Mark Cuban on how referees should be selected for final level events

[KD5MDK]

http://www.blogmaverick.com/entry/1234000970073680/

Mark Cuban is the owner of the Dallas Mavericks. He made his money in the computer industry, retired, and now has a variety of business ventures. He has repeatedly criticized how the NBA is run on many occasions. He was fined $100,000 recently for walking onto the court at a game to protest a referee's call, and $100,000 for publishing this piece.

Summary, for those too lazy to read: The NBA selects a pool of officials from its total group to officiate the playoffs. This pool is relatively large, compared to the number of games played, and being selected for the payoffs is a reward for these officials. (I believe there is also a substantial financial bonus for working playoff games compared to regular season ones.) Cuban argues that all officials should be ranked, and that the top 12 or so (he calculates this is the number necessary to officiate all the playoff games) should be the only ones selected for the playoffs.

In fencing, referees are often assigned to bouts above their rating, as rewards, training experiences, and opportunities for observation. Are Cuban's opinions relevant to the USFA and fencing, or are the specific to professional sports, or is he entirely misguided in general?

[oiuyt]

Are NACs the equivalent to the NBA playoffs?

Perhaps World Cup assignments are more equivalent. Certainly we (USFA and FIE) will take people other than the very best to World Cups for a variety of reasons (including all of the ones that you list).

How about World Championships and the Olympics? The FIE doesn't pick just the top X referees there either. If anything were suitable for a comparable argument it would be at this level.

Reading Mark Cuban's argument, the main thing that comes across is that he wants the play-off pool severely reduced. To the point where a referee crew is doing two different series at once. One of his arguments is that players are asked to play on back-to-back nights with travel. What he doesn't mention is that this is true during the regular season, but not during the play-offs. Having officials working as frequently as a team is playing isn't unreasonable. With 8 match-ups in the first round that means 8 crews of officials, or 24 total. They have 3 crews-worth of spares/alternates/subs. While that's perhaps a bit high, it doesn't seem outlandishly unreasonable.

To put it another way, his complaint is that 33/60 (55%) of officials are given at least one play-off game. Then again, 16 of 30 teams (53.3%) are also advanced to the play-offs. Why should the play-offs be a significantly larger jump for the officials than for the players? Presumably the league reduces the number of officials used as rounds advance (Cuban mentions that some officials are used in as few as a single play-off game). The more the level of play increases and the more significant the games become the higher the level of the officiating.

While it makes for a good story and a talking point that will undoubtedly get Cuban more press (something I KNOW he's completely adverse to :eyeroll:), it just doesn't strike me as an area where the league isn't doing things the way they ought to be done. Could it be improved? Probably. Is the current system badly out of whack? Sure doesn't look like it.

-B

[KD5MDK]

One of the issues that arises in fencing that I imagine is less prevalent in basketball is conflicts, especially if you are deconflicting by country.

Is there a qualitative difference between the role of referees and the role of teams? Referees are presumably there to call the game as best as possible, and avoid game-changing mistakes. Teams are there to play, and it is a certainty that half of them will not play well enough and lose in each round.

[sabreman]

Also coaches and competitive fencers. Not sure how to get around it but it is a problem IMHO.

[seak]

Originally Posted by oiuyt

To put it another way, his complaint is that 33/60 (55%) of officials are given at least one play-off game. Then again, 16 of 30 teams (53.3%) are also advanced to the play-offs. Why should the play-offs be a significantly larger jump for the officials than for the players? Presumably the league reduces the number of officials used as rounds advance (Cuban mentions that some officials are used in as few as a single play-off game). The more the level of play increases and the more significant the games become the higher the level of the officiating.
-B

Yeah but some of the teams who make the playoffs stink, and probably shouldn't be there. I think his problem is that some of the refs probably shouldn't be there either. It seems like the NBA is trying to give as many refs as possible a shot at the playoffs, as a reward (Cuban's point), whereas in the NFL only the ref teams that grade out the best over the course of the year are allowed to work the games.

I agree that 8 refs is probably to few and 24 is probably a better number but it should be the 24 best, and subs should only be used as needed.

In fencing while I understand (and support) giving refs bouts to help them increase their ratings, you aren't going to send out a ref who has been blowing a decent percentage of calls to work the finals. That's why you observe refs in pools as well as DE's to determine who should continue and move up. This is of course in the pefect world of reffing

[KD5MDK]

Expand please. I'm not following.
edit: I was talking to sabreman there.

[KShan5[PrFC]]

Last year there were teams with less than .500 records coming out of the East, this year there were 2 with .500 records coming out of the East. These should not be playoff teams. Cut down on the number of teams and you cut down on the refs. Also Cuban crys about everything, so this shouldn't be taken too seriously.

[KD5MDK]

Cut down on the teams, and you cut down on the games, which cuts down on the TV money. But the point of this thread is, how should referees for the top levels of top competitions (and I think JOs and Summer Nationals qualify in my perspective for this, or should) be selected?

[oiuyt]

Originally Posted by seak

Yeah but some of the teams who make the playoffs stink, and probably shouldn't be there. I think his problem is that some of the refs probably shouldn't be there either. It seems like the NBA is trying to give as many refs as possible a shot at the playoffs, as a reward (Cuban's point), whereas in the NFL only the ref teams that grade out the best over the course of the year are allowed to work the games.

