Officiating in the NBA has gotten a lot of attention over these NBA Playoffs because of some of the calls given and the L2M reports that have been provided to clear up the process. Remember when Dion Waiters pushed Manu Ginobli to inbound the ball in Game 2? It’s things like that, that make fans, players, and teams wonder where officials have their head at sometimes. Refereeing is never going to be perfect, it’s just the nature of playing a sport that comes with human error, and NBA commissioner Adam Silver knows that.
Silver sat down with ESPN’s Cassidy Hubarth on NBA Tonight, to discuss everything NBA related, including the officiating issues that have come up in the Playoffs:
Silver, speaking in an interview with ESPN’s Cassidy Hubbarth on NBA Tonight, said with the focus of much of this season’s playoffs on the officiating and how it has affected the outcome of games, that the refs still get it right a “vast majority of the time.”
“Roughly 90 percent — they get it right,” Silver said. “Now, of course, I’d like 90 percent to be 100 percent. And so would they. But what these reports also show, what fans already know is, human error is part of this game, and the best athletes in the world make mistakes. And coaches occasionally make mistakes. Officials do, too.”
There are a couple of games outcomes that could have been different if the officiating at the time was correctly done, including a game winning shot by James Harden against the Warriors, but Adam Silver makes a point. Human error is shown all across the game, not just in basketball, but in every sport, players make mistakes, coaches make mistakes, and eventually referees will make mistakes as well. It’s just a part of the game. In my opinion, us NBA fans get the lucky end of the stick when it comes to officiating, we get L2M reports and the league admitting they were wrong about calls, but other sports like Soccer don’t even have replays or anything like to make arguments for. Adam Silver wins this one.
