Linda McFarland on October 05, 2008 said:

Hooray!!!!!!! As long as King David keeps telling everyone (in the newspaper)” that he has competent referees and that’s all there is to that” we will never get the accountability that we want and need. I heard someone say that it will never work because a bunch of fans will be after an official and will try to get him fired. Phooey! (sp) If, after a game there are 500 calls about certain calls that a certain person makes then you can fairly well believe that. It also doesn’t need to be just one game. If an official is following a pattern of not doing well, it will show up after several games. Favoritism would be wonderful to track but probably a little harder. I think besides the hot line and a place to send blogs it would be great to set up an impartial (if possible) group to follow up on complaints. If they, King David and those on his staff would listen it would be a start but it would be great if they actually did something about it. King David is for big money teams and prestige but maybe somewhere in his staff we could find an honest person. It has been evident in several football games already where a bad call has made a difference in the outcome. A mistake? maybe? At least one official was honest enough that he admitted a bad call the next day. I admire his honesty. It didn’t help the team but at least he admitted it. Your blog was very appropiate especially right now and it can give us something to hope for. Two days till we get to see if everyone is in as good a shape as the paper has reported. Three days untill we head for Salt Lake!! I don’t even care what gas costs!!!!!!!!! (well not really don’t care)

JayD on October 05, 2008 said:

I just think that the refs need to be accountable for their calls . I know that no one is perfect hence we are only humans , which can and will make mistakes . But I think that there is alot of faveratism toward certain players and teams . I have seen some calls in last years playoff games that were called on the wrong team and players . These calls were to obvious that they were wrong , this is where I think that there should be some accoutability for them .
But money is everything and I think that is how it is in any sport . Whatever makes the big money .
I would love to see the refs being accountable . Well one came dream .
Maybe this scandal with Donaghey ( I know that I spelled his name wrong , shoot me !!!! , no really I appologize for this ) will put the spotlight on the others so they will try harder to ref the games right . We shall see .
Go Jazz !!!!!!

Linda McFarland on October 05, 2008 said:

Boy did you make my day! I had not read the Pedowitz report until now. What wonderful Sunday reading! It seemed so full of crap that it was unbelievable. It is all about money and protecting “ourselves”. They say you shouldn’t complain unless you have the answer to a problem but isn’t this all one big organization checking on each other? With a hot line for only players, coaches, and team management that is suppose to be “confidential” I don’t think that will get us anywhere. Confidential? You mean that they are trying to tell me (after all the phone calls they investigated) that they won’t know who is calling? How do you complain about a game without them knowing at least it was from one or two teams. Then there is the rule that coaches should not complain about the officials. I can’t believe I read the whole 110 pages of that report. I have to say it was interesting in some ways but the next time Jazzaholic recommends reading something he should first talk to Oprah. How did you actually feel about the report?

J R Stewart on October 05, 2008 said:

You are never going to get a zero mistake game, but the NBA has developed proprietary software, which they’ve been using over the past 3 seasons, which tracks call errors/noncall misses. All they have to do is make it transparent and public. With a public database and million eyes scanning the results, the poor refs would be quickly identified, be demanded to improve or be replaced.

I feel the report is indeed independent, yet paid for by and slanted toward the NBA. The intent was not to revamp the system, with a better system, but reassure the public that the crooked ref was out of the system, and the rest were honest.

King David will not allow my proposed changes.

The best we could hope for is a public web site, which would start a open database, with game by game stats, for the refs, kind of a Wikipedia for NBA games and refs, where anyone can add to or challenge the data.

I just want to know where the mistakes fall! If over several games, the mistakes are evenly distributed, ie, no favoritism, I’d be ecstatic.

Jazzaholic