In March 2015 the NBA started providing the “Last Two Minute Report”, a report card that is released as an evaluation of calls made during the last two minutes of the game. The L2MR has substantiated calls as well as made it known when calls were wrongly made or missed.
LeBron James isn’t fond of the concept. Here’s what James said on the subject following practice, via Tim Reynolds of the Associated Press (hat tip, NBC Sports):
“I’m not fond of it,” he said Friday.
“It changes absolutely nothing. I think it sends a bad message to our fans of thinking the game is only won in the last two minutes. A play in the first quarter is just as important as a play in the last four seconds. That’s how playoff basketball is played, that’s how the game of basketball should be played. And I think for the youth, the kids that love the game so much, I don’t think they should hear that `Oh, it’s OK to talk about the last 2-minutes calls missed.’
“We should talk about the whole game, if that’s the case because the whole game matters. You miss an assignment in the first quarter, it can hurt you in the fourth quarter.”
I like LeBron’s approach with the part of his comment about plays that matter. We place so much emphasis on those ‘clutch’ moments, but in all fairness, that is the most important time for the right calls to be made.
As a fan I also relate to LeBron’s feelings on this. It can be a strange feeling to see the NBA basically own up to the fact that a call was wrong or missed, particularly if that call had a significant impact on the outcome of the game.
Still, you have to credit the league for transparency. Making this information public might be frustrating, but having it at least allows us some absolution on these matters. The league might even look to take this further down the road.
