The NBA office and National Basketball Referees Association publicly disagreed in a terse Twitter exchange about how calls are evaluated in last-two-minute reports.
In reply to a tweet from South Florida Sun Sentinel reporter Ira Winderman regarding calls deemed incorrect during the Miami Heat's overtime loss to the Sacramento Kings on Wednesday, the Twitter account for the referees association declared Thursday night that it had issues with the "flawed process" of how calls are evaluated in the last-two-minute reports.
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 Twitter account for the league office's officiating department responded Friday, calling those claims "not accurate" and particularly taking umbrage with the assertion that analysts without officiating experience are responsible for evaluating the calls.
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 league office began releasing last two-minute reports in March 2015 in an attempt to improve transparency with officiating. The reports evaluate every officiating call and no-call in games with scores within five points in the final two minutes.
The referees association has consistently maintained the stance that the reports are unfair to officials. Several players have also been critical, saying it does no good to publicly declare calls incorrect when the results of the game are final.
Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, whose fine total for criticizing officiating over the years has reached seven figures, chimed in Friday with a presumably sarcastic suggestion for the league office.
Fine 'em https://t.co/RVkwXRViIR
— Mark Cuban (@mcuban) March 16, 2018
