While the basketball-loving world is completely distracted by the start of free agency, the NBA quietly tried to sneak a relatively major development under the radar. They've created the office of Senior Vice President, Referee Operations to oversee (wait for it ...) all things pertaining to referees, including "recruiting, training and development, scheduling, data management and analysis and work rules enforcement."Those responsibilities previously fell on the shoulders of Stu Jackson, the league's VP of Basketball Operations, but the NBA is clearly hoping that the creation of a new office will convince everyone that officiating decisions are not being made by the same people whose job it is to ensure the game stays competitive and marketable. The office will report to NBA president Joel Litvin, David Stern's right-hand man.
So who is heading up the new position? U.S. Army Major General Ronald Johnson, who has 32 years of combat engineering experience and recently retired from heading up the Army Corps of Engineers. Is that outside the box enough for you?
Johnson admittedly has no basketball experience outside of being a fan, but no one can deny that someone with his resume has the ability to train, manage and lead large groups of people in mission critical projects. After helping coordinate billion dollar reconstruction efforts in Iraq, surely making sure that a couple of guys with whistles know to stand in the right spot to see the difference between a blocking foul and a charge will be a cake walk, right? Here's to hoping that's the case.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
7-01-2008 @ 7:01PM
Debra said...
What happened to Ronnie Nunn?
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7-01-2008 @ 7:16PM
PB&J said...
This would be definately thinking outside the box. It's kind of hard to know what to think about this since there's no basis for comparison, but considering the direction the nba's image has been heading if nothing else it isn't making it worse and hopefully there will be more consistency in foul calling. It's rediculous to call touch fouls and not call a foul that looks like a scene from a smackdown wrestling match, or to sometimes call and then not call an identical type foul at different times in a game. Phantom fouls where the guy who was supposedly fouled didn't even realize it is makes no sense. Fouls where a guy flies like a superhero through the air with arms flailing as though he had just gotten attacked with a frying pan by a guy 100 pounds lighter and 8 inches shorter need to be looked at with some pause. To many players must be taking acting classes. I saw chris paul actually fall down and act like he was fouled and in the replay it showed that nobody touched him, the referee that time actually told him he was flopping, but enough already, this is professional basketball with grown men, ppl are starting to lose respect for the game because of all this nonsense. Hopefully this new move will help.
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7-01-2008 @ 7:29PM
Boba Gonoush said...
Unless the NBA addresses the floppers (started by European players as a way to keep up with the much more athletic and faster native U.S. players) there will not be much a vice president in charge of anything can do. One other thing they should do is get rid of one of the refs for each game. Three refs is most certainly a crowd. The NBA game had a much better flow before the days of three refs, nuff said about that. They should also allow hand checks, it is done anyway (just like the zone defenses that teams were playing illegally for years.). There should also be a two shot technical for all players who excessively complain along with an ejection. I have to laugh when I see players complain after EVERY call. It demeans the game and makes the refs look like the bad guy.
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