After One Of The Weakest Ejections You'll Ever See, Not Even Nikola Jokic Is Safe From The NBA's Gigantic Officiating Problem

Nic Antaya. Getty Images.

It's certainly not a surprise or a hot take to suggest the NBA has a gigantic officiating problem on its hands. All you have to do is turn on basically any game being played on any given night. Time and time and time again we're seeing officials seemingly get worse and worse, with absolutely zero meaningful repercussions.

Remember all those flopping techs they called in the first week of the season that impacted results? Weird how those have suddenly disappeared a month in right? How many times have you seen a tech been called for hanging on the rim? How many times have you seen blatant mistakes in the final seconds of a game that directly impacted the result only for the NBA's L2M to confirm it was a mistake? You may remember the Giannis self alley oop or the Embiid clearly stepping out of bounds play.

In reality, nobody is safe from this issue. It doesn't matter if you're a bench player or a Finals MVP, this problem is ruining the sport.

Take what happened last night with Nikola Jokic

You know things are bad when even the Pistons broadcast is talking about what a disaster you are. How are you going to give NIKOLA JOKIC a 2nd tech in a situation like that knowing it ejects him from the game in the second quarter? The Pistons crew nailed it. Nobody is there to see the refs. It's no different from what the refs did when Giannis got tossed for a 2 second mean mug. 

Seriously, what are we doing?

Not only are the calls themselves awful, but it's the inconsistency that might actually be the bigger problem. Compare that Jokic reaction that resulted in a tech and ejection to what Draymond Green did earlier this season

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Does that make sense to anyone who is watching that clip objectively? Does that seem consistent to anyone?

Fortunately, the Nuggets were still able to pull out the win last night even without Jokic and Murray, but that's not really the point. I just don't understand how Adam Silver can look at this type of shit that's happening basically every night, to every type of player the league has including the faces of the league and best players on the planet, and come to the conclusion that nothing needs to be done. 

Maybe I'm just being a prisoner of the moment, but as someone who watches this league every night, I feel like things have never been this bad. Yeah they've always been bad, but what we're seeing in the first month is a different level of ineptitude. We're ejecting Giannis and Jokic for NOTHING. We're seeing refs miss blatant calls that happen right in front of their faces in huge moments late in games. Silver wants to have this new in season tournament so that people will watch his product early in the season, but then at the same time makes it clear that he doesn't give a shit that his product is being ruined by what his officials are currently doing.

I'd love to say I have the answer to this issue, but it's tough. The league can't fire all these refs on the spot, and nothing suggests there's a batch of replacement refs available who would be any better. As of now it's what, you don't get to work playoff games or something? Clearly that isn't helping the situation. I understand nobody is perfect and there's a human element to this where people will make mistakes, but tell me what type of human element played into that Jokic decision other than an official getting in his feelings and making it about himself? Even if it came with ejecting a player of Jokic's standing within the league.

At this point, I am now begging Adam Silver to do something about this. Figure it out. It's your job. Because at the moment the game and league I love is being ruined by these morons.