Yahoo Sports senior NBA analyst Kevin O’Connor and NBA contributing writer Tom Haberstroh discuss how NBA officiating is putting a stain on the NBA playoffs .Check out the full conversation on “The Kevin O’Connor Show” and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen.
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Video Transcript
It is wrought at the foundation that needs to be resolved more than anything else.
Well- a-and I think, like, that’s where, like, when I For years, anytime I talk to my friends who are more casual NBA fans, and, like, these are probably the people who, like, watch the show live or listen to this show on audio platforms, they’re the more, likely the more hardcore NBA fans.
But when I talk to, like, my casual friends that tune in for the playoffs or watch an occasional national TV game, for as long as I can remember, when they– when I ask them, “Why don’t you watch basketball more regularly?”
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The, the number one issue has always been the flopping and the whistles.
Number two has always been stars don’t play, I don’t know what I’m gonna get when I tune into games.
And nobody has ever mentioned tanking.
And the NBA right now, the s- the primary focus for improving the game seems to be tanking.
The biggest issue in the NBA is flopping and the whistles.
This is the number one issue in the league when it comes to turning casuals into hardcore fans.
It’s games like last night with the Thunder and the Suns where we should be talking about how brilliant the, the OKC Thunder are, and instead it is li- understandably so, about this garbage that we saw in the game last night, both from the players taking advantage of this rot- rotted foundation, but also just the piss-poor performance from the officials themselves.
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And that, to me, comes from a lack of accountability from Adam Silver and the league office above anything else.
I totally hear you on that.
And there is a lot of un, uncertainty among fans of how the referees are held accountable, and they do get rated, graded for every postseason series.
So, or, or every postseason round.
So you, you do see the referees get whittled down as we progress into the postseason.
The NBA believes that is how they hold accountability.
They get paid more the deeper they go into the postseason, right?
So there is a monetary, a financial incentive for these officials to get the calls right, to have good performance out on the floor, because if they don’t, they’re not gonna get those extra game checks from progressing into the deeper rounds of the postseason.
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The finals referees, the ones that are selected for the finals, the small group of finals referees, are, monetarily, compensated more than the officials that only are in the first round.
So there is an incentive and accountability in that sense.
But what you hear from officials and, and, and coaches and players throughout the years is how do they make those assignments?
What is the actual grading system?
Can we see that grading system?
What are the m- methods of transparency to ensure that this isn’t, just handpicking finals referees or certain referees based on whether they’re the favorites of, of, the administration or whatnot.
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They wanna see more transparency on how they hold these officials accountable.
The second thing that I wanna point out here is, Kevin, what happened to the flopping rule?
The flopping violation, they can call that.
They’re, they’re able to call There’s a lever that the officials can do out on the floor to, to eradicate flopping.
And we don’t do it anymore.
They, they don’t call that flopping violation even though we see it time and time again.
So I do think the referees and the NBA have a huge win opportunity here, is to actually call flopping when they see it
