Should the NBA Hire FIBA Referees?

(текстот е издаден за време на штрајкот на НБА судиите)

As NBA referees are locked out, there is a need for great referees to step in and do their best. Would it make sense to look overseas? Alejandro Sanchez Varela is a FIBA referee from Uruguay, who says FIBA referees are surely talented, but are used to a very different method of officiating. He writes:

Everyone is the NBA world is talking in the last few days about the NBA locking out its officials and about the replacement referees. Let's get straight to our point on this: the NBA is the best basketball league in the world and it has the best players around the globe. So it is fair to say that the 57 referees that work in the League are most probably the best on the job.

Now I hear that for the referees' training camp starting this week, the NBA is inviting something like 60 officials, most of them coming from the D-League and the WNBA. That makes sense, because they are the only ones (in the whole world) besides the NBA referees, using the same program and rule book (at least a very similar one).

But what I totally disagree and would like to explain why, is with Joel Litvin's -- the league's president for league and basketball operations -- statement: "I think it speaks to the fact that our current staff of referees are the 60 best in the world," Litvin said, "and the referees who will replace them are probably pretty close to being the next best 60 in the world."

I am sure they are not the next best 60 in the world, Mr. Litvin. Top FIBA referees are the next best 60 in the world, and among them European referees primarily. And the explanation is easy: Referees working in Euroleague and in the major FIBA tournaments are the ones officiating the best level of basketball after the NBA. And for taking a job like this one, experience is what counts.

Nicola Vujcic, Theodoros Papaloukas, Pablo Prigioni, Carlos Arroyo, Dimitrios Diamantidis, Igor Rakocevic, Tiago Splitter, Trajan Langdon, Juan Carlos Navarro, Matjaz Smodis, amongst others, are the best players in the world after Bryant, James, Howard, Wade and Paul Pierce. And the ones receiving the major contracts, also after the NBA players. So be sure that the FIBA referees working Euroleague games are the next best 60 referees in the world. Oh, and not to mention that they are the ones working the Olympic Games and all the world tournaments.

So maybe someone is thinking now that this can be a good idea, bringing the referees from overseas in order to throw them into the training camp and to be ready for the pre season games and for the regular season tip off.

Well, is not THAT easy. This takes a whole transition (and takes a considerable time), basically because NBA and FIBA rules and mechanics are really different.

Let us see some of the similarities and the differences between both associations' officiating systems: a study of all the differences regarding the official rules of the game in each association would go far beyond the intended length of this article, but here is a quick look:

