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Ref reports force NBA into no-win situation
- Updated: May 5, 2016
4:21 PM ET
When it comes to officiating, the NBA has-half stepped to the middle — to the satisfaction of no one.
By publicly hitting its officials with a #wellactually through its last two minutes reports, the NBA keeps the focus on officiating for an extra news cycle and makes the referees appear worse than they are.
And it doesn’t accomplish anything.
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2 Related
If the NBA wanted the officiating reports to have weight, it would allow for games to be replayed when end-of-game calls are determined to be erroneous. And that would be too complicated.
Only games involving a scoring error or misinterpretation of the rules — rather than an incorrect call — are currently eligible for a do-over. (The last time it happened was when the Miami Heat successfully protested a January 2008, game in which Shaquille O’Neal was incorrectly disqualified with a sixth personal foul when he actually had five fouls. The final 51.9 seconds of overtime in their game against the Atlanta Hawks were replayed at a later date).
But if there’s no opportunity to amend the mistake of a blown call (or non-call), no second chance for the offended team, what’s the point of acknowledging them? The league makes the last two minute reports public for the sake of transparency and accountability. Those are nice nouns where what fans really want to see are verbs.
As in what action can take place to correct them?
It wouldn’t be feasible to come back and re-do the end of playoff games, when the series might …
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