Last night the NBA announced that they would use replacement refs for the beginning of the NBA season (which is still more than a month away) after the Referee’s union rejected a two-year deal by league officials.
The contract between the league and its officials expired on Sept. 1 and they have been unable to reach a new deal. Negotiations broke down at least twice as the sides remained apart on the league’s proposed changes to the referees’ pension and severance packages, as well as a plan to develop younger officials.
Hey man, I get it. Negotiations break down all the time. Especially when both sides are of equal strength with regard to bargaining chips. Wait, what’s that you say? NBA refs are the least respected officials in all of professional sports? Everyone thinks that they purposefully and continuously affect the outcome of games in a negative way? There isn’t a man alive in the great city of Phoenix that wouldn’t like to have personally broken former ref, Tim Donaghy’s kneecaps in prison? Then what the fuck is the issue?
In the memo, the NBA told teams that the deal in principle would have resulted in savings in the referees program by approximately 3.5 percent over the next two years. Previous deals with the officials have been for five years, but the league agreed to make it two in this contract so the referees could renegotiate sooner, when it hoped the league’s economic situation had changed.
Wait, this negotiation is going so poorly that they want a shorter deal so that they can re-negoitate all over again in two years? What the fuck is going on?
If this were the NFL, I would get it. NFL refs are well respected and according to most surveys I’ve seen, most fans think they get the call right most of the time. Add to the fact that they use replays on a lot of calls and we’re left with a collection of officials that seemingly embrace transparency. Likewise, baseball, though less respected than NFL refs, have a reputation for at least being consistent: if the strikezone seems wide, it’s usually wide for both teams. The NBA on the other hand is universally panned as the most corrupt and self-serving group of zebras in all of sports.
My question is this: what the fuck do the refs have that’s even close to a bargaining chip?
1. Five different refs come forward promising to publish books with variations on the title, “I Rigged the NBA Playoffs Just Because I Find Basketball Boring” with forward by Tim Donaghey.
2. Accusations that respected stars Tim Duncan and Lebron James knowingly accepted referee bailouts but only on the condition that they act outraged every time a ref blows a whistle when the game isn’t on the line.
3. The revelation that everything Rasheed Wallace has ever said was true.
4. Greg Popovich was sodomized by 2 out of every 3 refs on an officiating crew per game.
In conclusion: fuck you, NBA refs. There isn’t a fan around that isn’t excited about the possibility of refs who are trying to earn their jobs.
i wish this were true in the 1995 world series where tom glavine was given a strike zone a mile wide while my tribe’s pitchers had one the size of the baseball itself.
fuck tom glavine.
great post otherwise.
I agree that MLB refs/umps have screwed up in the past but it’s nothing like the abortion that happens in almost every NBA playoff game.
Agreed that the NBA refs mostly suck, but the sad thing is they are still the best in the world.
truth right there.
At what? Collecting large bags with dollar signs on the outsides from shady looking greaseballs in tracksuits?
/no offense Spence
/looks up from cleaning gabagool stain off of tracksuit
what was that?
Oohhhhh!
Spence shouldn’t be offended – he’s only 50% greaseball. (He is, however, 100% fah go)
but that half is sicilian, meaning im like 66.67% greaseball.
/not disputing im a fah go
//dry spell’d
pussy
pussy
so which one of you is the bear and which one’s the twink?
100% gypsy
I’m not paying full price for this pear which I’m told tastes like sand. I’ll give you 35 cents.