NBA Refs: Sending a Message

The NBA league office has always been fond of sending a message to coaches, players, and teams when they want to get a point across. The fines handed down yesterday to Larry Brown ($60,000 + $60,000 for the Bobcats) and Lionel Hollins ($25,000) sent one loud and clear.

“We’re defensive about having scabs officiate games while the real officials are locked out and we are going to fine the hell out of anyone who criticizes them. After all, we’re still negotiating the contract with the union and if the replacement refs start getting criticized too heavily in the media, it will begin to erode our leverage.”

I think it’s going to be interesting in the first couple of weeks to see how players react to blown calls when the games actually matter. I expect you’ll see the following take place more than a couple of times:

1. Official blows a call.

2. Player reacts to blown call with mild to moderate disapproval.

3. Official, knowing he has blown the call, compounds his mistake by giving the player a technical foul (as bad officials tend to do).

4. Player blows up and subsequently gets tossed from the game.

5. League office excessively fines player and probably team, while pretending (publicly at least) that the officials are infallible.

It seems like you’re also going to see a lot of the replacement officials wanting to send their own individual messages to players that they aren’t intimidated and won’t be pushed around.

It remains to be seen if you’ll get any officials waving their arms wildly trying to draw as much attention to themselves as possible (Dick Bavetta-style), while making a call in an important situation. Given that this lockout is probably the only opportunity most of these officials will get to ham it up on the biggest stage of their careers, it’s a good bet.