NBA: Referee's Don't Count

The NY Times ran a piece the other day here talking about how the NBA intend to reign in players whining and in general carrying on in front of everyone when they may disagree with a decision from the referee.

I whole heartedly agree with the decision to do so as with any game, if it is not attractive to the spectators, there is a problem they need to resolve as it gets in the way of making money.

I can recall a similar problem a few years back in the "D League". There were some players who would get carried away, or even as a normal part of their lexicon would use the word "f*$k", as both an adjective and verb in every possible conjugation they could think of. The best of course when they used it as both parts of speech in the same sentence.

This had the predictable result of insulting the family of (4) who paid $30 of so to see a match on a nice summer evening on the cape ... for example.

This led to the predictable result of the league requiring the referees to be more stern about the language used by players and there was an expectation we would deal with it ... or the league will deal with us.

I have to admit, it did get better for a time, with the occasional slip that rang the top of the rafters. Over time it became more engraved to the players to just not do that ... and they responded well. I have my doubts personally about how the NBA players will react, but I guess we will see this season.

Where I laughed out load is in this part of the article:

League officials decided to crack down based on feedback from owners and market research.

While I agree this is a critical aspect of such a business, how about the abuse to the referees and respecting them as participants? How about respecting the game and not acting like a cry baby on steroids when something does not go your way? It takes market research and owners losing money to move the needle for something like this?

Yipes. I guess gone are the days of doing the right thing for the right reason. Generally it would seem our decisions are based on poll questions, and not a collective compass we have to keep our actions true.

We shall see how this one unfolds and how the NBA responds to the first sign of trouble.

I would opine the NFL has already summarily failed that test with allowing the Jets to allow Braylon Edwards a free pass on his recent DUI incident, as apparently there is no suspension on a first offence, regardless of how drunk a player was at the time of operation. Oh yeah, he's not being allowed to start on Sunday. I guess that counts.