NBA Warns Players and Coaches About Criticism of Replacement Refs

The NBA today released a statement warning players and coaches that there is to be no excessive criticism of the NBA’s replacement referees as we approach the new season. Due to the NBA referee lockout, the 2009-10 season is scheduled to move forward with replacement referees. David Stern and the NBA are simply giving the league a friendly reminder of the fines and penalties that they have the authority to deliver based on public or on-court criticism of referees regardless of whether or not they are replacement referees.

The New York Times was able to obtain a copy of the memo that has yet to be released:

“The replacement referees should be allowed to perform their difficult task free of public criticism by team personnel,” says the memo, which was obtained by The New York Times and other news organizations.

The memo threatens violators with “substantial fines,” which has been standard league practice. In April, three coaches were fined $25,000 each for criticizing referees.

During the N.B.A.’s last lockout of referees, in 1995, players and coaches freely and frequently groused about the poor quality of the replacements. No one was fined, although the rules were in place. The league was generally more lax about enforcement then.

“I can assure you, there will be less of that this time around,” Joel Litvin, the N.B.A.’s president of basketball operations, said Thursday in a conference call with reporters…..

The NBA seems very confident that the referees they have hired as replacements will be highly qualified to cover this level of play which is generally much more intense and often more difficult to call due to the physical nature of the pro game:

The N.B.A. has hired 62 replacements, but league officials have declined to provide the full list. Litvin said he was concerned about the “intense scrutiny” the referees would receive and said he preferred to let the names become public gradually, as assignments were posted on NBA.com.

Of the replacements, league officials said, 36 came from the N.B.A.’s Development League and 57 have worked in N.B.A. summer leagues. Because most of the replacements come from the N.B.A.’s own pipeline, and have been trained by N.B.A. officials, the league says they are better prepared as a group than those used in 1995.