Sunday, April 20, 2014

NBA Instant Replay

I haven't blogged in a while but a thought occurred to me that I wanted to share.  In high school (and sometimes college), let's say there is a shot by the black team that misses and the white team has is attempting to secure the rebound.  However, a black player fighting for the rebound also makes minor contact with the white player that causes the ball to go out of bounds.

What does an official do in this situation?  A foul call is the easy answer.  However, in marginal foul situations, the official may choose not to call the foul on the black team and just give the ball back to the white team.

Unfortunately, with the NBA's new instant replay situation, that is no longer possible toward the end of the game.  The NBA apologized for a "missed foul call" on Chris Paul toward the end of the Warriors / Clippers game.  The lack of a foul call caused Paul to push the ball out of bounds.  The official had given the ball back to the Clippers but the calls as overturned on the replay.

I'm not sure if the official was trying to do what I suggested above.  Regardless though, using instant replay will prevent officials from making what is fairly smart officiating.  To be fair though, the NBA is a business and I understand why instant replay was needed.

But it does put the NBA officials in the spotlight and magnifies every little error that occurs.  I'm not sure that is a good or bad thing.