Why is Reffing so Inconsistent Throughout Basketball?

If you casually enjoy watching basketball, it might not be easy to understand what’s going on in the mind of a referee. In particular, the last few years in the NBA have been rough. Fans have been calling out refs far more than in the past due to bad officiating. In the NBA, most refs do their job well, but there are a few that have really ruined the reputation of refs. Here are a few:

Tim Donaghy

Donaghy was as bad as it got. During the mid-2000s, Donaghy regularly bet on games he was officiating, which, as you can imagine, was highly against the rules of the NBA. Eventually, he did get caught and spent some time in prison for it.

Joey Crawford

While Crawford didn’t bet on games, he has a history of terrible calls in games, ranging from pushing a player and calling a foul on the other team to ejecting legend Tim Duncan for laughing on the bench. For some more of the outrageous stuff he did, I’d highly recommend this Mike Korzemba video.

Scott Foster

While never known for sure by the public, Foster did appear to be somewhat involved in the Donaghy reffing scandal. However, Foster is still refereeing in the league, unlike Donaghy. He’s been rated as the worst ref in the NBA anonymously by players from 2016-23, and it appears that he does hold grudges against certain players, such as Chris Paul. 

But, while these refs are the worst of the worst, most refs are very good at their jobs. So what’s the reason for inconsistencies in calls?

It ultimately comes down to two things. One is the playstyle of the league and the intensity of the game. If it’s a regular season game in January between two teams nobody’s watching in the NBA, then the refs might be inclined to call fewer fouls and let the players play through some contact, to get the game over. In high-stakes playoff games, where refs know they’re being scrutinized, they could resort to making more foul calls. Since modern leagues value three-point shooting, spacing, and guards, there are far more fouls called than there were in the 80s, when the game was much more physical.

The last reason, which is seemingly the most obvious: refs are human too! They make mistakes, and most of the time, they’re honest mistakes (unlike Donaghy). They get a lot of heat for bad calls, but no one ever takes the time to applaud a ref for a good call, as that’s the standard they’re held to in a game.

Typically, more novice refs are assigned to lower-level games, which is why JV Basketball Refs are as bad as it gets, while I’ve only had one ref I haven’t liked in two years with the Raleigh Firebirds. Overall, The Basketball League does a really good job of hiring the right referees to officiate their games.

-Tex