In Defense of the Refs: An Official Plea

Being an NBA referee is a thankless job.

You get screamed at. You get in the way. You’re pushed, goaded, bumped, and head-butted. Every time you blow the whistle, someone disagrees with your call. And every time you don’t, well, they disagree with that too.

And the reward? The fans learn your name, just so they can boo your introduction, and yell at you more accurately next game.

These folks are up there with tax collectors and telemarketers when it comes to hatred by the common man. They are constant targets of media scrutiny (this writer included), and are never conveyed in a positive light. Then, one of them happens to be working for the mob, and the wheels fall off the carnival ride.

But let’s take a stroll in their regulation black-pleather Reeboks for a moment. If any of we were to take the abuse of the zebras on a day-to-day basis, we would either check ourselves into the nuthouse or torch our office buildings. Either way, it wouldn’t be too productive to the situation.

I mean, consider your job. Now, consider it in front of 18,000 live fans, most of whom are voicing their concern in ways that are near-criminal in abuse. Perfection is demanded from you, but the job requires both an active interpretation of the rules, and a split-second interpretation of what actually happened in front of you.

Realistically, would you even apply to this job?

The salary for an NBA referee lies between $90,000 and $225,000. While this is hardly poverty-level, consider the travel time, the high-profile nature of the position, the need for level-headedness in the tensest of situations. Throw in the fact that millions of people – literally millions – care about each and every call you make, and demand that you are the most knowledgeable and experienced in your field.

All told, I’d venture that these folks are undercompensated.

* * *

The NBA referees entered into a lockout situation on October 1st of this year. Their replacements (adorned with shameful triple-digit numbers, ew!) have experience in both the college and professional levels, some of whom had been let go by the NBA in the past.

Let me channel Joni Mitchell when I say, “you don’t know what you got ‘til it’s gone.”

I can’t say the new refs were dreadful, though it seemed like they were. I can’t say they made numerous mistakes, though it seemed like they did. In the natural ebb and flow of the game, there appeared to be hiccups aplenty. And I don’t doubt that the calls they made were based on actual events – yes, Andrew Bynum slid his pivot foot – but it seemed like there were just so many of them.

In the game I watched, Stephen Jackson had five fouls in 10 minutes. For a while, there were more whistles than points on the board. Now, how is that entertaining? Would a fan truly go to see this game, if they knew it would be like this?

The NBA: It’s Foul-tastic!

It leads me to believe that, on any given possession, there are a number of violations that could be whistled and aren’t. Players get away with the lesser calls, the “ticky-tack” and the circumstantial. Three seconds in the key, or maybe a screen wasn’t set perfectly. The old guard of referees called only what they absolutely had to, in order to keep the game at its natural progression.

And I guarantee the players used that to their advantage. But the refs knew it, and handled it accordingly, with verbal warnings such as “get out of the key, 21” and “watch that hand-check”, banter that can’t be taught in a three-week preseason seminar.

Now, we are starting at ground zero. This is by-the-book; this is how the refs are taught to call a game. And it’s going to take some time getting used to, as proven by the influx of technical fouls given thus far.

It’s affecting the product. It’s lowering the value of the game. I say, give the refs the money, already, and let’s get back to basketball as usual.

* * *

The real issue here is the fact that the refereeing system needs an upheaval, and public respect is as good a place to begin as any. Before we have a greater level of accountability (the eventual goal here) the public needs to understand that we are getting the best product possible. Take away that level of expertise, and the fans will finally know what they are missing.

The lockout will have a far greater effect than expected - whether or not the effect is eventual positive, well, that remains to be seen.

This is how it’s going to play out: the refs can’t go more than a month or so without pay, especially in this economic climate. Their mortgages and families will become more important than their hard-line stance for a pay increase. They will eventually come back to work, and the triple-digit replacements will be no more.

But if this lockout continues deep into the regular season, the difference in game outcomes will be directly affected. Blown calls will determine games, and they will do so from very early on. Players may be fined and suspended for their arguing, and the top-tier teams will find themselves on the losing side of games they ordinarily would have won.

Basically, cellar-dwellers will begin to beat the elite. Catchy, isn’t it?

As Kenyon Martin said to Fanhouse, "I'm going to get suspended in the first month of the season. I'm going to have 15 technicals in the first month just for the simple fact that [replacement refs] don't know how I run my mouth…The game is going to be terrible with those replacements."

And we’ve only begun the preseason. Think about the player outcry when the games actually matter?

The way to fix all this is simple. Namely, avoid the whole thing, and the sooner the better. Anyone following the preseason now realizes the difference between the top-60 officials and the next batch, and that’s a large, bitter vitamin for the league to swallow. The lockout refs have made their point, and they have done so with remarkable clarity.

The game suffers without us. David Stern, you forced us to prove it. Now you know.

So, give them their money. Call the lockout an extended summer vacation, and let’s forget the whole thing ever happened.

Besides, we miss knowing who we’re heckling.