During this NBA season, there has been a narrative that a rift between the players and the referees exists and is widening. Both sides even held a meeting during All-Star weekend to address the issues.
Tensions between referees and players have existed in some way for as long as anyone can remember. But there are numbers this season that back it up.
According to the NBA's Last Two Minute reports, there have been a number of blown calls in a lot of tight games. It's happened most often to the Brooklyn Nets — 28 times, fact. That's the most in the NBA.
Earlier in the season, Nets player Spencer Dinwiddie complained about his team specifically not being officiated the right way. It seems like he has a point, per Chris Herring of FiveThirtyEight.
On an individual level, Dinwiddie’s frustration may be justified. The 11 blown calls that left him disadvantaged led the league as of Wednesday and is a very high number considering there’s still more than a month left in the campaign. In fact, that figure is already tied for the highest number of calls that left a player disadvantaged in a single year since the NBA first began publishing these reports during the 2014-15 season.
The numbers against the Nets and Dinwiddie himself are quite remarkable. How is it that one team consistently gets the short end of the stick at certain points of a game? And how rare is it that a player on that same team leads the NBA in missed calls against him with 11?
Herring's story details one instance, in particular, that is particularly egregious.
In the Jan. 23 Nets-Thunder game, according to the report, Dinwiddie was disadvantaged twice — smacked on offense (with no call) and then bulldozed on defense (also with no call) — within a two-second span during the final 10 seconds. By swallowing the whistle both times, the officials likely sealed a loss for the Nets — in particular, the second non-call would have triggered an offensive foul on George, which would have kept Russell Westbrook from making a game-winning basket seconds later.
Said Dinwiddie of the play: “It’s like, that’s Russell Westbrook and Paul George … and I’m Spencer Dinwiddie.”
Enough said.
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