I don’t blame them for wanting a franchise in OKC. I do blame the ownership group for the under-handed way they went about it though.

Mostly I just blame David Stern. He’s the guy that chose between doing the right thing and corrupt backroom dealing with his buddies, and he chose the latter.

And yes, I know corruption is everywhere, but when its thrown obviously in my face and those responsible basically say, “We’re going to show the whole world how big an assholes we can be, and there’s nothing you can do about it.” And the commissioner, the guy that allegedly has the league’s best interest as part of his job description, takes the backroom buddy path well to hell with them, I just can’t go along with that.

I lived in Seattle for a while (Tacoma actually), I know what the Sonics meant to some people there, and Clay Bennett, Audrey McClennan and David Stern can kiss my ass.

There’s every reason to root for that team, especially because their GM actually might be as good as Portland’s gets credit for being, and I honestly enjoy watching most of their guys play.

But I still can’t root for that laundry, not going to happen.

I was thinking of our “rivalry” with the Lakers when I wrote that.

He’s attempted to get new blood in the officiating ranks by using the NBDL as a feeder system (good call on that—NCAA refs are far worse than NBDL refs I would suspect)—it’s not just the players who use the NBDL—and among other things I think he’s also used the public forum to help quell some of the consternation regarding ref’s.

I didn’t see anything last night watching the game that made me go “oh my god how terrible are these guys?”. Then again, I don’t usually think the refs are that big of a problem. i think people notice the calls in the NBA because more people seem to believe refs have more out of an outcome than other sports. But, I see plenty of fans complaining about an ump strike zone (and that matters doesn’t it?) and plenty of fans who grumble about referees/officials who blow calls in the NFL.

For whatever reason, only the refereeing seems to be a problem in the NBA. I think people just need to be more realistic about ref’ing is rather than expecting it to be something that it isn’t, or shouldn’t be.

Baseball umpires routinely miss calls. They have no choice because they’re essentially eyeing the strike zone, so nothing’s ever definite. Baseball’s also weird in that umpires also use make up calls. If they know they called a strike on a batter that should’ve been a ball, they’ll sometimes do the opposite later on.

Missed calls by NBA refs often result in changes of possession or unnecessary fouls. Missed calls by MLB umpires usually result in ball three when it should’ve been strike two or something of the sort. I watch tons of baseball, and it’s probably the best-officiated out of the three major sports (hockey is probably the best of the four, but I don’t think enough people follow hockey on here to understand its officiating…I could be wrong). Basketball usually has so much going on at once that it’s a lot more difficult for an official to see everything that’s happening at once, whereas baseball has four umpires watching two or three parts of the same play. Umpires don’t need to watch the right fielder as he backs up first base. Basketball refs need to watch Sefolosha as he runs down the court in case he elbows Nocioni as he runs by. Out of the 60-odd Kings games I’ve watched this year, I’ve felt around half of them were fairly poorly officiated, and something near ten of them were atrociously officiated. I probably get those same stats in a full season of baseball, which is 100 more games than the number of Kings games I’ve watched.