NBA office, referees disagree on facts regarding L2M protocol
Nobody seems to be getting along with NBA referees this season.
While the refs' simmering tensions with the league's players have been well-documented, they're also apparently engaged in a dispute with the league office over the protocol surrounding the ever-controversial Last Two Minute reports.
The Referees' Association has long been critical of the reports, contending that they throw officials under the bus without actually improving the officiating process, and without benefiting refs, players, or fans.
On Thursday, the official NBA Referees Twitter account took that a step further, specifically criticizing the NBA for the process by which the league office reviews the calls and non-calls that are retroactively evaluated for accuracy in the reports. Specifically, the refs are upset that the people involved in the reviews don't have NBA officiating experience.
Our issues are not with the media, but with the L2M. It is a flawed process where analysts without officiating experience are using different protocols to evaluate plays than the referees are taught. It breeds inconsistency and frustration for fans, teams, and referees. https://t.co/blAJ2bvWbe
— NBA Referees (@OfficialNBARefs) March 15, 2018
The NBA office clapped back Friday, taking umbrage with the referees' suggestion that the reviewers are trained differently than on-court officials, or that they operate without requisite oversight.
This is not accurate; all calls in L2Ms are evaluated by reviewers trained to rate plays the way officials are instructed to call them; their decisions are approved by ref ops senior staff (former officials) and senior b-ball ops personnel, all with many years of NBA experience https://t.co/KVDXrfDBrm
— NBA Official (@NBAOfficial) March 16, 2018
The NBA produces tons of fabulous, petty beefs each season. We likely haven't heard the last of this one.