I was watching the Sac-Hou game last night and after the phantom foul Yao placed on Webber's wild lane drive, I had to wonder if the Refs ever study game tape similar to players and coaches. Any ideas? I would venture to say they do watch game tape aside from the mandatory tape the league probably has them watch when the league wants them to focus on a recurring issue. Please fill me in on your thoughts...
The only thing I could say is, Yao is a rookie and Webber is one of the elite players in the league. Thats not to say that call is right, but it happens. Sometimes when you are a rookie, all you have to do is look at an elite player and the whistle blows. It will probably happen again. With regards to watching tape, Id think they do. I know they get graded by the league so perhaps the league tries to point out the calls they obviously missed. On a side note, Yao has gotten some cheap foul calls. However, there are many teams when he reaches over the back or wipes out his man with his off arm on offense and never gets called for it. As a whole, Im pretty happy with the treament Yao gets from the refs.
The main thing Yao needs to learn is that when someone makes body contact, you cannot keep moving. They will call it on the defender every time unless the offensive player is pushing off with the elbow. In this case he was driving to the whole. If Yao stands there, 50/50 they call a charge. The real phantom call was the Bobby Jackson drive underneath the basket when there was no body contact.
Well they gave Yao a call against Vlade on a clean steal earlier in the game. I think they do the best they can. DD
To answer your question, darin, I would guess that the refs do watch game tape. I would like to think that they would at least review the close calls of all their games so they can see if they missed it. I suppose it is very possible that they don't even do that, however.
Hey darin, Sorry I don't have specifics, but yes, they do watch lots of tape. There was an article in the New York Times magazine about one of the refs, and it's excellent... it talks about how they go about their business... Google rocks; here's the article (NYT - registration required): http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/25/magazine/25NBA.html?pagewanted=all They study a lot; you do have to acknowledge that fact that refereeing is really difficult, especially in the NBA. 3 guys to watch 10 people in a game where you're constantly running... much harder than baseball or football.
