No, it's not PED abuse, nor is it fighting and injury scandal; the typical type of topics plaguing professional sports. Nor is it thuggery and violence, the kind of issues that cynics blindly point to as prevalent because their rare instances make headlines. And as ridiculous as it's becoming, it's not even the laziness/incompetence that's slowly corrupting the League's award process.
This one is right in front of our eyes: The refs are stealing the show. David Stern's let the Elephants out of the pen, and we're all suffering because of it.
They're blowing calls. They're making inconsistent rulings. They're wildly suppressing emotion with the ever-looming threat of the dreaded T-Bomb, and in the worst cases, taking the game out of the players' hands in the most crucial moments. It's over-zealous. It's obstructive. It's bullshit. It's been subtly happening for years, but this season, it's getting intolerably out of hand.
Things hit a boiling point last night when veteran official Dan Crawford felt the need to set an authoritative tone in the ECF with three early T's on the Celtics over a seven minute-span; all for seemingly innocent, natural reactions during the course of an intense Playoff game. On the next dead ball, an irately perplexed Doc Rivers -clearly trying to calm every searing nerve in his body - approached the official seeking reason, but fell on deaf ears and crossed arms as Crawford stood there without even acknowledging him. Go Home Team! Clearly Crawford needed to get over himself last night; remember that players are allowed to dislike a call and that his role is to maintain a balanced, impartial playing field. Instead he, and far too many other refs, have seemingly formed a reckless Gestapo of dubiousness.
The irrelevant question is whether this is a result of David Stern over or under-exerting his control over the refs. The obvious answer is that he needs to, for lack of a more eloquent delivery, tighten his shit up.
The NBA was very lucky to escape the Donaghy Saga with as little damage as they did, despite his repeated attempts to expose what he alleged was referee corruption on a much larger scale. The consequent efforts to ease the minds of pundits and conspiracy theorists, hell to assure all of us that the refs are on the up and up, has been sluggish to be generous. It's understandable that calls get fucked up, but not to such an extent, and not when the games matter most, and as such, the most eyes are on the NBA.
What happened last night manages to delve even deeper: Referees holding such an Orwellian grip on a game's course compromises a large part of basketball's appeal. It's an emotional game: not only does it nearly-perfectly combine strength and agility in a momentous, swing-heavy competition, but players are much more personable; exposed fully without pads, helmets and visors. The NBA delivering its best product depends on these players being fully invested in the contest; not perpetually concerned about lingering whistles.
It's time to let the players play. Hopefully whoever manages the @NBA Twitter account caught wind of all the hysteria last night. And hopefully that person isn't a total pushover. Because the League can only suffer if nothing's done.
No comments:
Post a Comment