Do Referees Have Vendetta’s Against Certain Players?

Allen Moll is an avid NBA and College Basketball fan who watches and studies games religiously and coaches youth basketball in his native Lehigh Valley region of Pennsylvania. Allen is a regular columnist for thehoopdoctors.com, Bleacherreport.com, UpperDeckblog.com, and his own site, Hoops Haven.

Have you ever been watching a game and a number of fouls seem to be called on one team, but the whistles remain quiet on the other end of the court? Chalk it up to blown calls, bad referees,………….or referees holding a grudge on certain players and altering the outcome of a game? It’s an honest question that has been brought to light recently in former NBA referee Tim Doneghy’s new book. In one of the chapters, Doneghy swares that he, along with a few other reputable officials, had it in for future Hall of Famer, Allen Iverson and refused to call obvious fouls on the past and current Sixers superstar as a form of retaliation for Iverson’s constant arguing calls and supposed threats towards them.

In my opinion, most officials probably do go into games with certain emotional players like Iverson or Rasheed Wallace, with the notion of giving them a shorter leash than most other players. They probably say to themselves that the minute that Sheed or A.I. say anything, a quick technical foul will be called. Dennis Rodman, during his playing days often brought up the notion of the refs giving preferential treatment to the game’s biggest stars while targeting his supposed “dirty play” on defense. There is some proof of this notion. Just ask any Chicago Bulls fan during the early 90′s and any fan will tell you that Jordan was given a foul call at least a third of the time when taking it to the rack. But for the integrity of the game, let’s hope that officials didn’t willfully conspire to alter the outcomes of games.

The TNT crew, namely Charles Barkley, Ernie Johnson, Chris Webber, and Kenny Smith, recently discussed this very issue on Inside the NBA. Listen to Charles Barkley’s opinion, who when with the Suns, once chased an official all the way back to the locker room after a game to dispute a call.

Charles is always good for an interesting sound bite, as evidence of this video from NBA.com.