Winsome Gerbil wrote:The ref clearly mouths "I did not see it", but on the slomo closeup at the end of the clip there is a ref standing FIVE FEET AWAY ON THE SIDELINE LOOKING RIGHT AT THE PLAY. I mean...Eddy_JukeZ wrote:Hard to take the NBA serious when the refs apparently didn't see it. Disgraceful.
pause the video at the 1:14 mark. Look at where the ball is, where the assistant touches it, and look at where the ref is. Hint: you won't have to look far.
Someone might've already discussed this (I didn't read through some pages of this thread), but I did some reffing years ago and if you're actually doing it right you're often not looking at things like this, since you're focused on the next thing you might need to make a call about.
Specifically, the ref doesn't care on iota about the ball in its flight path there--there's no call that he needs to be ready for, the ball either gets to Kuzma or it sails out of bounds. Doesn't require the refs eyes either way. So it makes sense that he'd be focused more at Kuzma's feet (if he travels on his attack) or the defenders' positioning and hands etc. Even if it looks like the refs eyes are generally on the scene, he isn't necessarily giving any of his attention to the flight of the ball.
I'm not saying that's what's happening but it seems very very possible. Someone from outside of the field of play entering game play is so unusual that a ref wouldn't even take it into account as something to watch for--even if that means that in cases like this where they miss that they look like mega fools.