And yet he isn't complaining about how many teams are rewarded by advancing to the play-offs. The percentage of teams and the percentage of referees that move up are nearly identical. This doesn't flag the situation as something that's unreasonable to me.

What percentage of NFL officials advance to the playoffs?

It's still true that to work an NBA playoff game you have to be one of the best NBA referees. All that his complaint boils down to is that he'd like the cut-line, as it were, moved up.

What percentage of NFL officials advance to the playoffs? 12 of 32 (37.5%) teams do, but the incomplete first-round tableau helps reduce need for referees.

-B

[seak]

Oh I def think the number of teams should also be reduced hence why I'm a fan of the system in baseball far fewer teams qualify (27%), and its only rarely you see a team under .500 get in.

I am not totally agreeing with Cuban and yes he whines to much, but NBA officiating is oftentimes sub par. I happen to like the NFL system in this case where refs are evaluated throughout the year and the best crews are chosen for the play-offs. Better refs being chosen as the playoffs progress. Also alternates only get to work if someone goes down, not merely to get them in a game, and first year refs are never allowed to work a playoff game.

Incidentally I believe about 30% of NFL refs make it, but this number is seriously sketchy from evaluating number of crews needed and number of individuals per crew, then adding some for alternates etc. At the most there are 4 games per round and each crew is generally 7 individuals. There are aprox 120 refs total making up 17 crews.

edit: note I don't know how many crews are selected for the playoffs, so the percentage could be as low as 24% (4*7/120) and as high as 35% (6*7) based on reasonable guestimates

[sabreman]

Originally Posted by KD5MDK

Expand please. I'm not following.
edit: I was talking to sabreman there.

Many top refs are also top coaches or ex top fencers. IMO this is not the ideal (would never happen in bball) but it is hard to avoid.

[dekko]

Ifind it interesting that in every sport, seemingly, there is some sort of conversation about refs, reffing and the quality there of. Good example, after this past year's super bowl there was lots of complaining about the refs and how they messed up calls.

I am by no means the best fencer around but have been around for some time and have been the victim of many calls that hould have gone my way and at the same time been helped by many calls that should not have gone my way. As a ref for some time I have missed calls and been accused of missing calls when I did not.

It seems that two things seem to be true when talking about refs and reffing in any sport.

1. Those who shut up and play usually come out on top.

2. The weaker participant, or team, seems to need an excuse for why they didn't win. The common phrase 'The ref screwed me'.

I recently bought the World Championship DVD for Men's Sabre and usually keep the sound down when whatever yutz is rambling so I can watch the fencing and not be bothered. I was ready to do that this time until I heard Ivan Lee's voice during the team event, I think it was team, doing some color analysis. He went on for 4-5 minutes about how some fencers rail on refs and use them as an excuse for why they didn't have a good enough result and/or why they didn't win a certain bout or get a certain touch. Ivan's take, shut up and fence! I am by no means the fencer he is but I 100% agree with this ideal.

It seems as though in the past few years coaches at national events have left behind the idea that refs are not good refs and adopted the idea that certain refs are cheating. This does nothing to further fencing on any level however seems to be a common excuse to a fencing parent, who usually doesn't know what is going on, as to why their kid didn't win and that they are still a great coach hence protecting the financial income from that parent. I watched a bout at last year's nationals where a coach accused a ref of cheating and the coach was dead wrong. He complained to two refs who are FOC and also great refs themselves. The refs watched and had no problem with the calls being made by the 'cheating ref'. Seems as though the top refs watching saw no problem and the coach left on his own accord during the bout mean while muttering how the ref was cheating even though he wasn't.

As to the example using refs and subs, that would be fine as long as the subs got some 'playing time' and not used strictly as hand/foot/floor judges because they do not have as high a rating as the 'real' refs in the group. We all started somewhere and sucked when we did. We only got better by being given a chance to show we can do the job. Having these 'sub' refs being used and mentored by the top refs would help everyone improve and give us more top refs to choose from and the burnout factor would be less.

As for Cuban's example, applied to fencing, for assigning refs, due to the fact fencing happens in one room on one day, usually, fatigue may be a factor but in a different way. Having only a small number of refs who can do certain games, bouts, is a bad idea for lots of reasons, burnout being the biggest, and he really doesn't know what he is talking about. As for the fencing example, over the past 5-10 years there have been many top refs leave reffing or fencing completely and mainly due to burnout and being yelled at by coached protecting more than their students rights on strip. This left a pretty big void that we, as a reffing core, has started to make up in the past year or two.

Bottom line, like Ivan said, shut up and fence and stop yelling at the refs. THe more time you spend being a good fencer and not being good at argueing with the ref it is likely the further you will go.

[oiuyt]

Originally Posted by seak

edit: note I don't know how many crews are selected for the playoffs, so the percentage could be as low as 24% (4*7/120) and as high as 35% (6*7) based on reasonable guestimates

From this it looks like the number of crews is more like 8.

So roughly half of the NBA officials make the playoffs, roughly half the NFL officials make the playoffs (despite the noticibly lower percentage of NFL teams that likewise advance).

I still don't see the NBA as sticking out here....

-B

[seak]

ah cool, I found one from 2003 but there was a rule change after the playoffs that year. Also there is lots of poor reffing in all sports (this years superbowl anyone?). If the NBA is merely rewarding the refs though and getting as many as possible into the playoffs, I think it should be a rating system. Also I understand any person/fan/owners frustration with refs as a diehard Orioles fan (who has never really gotten over Jeffrey Mair )