NBPA: No Scott Foster in the Finals, please
Player survey not good for Foster, John Goble, David Guthrie, Rodney Mott, others
One name leapt out: Rodney Mott in Tier 3. Tier 3 is almost all new referees; Mott, on the other hand, is in his 28th season.
And, doubling down on the idea there’s something a little off about Rodney Mott: the league didn’t assign him any playoff games.
But then when I went to dig in, it seemed a little weird. The chart above is missing some referees. I found where the chart is hosted on the Players Association website, and that chart is different in important ways.
In the update, Tyler Ford dropped from Tier 1 to Tier 3, John Goble dropped from Tier 2 to Tier 3, Michael Smith dropped from Tier 1 to Tier 3, and Natalie Sago—who just made her playoff debut—went from absent to Tier 3.
So, that’s weird. I’ll take the version on the current website (and Instagram) as the latest.
Mostly, I suspect these approximate the league’s own rankings. The league’s first-round referees included 22 of the players’ favored 26 referees. (Bill Kennedy is not mentioned in the league’s press release after suffering a hamstring strain.)
No women made Tier 1. However, the Players Association did note that “Ashley Moyer-Gleich and Sha’Rae Mitchell both received positive feedback from the players regarding improvement in their overall performance, which landed them in the second tier.” Interestingly, neither was assigned playoff games this year, although Moyer-Gleich did referee postseason games last season.
Let’s examine the players’ views of the NBA’s highest-rated referees, as judged by Finals games called:
26 Finals games Scott Foster Tier 2
23 Finals games Marc Davis Tier 1
19 Finals games Tony Brothers Tier 1
17 Finals games James Capers Tier 1
16 Finals games Zach Zarba Tier 1
13 Finals games David Guthrie Tier 2
12 Finals games John Goble Tier 3
11 Finals games Ed Malloy Tier 1
10 Finals games Josh Tiven Tier 1
8 Finals games Bill Kennedy Tier 1
The NBPA’s announcement says they delivered these results to the NBA in March, before the playoffs. And they added that they recommend “that only Tier 1 or Tier 2 referees be assigned to playoff games, with Tier 1 officials exclusively handling the NBA Finals.”
Which means the league got that survey and assigned Tier 3’s John Goble and Natalie Sago playoff games all the same.
But where it’ll really get interesting is with Scott Foster. What we have here is the Players Association formally requesting that the league not assign Foster, David Guthrie, or John Goble to the Finals. They’re three of the league’s favorites. I’d be shocked if the league paid that request any mind. To me, what’s most interesting is why the league is so attached to Foster, who has been a lightning rod for a number of reasons since his poorly explained proximity to disgraced referee Tim Donaghy.
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