Open Thread: Spurs fans among the highest to complain about NBA officiating

Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post

Was it based on a bad season, or have the fans of the Silver & Black begun pointing fingers for losses?

This was the not the best season for the San Antonio Spurs. In fact, until the coronavirus pandemic landed squarely in the NBA and stopped the season in its tracks, the Spurs playoff hopes were all but unreachable.

Admittedly, the good guys had significant trouble putting together a solid forty-eight minutes, and while that is not an excuse, it did lead to a lot more confrontation with the NBA officials.

Forgetting for a moment some egregious missed calls, particularly when a player makes a shot and have it not count (yeah, I’m talking about you James Harden), each team and player has his own circumstance of questionable calls.

An on-line study of team-oriented Reddit sites through Casino.org found that the Toronto Raptors had the most discussions regarding NBA officiating and specific referees. They were followed by the Los Angeles Lakers and then the San Antonio Spurs.

That’s right, Pounders, in-depth analysis of /r/NBA that included both the NFL and MLB not only determined which teams have the most mentions of officials but which specific officials are at the receiving end of the ire.

• NBA refs are most discussed on Reddit with nearly 40,500 mentions, with over 11,000 citing specific officials
• Tony Brothers (3,491) and Scott Foster (3.297) make up over 2/3 of the NBA mentions and average 5x the mentions of the next closest ref, Marc Davis (636)
• Despite having just 514 mentions, Ben Taylor is the most positively discussed official while Jason Taylor has the most negative mentions in /r/NBA
• Toronto Raptors fans are most likely to discuss referees with nearly 3,400 mentions of officials
• Los Angeles Lakers (2,483) and San Antonio Spurs (1,926) fans also discuss referees frequently on their sub-reddits
• New York Knicks fans were least likely to discuss officiating with just 806 mentions of referees

Realizing of course that to an extent the players (and sometimes our benevolent head coach) complain profusely in a certain game, there may be reason to believe the fans would jump on the bandwagon. DeMar DeRozan received his fair share of technicals when he felt he was not getting calls. And on many occasions he was right, but that still does not remove the tech nor does it swing the pendulum back in his direction.

Where do you stand fans? I myself had to restrain making a couple of Open Threads specific to the botched calls this season. It can stir an unnecessary pot, but is it not without some merit to call out bad officiating? After all, it’s part of the play, and we call out the players when they aren’t spot on.

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Open Thread: Spurs fans among the highest to complain about NBA officiating
Open Thread: Spurs fans among the highest to complain about NBA officiating