NBA Players’ Referee Rankings Reveal How They Really Feel About Officiating

The NBA playoffs are in full swing, which means there’s a lot of talk about officiating in professional basketball. How the referees call games and how different those calls are in the postseason compared to the regular season tend to make up a large part of NBA discussion this time of year. Beyond that, all it takes is one big call in a huge moment to launch days’ worth of discourse about refereeing in today’s NBA.

Thus, Wednesday brought some notable news—the NBA Players Association had released a ranked list of all the referees employed by the NBA. As far as we can tell this is the first such referee ranking the NBAPA has released to the public. The ranking separates the officials into three tiers, with Tier 1 being the best and Tier 3 the worst. In the press release disemmeniated to the public, the NBPA describes the tiers as follows:

Tier 1 is labeled as “Elite & Top Performers”
Tier 2 is labeled as “Solid Performers”
Tier 3 is labeled as “Needs Improvement”

Per the Players Association, 411 NBA players were surveyed across all 30 teams to create the list. The referees were ranked on a scale of 1–5. The purpose is to provide “official player recommendations” for referee assignments during the NBA playoffs and the NBA Finals set to begin on June 3.

Below you’ll find the full list of tiers, with names in no particular order.

Tier 1: Zach Zarba, Dedric Taylor, Kevin Cutler, Josh Tiven, Marc Davis, Ray Acosta, Mark Lindsay, JB DeRosa, James Williams, Ed Malloy, Nate Green, Curtis Blair, Tony Brothers, Bill Kennedy, Mitchell Ervin, Karl Lane, Courtney Kirkland, Nick Buchert, James Capers, Jacyn Goble, Tre Maddox, Brent Barnaky, Sean Wright, Phenizee Ransom, Eric Dalen, John Butler

Tier 2: Derrick Collins, Sha’Rae Mitchell, Jonathan Sterling, Aaron Smith, Pat Fraher, Scott Twardoski, Gediminas Petraitis, Marat Kogut, Ben Taylor, CJ Washington, JT Orr, Matt Kallio, Justin Van Duyne, JD Ralls, Jason Goldenberg, Andy Nagy, Brett Nansel, Brandon Adair, Matt Myers, Mousa Dagher, Brian Forte, Scott Foster, Sean Corbin, Leon Wood, David Guthrie, Kevin Scott, Ashley Moyer-Gleich

Tier 3: Robert Hussey, Biniam Maru, Rodney Mott, Natalie Sago, John Goble, Tyler Ricks, Suyash Mehta, Danielle Scott, John Conley, Intae Hwang, Pat O’Connell, Che Flores, Michael Smith, Evan Scott, Brandon Schwab, Jenna Schroeder, Tyler Ford, Dannica Baroody, Simone Jelks, Jenna Reneau

The NBAPA concluded its announcement of these rankings by stating the players value four factors when it comes to officiating: Call accuracy, experience, balanced temperament and communication.

Why this matters

Given all NBA players can easily find a reason to complain about every call ever made on the floor, it’s fair to wonder why this is all that notable. But it is, indeed, notable.

The NBA is extremely protective of its officials when it comes to public criticism. Any player, coach or employee of a basketball team who openly criticize referees will get fined. Every single time. And it’s usually hefty, too; public criticism of officiating can fetch a fine ranging from $10,000 to $50,000 in most cases. Referees are an integral part of the game and so the league has adopted the stance that whatever is said behind closed doors has to stay there. Nobody, not even the biggest names in the NBA, is allowed to publicly put officials on blast.

What the NBAPA just did was put out a pretty harsh criticism of those officials, which the NBA itself clearly does not like. It’s good for everyone to know that NBA players largely view the referees as passable given only 20 out of 73 referees were deemed in need of “improvement.” But the players did just label 20 refs as bad at their jobs, which would earn a significant fine if expressed in a public setting through any other manner.

Notable takeaways from NBA players’ referee rankings

While most of these referees are largely unknown to the average fan, there are a few who have been around long enough (and made enough big calls in big games) to have their faces known by the general public. Here’s where those names landed.

Tony Brothers

Brothers recently wound up in headlines after an on-court altercation with Timberwolves coach Chris Finch that Finch called “completely unprofessional behavior,” during Game 3 of the team’s second-round series against the Spurs. But Minnesota star Anthony Edwards laughed it off, saying, “Tony Brothers is Tony Brothers. We all love him.”

That turned out to be correct, based on these rankings. Brothers was placed in Tier 1 as a top performer.

Scott Foster

Foster is another well-known name in NBA circles, largely thanks to many years of conflict with Chris Paul that led to the point guard publicly accusing the official of having a personal feud with him. This survery revealed other players’ opinion of Foster at large.

He was placed in Tier 2 as a solid official.

John Goble

Lakers fans in particular might recognize Goble name. The referee got into a bit of a heated back-and-forth with Los Angeles star Austin Reaves during Game 2 of the Thunder-Lakers series. That led to a postgame huddle which saw Reaves and the entire L.A. roster surround Goble to give him a piece of their mind.

He was ranked in Tier 3 as a referee who needs improvement.

More NBA playoffs from Sports Illustrated

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