Do NBA Referees Have Too Much Influence Over the Game?

First off, I’d like to say that it is a great privilege for me to be writing for the Bleacher Report. This is my first article, and as a long time NBA fan, I’ve always wanted to participate in a great website full of sports enthusiasts such as this one.

However, as a long-time NBA fan, it also greatly disturbs me to learn that NBA referees actually have been given more power to issue technical fouls as of September 24, 2010. Quoting directly from the ESPN article, it states that these actions will result in a technical foul:

• Players making aggressive gestures, such as air punches, anywhere on the court.

• Demonstrative disagreement, such as when a player incredulously raises his hands, or smacks his own arm to demonstrate how he was fouled.

• Running directly at an official to complain about a call.

• Excessive inquiries about a call, even in a civilized tone.

Really? I wonder if the officials and executives who made this rule change ever played in a high school basketball game, a collegiate basketball game, or a professional basketball game. In fact, in almost any competitive sports league, there are going to be emotions, and players are going to have reactions. It’s NBA basketball—it’s where amazing happens, where passion happens, where dedication and determination happen.

Yet the executives expect players to be robots who are just focused on the game and have no show of emotion whatsoever? Do they really expect everyone to become Tim Duncan? Oh yeah—even the clean cut Duncan couldn’t escape the wrath of a referee; Duncan was ejected in 2007 for laughing on the bench. See where this is going?

The NBA’s senior vice president of referee operations Ron Johnson said that after extensive audience research, they came up with these new rule changes. To a certain extent, this is understandable—while the antics of Rasheed Wallace can certainly be entertaining during slow days on YouTube, there is no doubt that players such as Wallace cause distractions from the game.

But if what Johnson said was true—that were was actually extensive audience research—then they should know that giving more power to the NBA referees is no way to solve this issue.

NBA referees already are the most influential in any professional sport; disgraced ref Tim Donaghy claims that referees altered the outcome of the 2002 Western Conference Finals, and while it has never been proven, it has never been disproven, either.

With the new rule changes, NBA refs will only have more reason to issue technical fouls whenever they want. Donaghy maintained that refs had personal biases, and publicly mentioned Allen Iverson as one of the players that refs targeted.

Again, nothing came about from this allegation, but there are many examples—click HERE and HERE (bad boy Allen Iverson is ejected for "bringing the crowd down")—that seems suspicious. Unlike Mr. Johnson, I have not done extensive audience research, but I could confidently assume that one of the bigger problems the NBA should tackle if they wish to retain their fanbase is to increase the credibility of NBA refs.

David Stern is wrong to assume that fans have forgotten about the Donaghy incident—referees are still making questionable calls and are not being held accountable. Perhaps more should be done to tackle flopping. Despite what appears to be progress a few years ago, nothing really came of it and no player has yet to be punished for flopping.

The problem with many of these rule changes is that it is completely up to the interpretation of the referee. It is up to them to decide whether or not a player was taunting, or whether or not a player was excessively inquiring about a call. With so much power in their hands, it becomes inevitable that referees become biased, and therefore clouding their judgment and making bad calls.

I wish I could link to all the videos that are on YouTube regarding NBA refs. There are so many videos with bad calls and allegations of game fixing that the NBA should take notice, whether or not foul play is involved. If foul play is not involved, then the refs are just downright bad at their job and need to be retrained.

MLB umpire Jim Joyce made a wrong call back in June and was publicly criticized—how many other referees have gone through the same thing with bad calls in the NBA?

As a passionate NBA fan, I watch the game to see passionate players, not the passionate refs or to see players with no emotion. The NBA should be a league where the players decide the outcome of the games, and not the referees.