It’s mid-July, and summer outdoor tournaments are going full blast all over the country. Without even trying, these basketball gatherings represent the sport in its purest form, be it an organized tournament or just a pickup game where a bunch of guys and gals go to battle for the sheer enjoyment of the game and the competition. The tournaments aren’t perfect—you never know which player or team will show up on a given day and the leagues don’t have all the technical trappings of, say, an organized indoor game at the high school, college or professional level. But with the upper levels of the sport determined to bring us to the Jetson age in the 21st century, we can still hold onto the fact that—unless I’m just totally late to the party—thankfully, there’s no replay in streetball.
At least, not yet.
THE NBA’S COACHES’ CHALLENGE
As the NBA adds another game show-type wrinkle to its replay system, it’s becoming obvious this isn’t going away anytime soon, barring an embarrassing incident — like a team losing a playoff game because a shot ruled a three-pointer actually wasn’t, but no time to review video until after time expired — and likely not even then.
So now, in addition to the usual stuff we’ve grown accustomed to seeing the referees “look at”, like flagrant fouls and “last touched bys”, we’ll get at least two more play stoppages per game (and two more opportunities to have your eardrums destroyed by loud stadium anthems) at each coach’s behest for calls like blocks and charges, both coming at the risk of losing a timeout. Figure on the already lengthy fourth quarters of close games becoming even longer while giving fans another reason to second-guess their coach for non-judicious use of challenges.
It reeks of Let’s Make A Deal.
A SOFT SPOT FOR THE REFEREES
With the exception of some of the more arrogant ones we see working NBA contests every now and then, I’ve developed a bit of a soft spot for referees — though I’m not sure why anyone would want to be one — going back to when I was coaching youth ball back in the 1980s and 1990s. And yes, it was clear that a couple of the refs who worked those early Saturday morning games would rather have been sleeping, and others had rabbit ears— some of the parents were brutal—but most were cool and just trying to make a few extra bucks. One or two actually went above and beyond, using the experience as another teaching tool for the youngsters. We needed all the help we can get.
Surely, they know what they’re getting themselves into, and need to have nerves of steel given the fast pace and the verbal abuse they take from all corners, especially at the higher levels of the sport. About five years ago during a summer tournament I saw a female referee absorb some verbal abuse from a player that no one should ever have to endure about anything, especially basketball.
But what all this replay stuff is really telling us is that the only human being on the court who HAS to be perfect is the referee and if he or she isn’t, the replay monitor will expose their flaws for everyone to see. In the larger arenas, the giant scoreboard will reveal their error right away, provided there’s a proper camera angle. If the call goes against the home team, it’s just another reason to heap more abuse on the officials.
IT’S NOT JUST BASKETBALL
The other major sports have their own struggles with replay. Major League Baseball executives have spent years trying to figure out ways to speed up the game, but most contests have at least one delay due to challenged calls settled by replays. Now at least one minor league is experimenting with a computer-generated strike zone while the home plate umpire just confirms the call. Since you can’t really charge home plate to argue with and kick dirt on a computer-generated strike zone, this same umpire will still take a verbal beating if balls and strikes aren’t going a team’s way.
The relatively new Video Assistant Referee used in soccer has really changed the rhythm of that sport when it’s used. As infrequent as scoring is, you now can’t really celebrate—or lament—a goal until the referee puts the ball in play without putting his hand to his ear and waving the players away (which they ignore anyway) while he’s receiving a message through his headset from the Video Assistant Referee advising him to look at a video replay for confirmation the correct call was or wasn’t made.
All bets are off once the referee draws that “air rectangle” and makes the slow trek to watch the video on a monitor. Home team scores. Crowd goes wild. Ref puts his hand over his ear to hear the VAR tell him the goalscorer might have been in an offside position. Crowd goes silent. Ref runs to the monitor to take a look. If he confirms a goal, the crowd cheers again. So they have to cheer twice for one goal, and the players have to celebrate again.
Awkward
HUMANS ARE NOT PERFECT, AND THAT’S OK
Let the players play, let the referees officiate and let everyone be human. Someone will figure out a way to bring replay into streetball, and I’m sure somewhere video from a camera phone has been used to decide a call during a pickup game. Professional basketball brought in the replay system at a time when it was thriving, in an attempt to fix something that wasn’t broken. And it’s not perfect, either. I still hearken back to the Oklahoma City – Los Angeles Clippers playoff game from several years ago when the ball was clearly touched last by one of the Thunder players and the video confirmed it, but they were awarded the ball anyway as Clippers’ coach Doc Rivers’ protests were ignored.
It was at that moment I became an advocate for abolishing the replay system altogether, on the assumption that referees could do bad by themselves. Does it correct calls? Yes, on occasion. But with the replay system to fall back on it’s human nature for a referee to avoid making a decisive call at times knowing there’s video available, although there’s still no guarantee the right call will be made or there’s even a camera angle to capture what really happened and provide that indisputable evidence needed to change a call.
Video replay is almost everywhere. Even the video games have it. Let’s stop it there.
Photo by TJ Dragotta on Unsplash