* The first thing that one notices when watching the work of an official in an NBA game is that they try to work as comfortably as they can. What I mean by that, for instance, is that when NBA referees call a personal foul they signal to the scorer's table from the very place where the foul was called, or while they are moving towards their new position. This is a sin in FIBA. When a referee calls a personal foul, he/she must head towards the scorer's table, stand up about six metres away from it and then make the signals while standing still: Number 12 -- block penalty -- two shots.
* The same happens with substitutions. In the NBA when someone is shooting free throws, the official beneath the backboard indicates with his/her hand that a player is allowed to enter the court. FIBA referees do this standing by the scorer's table.
* The FIBA system is slower and strictly organised; more protocol-oriented, so to speak. If one is to grasp the spirit underneath such mechanics, it is necessary to take into account the duration of the game in both leagues: 40 minutes in the FIBA and 48 minutes in the NBA. The difference is gigantic. An international game takes an average time of two hours, while an NBA game lasts almost two and a half hours. The NBA allows for more timeouts per team plus the timeouts that television requires. It's understandable that in the U.S. efforts have been made to keep the game moving along -- three-hour-long games must be avoided by all means.
* Another difference regards late calls. Such whistles arrive one second after the play, that is, not immediately as it would be expected in an ordinary call. There might be several reasons for the delay: the official needs to be sure about the penalty, or needs time to decide whether to call the penalty or to let the game go on. Late whistles are common in NBA games, and less frequent in FIBA games.
* In the NBA, the referee blows his/her whistle in every throw-in situation, after a penalty or a violation of any rule. In FIBA, as soon as everyone is back in position (players, the three officials and the scorer's table), the ball is given to a player to be played without a warning whistle.
* One outstanding issue is the NBA's choice to prioritize entertainment. That the referees have to carry out their job with extreme care and responsibility goes without saying, but they always have to bear in mind the importance of the show too. This can be appreciated in several instances: one is the traveling violation. In FIBA, officials do not hesitate to call this infraction, the NBA has, in a manner of speaking, a softer approach. This lenient attitude allows for minor infractions committed by the players, especially in spectacular plays. Seeing it from outside, one has the impression that at the beginning of each of the last seasons the officials strictly penalize every traveling violation, but as months go by, they start turning a blind eye on these kind of plays.
* Another example of the way in which entertainment is favored by the NBA regards the reasons for the suspension of a game. The men in grey will do everything in their power to make sure that the game is played, even when the conditions are not the ideal ones. For instance, last season, I was watching a Jazz-Bulls game. The referees were Dan Crawford, Greg Willard and the rookie Curtis Blair. The clocks happened to be out of order (both the game clock and the 24-second clock), so the game was suspended for a while, to allow the maintenance crew to try to fix them. Then, after a few minutes and without a result, Crawford -- the crew chief -- decided to turn off all the clocks and play the game anyway. The stadium commentator helped them, announcing the time left in each possession through the loudspeakers. Thus they went on working for a long time, until the clocks were fixed. Had this been a FIBA game, it would not have been played at all, since in case of malfunction of any of the clocks, the game must be called off. It is worth noting that NBA teams travel long distances in order to play as visitors. To call off a game and reschedule it would bring about a series of complications that is much better to avoid. Therefore, as I have already said, officials will do anything to carry on with a game, regardless of the eventual difficulties.
* Technical gadgets as aids to the referees are widely used in the NBA, but not yet so frequently in the FIBA. A few years ago, the NBA adopted instant TV replay as a tool that can help the referees make the right decision in the last play of each period, and of course, also in the end-of-the-game plays. The FIBA has not yet adopted this tool.
* Let us imagine that there is a quarrel between two or more players in a game (a very common event indeed). The quarrel escalates into a fight, and the players engage in various acts of aggression. Officials in the FIBA would watch the development of events, and
once the fight is over, they would announce the correspondent penalties (number of ejections, and so on). In the NBA, referees take a very different stand. They would not stay out of the players' way, on the contrary, they would step right in and try to stop the fight, even if they risk to be injured themselves. They would try, by all means, to prevent the quarrel from escalating into physical aggression.
* The pre-game preparation and the post-game assessment that NBA referees make before and after each game is far superior to FIBA. This system works spectacularly in the NBA. The referees have the chance to watch certain plays during the half time of a game, and make the adjustments they see fit for the second half. After the game, they go over the game video and then they write the report that has to be submitted to the League. There is an "official NBA observer" at each game, who also submits a report to the League. During the season, the NBA puts together "training videos" with plays that they select from the previous weeks, and distributes them among the officials in an attempt to foster their professional growth. All the referees communicate with the League on a daily basis, in order to discuss plays seen the night before, emphasize certain points, etc. The Group Supervisors have a key role in this system too. The FIBA referees also devote time to game analysis, to watch videos, discuss plays and assess the games. We are given "training videos" and generally, there is a "supervisor" in every game, but all efforts notwithstanding, regarding this matter, we are still far away from the professional approach to officiating of the NBA. In the FIBA, a referee usually depends on his/her own efforts to record games, edit videos, read about new interpretations, training, etc. In other words, he/she has to feel passionate about the job. In the NBA, although the officials are impeccable professionals and show great commitment with their job, everything seems to have been given more thought