The NBA Referee’s Union released a statement today regarding the Doc Rivers/Bill Kennedy situation from last Tuesday’s Celtics game. Check it out.
“Some things you cannot take out of the arsenal of the officials. It’s not a stare to start some kind of disagreement or goad him into getting ejected, it’s just like, ‘Hey, enough is enough.’ And basically he didn’t even stare him down. He walked away, he turned his back per what he is trained to do and he removed himself from the situation.”
“As far as we’re concerned, Billy Kennedy followed every rule according to the referee’s manual as it relates to handling situations like this. The only person in this scenario who has had a pattern of behavior that is unprofessional is Doc Rivers, not Billy Kennedy.” — Referees Union Spokesman, Lamell McMorris
I love this. A referee makes a poor call and gets called out by a coach. The NBA fines the coach and the referee. The referee’s union then comes out with a statement absolving the official of any wrong doing and throwing the coach under the bus, stating he has a pattern of unprofessional behavior.
Is there any wonder why people think the referees suck? Not only are they making bad calls consistently, they are also not taking any responsibility when one of their own clearly messed up. In the post-Tim-Donaghy-era, you’d think the referee’s union would be doing more to rebuild the credibility of their membership rather than tearing it down further.
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