Fixing The NBA's Image Problem

No, not that image problem. There are plenty of 60 year old white men worrying about that. I'm talking about something that's actually a serious problem for the NBA, the refs. We bitch about football refs, baseball umps, and hockey refs all the time. Right now, MLB umpires are under fire for a slew of botched home run calls. But, do we ever think that the NFL, MLB, NCAA, or NHL referees/umps purposely tank games?

Long before the Tim Donaghy fiasco broke, my old man refused to watch the NBA, because he was convinced that all NBA games were fixed. I don't think that all NBA games are fixed, but it's always been in the back of my head that some might be. So when a huge playoff game ends on a terrible no call like Tuesday night's Game 4 of the Western Conference Finals, I start to wonder....

Fans should be bitching about the missed call, but they shouldn't have to wonder if the ref missed it on purpose. I doubt that the refs last night did anything worse than make a bad call, but I can't just dismiss furious Spurs fans who might harp on the dirty referee angle. If the NBA would implement any of these plans, it would put fans' minds at ease with the knowledge that bad calls are honest screw-ups and not part of some gambling scheme.

The Untouchable Plan: Much like when Eliot Ness has the entire jury replaced at the end of "The Untouchables," the NBA could replace its entire pool of refs. Fire them all, and replace them with referees that the bad guys haven't gotten to. It worked great in the movie. Maybe this could lead to a dirty referee yelling "you're nothing but a lot of talk and a badge," at David Stern. "You're nothing but a lot a talk and a badge!!"

The Corleone Plan: Send a Sicilian message. Hold some referee training meeting, and send Tim Donaghy's zebra stripes and whistle wrapped in dead fish. I could see Joey Crawford unwrapping the fish and saying, "what's this mean?" Dick Bevetta replies, "it's a Sicilian message, it means that Tim Donaghy sleeps with the fishes tonight." If a ref blows a call against Minnesota, he wakes up with a wolf's head in his bed.

The Albert Belle Plan: Just like Belle, the NBA could use a GPS tracking devices to keep track of all of its officials. Maybe they could also run down any dirty refs in an SUV. Hell, maybe they could just hire Joey to do the entire job. He's definitely shown his ability in the art of surveillance. They'd probably start a trend considering NFL teams are going to be fined for their players' legal transgressions starting June 1, and will have to keep track of their troublemakers.

The Robot Plan: Replace all the refs with robots. Robots do not place bets. Robots are strong enough to stand up to huge NBA players. Robots do not have to be paid a salary. Robots are consistent. Huge comedic upside when players would try to argue calls with the robots. Watching Tim Duncan do his bug-eyed disbelief thing in the direction of a robot would be hilarious. You know that robots would get under the players' skin.

The George Karl Plan: Replace all of the refs with NBA head coaches. Who knows the NBA rulebook better than the coaches? They're perfect for the gig. The head coaches of each team would ref each game. If one makes a bad call, then the other guy can even it out. Nuggets/Magic games would feature George Karl and Stan Van Gundy running up and down the court for 48 minutes.

The Playground Rule Plan: Self regulation. Players call their own fouls, and they better be pretty damn hard to get called. There would be ton of fights when things got heated. Plus, I think this would take care of flopping. You flop, some huge power forward kicks your ass until you stop doing it. How many times would Kevin Garnett break Manu Ginobili's nose before Manu stopped flopping?

The Marv Albert Plan: Take a bite out of the problem by firing all of the current refs, and replacing them with mic'd up announcers. Put together crews like like Marv, Jeff Van Gundy and Mike Fratello or Mike Breen, Bill Walton, and Reggie Miller or Dick Stockton, Hubie Brown and Mark Jackson. Mic up the announce team and have them ref the game while they call the game at the same time from the court. They'd have to focus so much on doing both jobs, that they wouldn't have time to fix games. We have to work it so the ref/announcers' microphones would pick up all of the trash talk going down on the floor. Also, anytime Van Gundy is on the floor, there is a chance of him ending up draped around somebody's leg to break up a fight.

The Shaq Plan: Isn't Shaq some sort of police guy in the offseason? We have Shaq set up a cowboy-like posse made up of himself and other NBA players to hunt down referee wrong do'ers. They could tape the posse's adventures and create a realty TV show that would be like a mix between Cops and NBA Live. The posse definitely has to wear cowboy hats and ride horses. Hopefully they'll carry sawed-off shotguns as well.