The National Basketball Association has had many changes over the past sixty years, most which come out of a necessity, such as the changed distance to shoot a three pointer or the changed time in a single game; however, some changes are not as beneficial. Over the past two decades, referees have grown to abuse their power. I will outline the specific problems with the referees and fouls in the NBA as well as possible solutions to these problems. Recently, the NBA referees have called blatantly wrong fouls and do not change the call after seeing the replay. Yes, the game of basketball is very fast paced and the referees might not be able to catch every single foul that happened, but they should at least reverse an obviously incorrect foul once …show more content…
There are a few reasons to which I believe referees do not overturn calls: their egos are too high and the game of basketball is simply to fast to overturn every call. The first reason is inevitable; it simply makes sense for a referees to not want to overturn a call. This will hurt the referee’s ego and they would not want to be corrected. This ego is dangerous because it has grown dramatically over the past decade. For example, in the third quarter of a Mavericks vs. Lakers game, a referee called an offensive foul that, after replay, simply should not have happened. The offensive player did not even touch the defensive player. Unfortunately, the referee did not change the foul, giving in to his ego over the game of basketball. Now, the later reason that referees give the wrong call, the time constraint of the game itself, it an understandable issue, but has to be fixed. Yes, basketball is one of the most fast paced sports and has the most fouls in a single game than any other major sport; however, the simple reason that the game is fast-paced should not allow the referees to make bad calls. This should be dealt with by the NBA Executives, such as Adam Silver. This absence of speeches from Adam Silver, …show more content…
Every game, a referee is usually cussed at by players about ten times; it wouldn’t be unusual for than number to go up to twenty. Some of the cursing is just anger from the players about a call that is correct and controversial but can go both ways. However, recently, players have been complaining about obvious wrong calls and getting consequences for their actions. The referees gave the players a “Technical Foul,” which automatically ejects a player from a game. There are no “double-checks” for this action. With a simple wave of a hand, a referee can eject just about any player off the court. It is absurd to think there are no countermeasures for the referee’s ejection, but there really isn’t. No one can reverse this order, even if the Commissioner comes himself to tell the player to come back. For example, in a game of the San Antonio Spurs vs the Portland Trail Blazers, a referee ejected Tim Duncan, the best player in the Spurs, for laughing while sitting on the bench. Duncan was not laughing at the referee and was simply joking with his friend, but this apparently annoyed the referee and made him feel the necessity to eject a game-changing player off the court. Over the past year, ejection have rapidly increased. This is due to the friction between the referees and players general. The environment between theteo is so hostile that players often curse their way out of game. Recently,