests he is currently beholding to, we are trapped at the circus like caged beasts.