Easy now, I'm not here to troll or anything, but I respectfully disagree with this. You don't think Kobe or Lebron would still be great players even if they weren't allowed to travel every trip up the court? Would Shaq have not been great if he wasn't allowed to elbow people into the front row, or spend 2 minutes in the paint before a 3 seconds was called?
It depends. If the officials called things by the book, any one of those players would foul out in ten minutes, every game. So the officials do them a favor by letting them get away with the same stuff everyone else gets away with, for starters.
Now, are you asking whether they would be great players on a truly level playing field? Yes, absolutely. They'd probably be very good players even if they got an amount of help that was slightly less than average. But make them play by the so-called real rules, with no fouling, no traveling, no palming, no hooking the defender with the off hand, no lowering the shoulder to create contact, etc. -- all while letting everyone else continue to get away with the same stuff? They wouldn't have a chance.
There is absolutely no reason at all that a team should need help from the Refs.
You mean "extra" help, and I would agree with that. My point is that the referees are so caught up in trying to enforce a vague, bizarre, made-for-TV version of the rule book -- which becomes even more intractable during the playoffs -- that they
have to keep a mental tally of which teams they've given which breaks to. Otherwise it would simply be absurd. We're all familiar with the groaning that goes on when a bunch of fouls are called in a short span. "Let the players play!" we yelp. Well, usually, that's exactly what the officials try to do, but that's possible only by ignoring dozens of violations on every possession.
What's the most common complaint that coaches voice about officiating? "We just want the calls to be consistent." Note that they don't say "correct" or "by the book" -- they say "consistent." In other words, "Whatever interpretations of the rules you've decided on today, which I can only guess what they are, please try to enforce them the same for all 24 players on the two rosters." Well, good freaking luck with that, because every player has his own individualized repertoire of which rules he's accustomed to breaking, and the officials know that. Just think of the high comedy that ensues at the start of every season when the league announces, with great fanfare, that such-and-such a rule is now a "point of emphasis" and officials are going to start calling it correctly. I'm sure I don't have to tell you how that turns out. No one in the NBA has the stomach for proper officiating. The referees are doing all they can within the constraints of an impossible system.
The officials job should be to make sure the rules of the game are enforced equally for all players stars and role players alike. It's not the Ref's job to make players into super stars.
No, it's not, but it's much more complicated than that. Once the officials accept the premise that some violations will be called and others won't be, balancing the books becomes impossible.
It's similar to the old adage that offensive holding can be called on every NFL play. The difference is, if one guy gets called for holding a few times in a half, he gets to stay on the field. Take away the fouling-out rule in the NBA, and who knows, you might see some decent officiating, because the officials would know that they could call fouls on stars without jeopardizing their bottom line.
I think you and I mostly agree here
Yes, I think so too, except probably on the question of how much officiating effects every single possession in an NBA game. Simply put, it's everything.
Remember the immortal observation of David Stern: "People don't pay money to watch Michael Jordan's backup." I couldn't sum it up better myself, and those words never stop ringing in the ears of every official the league employs.
