Fred VanVleet Specifically Calls Out Referee Ben Taylor and NBA Reffing

[rand]

BBRef is a wonderful repository of stats on NBA teams and players but they have nothing on refs and that applies to every other public statistics/analytics vendor. I'm not saying there's a conspiracy here or anything other than a blind spot for the fact that there are really three teams on the court in every game: the home team, the visiting team, and the refs. Even if NBA reffing as an institution is not corrupt (which is not certain), individual refs will be better or worse than others and will vary as well in the ways they positively or negatively impact the game.

I bet an enormous amount would be learned about why certain game results are at such variance with expectations through publishing a broad range of game and season stats for the referees. Among stats that should be tracked are FTs awarded by the ref to each team, fouls called by the ref on each individual player, the frequency with which particular violations like charges or moving screens are called, and how often calls are blown. The league should publish full game reports for every game (as opposed to only final two minute reports) and indicate every single call that would have been overturned by review if challenged. Officials whose rates of blown calls are significantly worse than average should be subject to relegation to the GLeague or dismissal.

[Mr Peanut]

Good, he should call them out. He'll get fined of course but hopefully the NBA take heed of what he says (probably not though).

[MrBigShot]

1. Fred is gonna get a huge fine and the refs union is going to throw a hissy fit.

2. He's going to accomplish what he tried to do, people will be more watchful and aware of Ben Taylor the rest of the season. If there's a sus tech assessed by him on a game that isn't on national TV, you can bet its going to be plastered everywhere.

[Johnny Bball]

That was an awesome interview. Haven't been a fan of Fred at all this year, but he's bang on. I can't believe non of the Raptors went off after the Denver debacle a few nights ago.

Oh this is related make no mistake.

[Johnny Bball]

Lol good. I want to see more of this and a REAL uprising from the player movement.

Refs are corrupt as hell, and with gambling now being more common than ever, there is definitely bull crap going on behind the scenes. I want to see more players call refs out, especially by name. Refs need to finally be held accountable. They have way too much power.

The nba has had a problem with officiating for decades now. I hope this helps shine a light on what silver keeps ignoring and what ruins the game, no…I didn’t pay to see that ****, thank you Fred, because apparently the NBA can’t listen.

[cbosh4mvp]

If I was the Raptors owner I'm offering to pay FVV's fine for this under the table.

Lol, FVV makes 30M a year. He can afford to pay for this fine.

[djsunyc]

If I was the Raptors owner I'm offering to pay FVV's fine for this under the table.

Lol, FVV makes 30M a year. He can afford to pay for this fine.

he makes $21 mil this year but yes, he can afford to pay it.

[The Rebel]

The last time I remember anybody calling out a ref by name was AI back when he was a Nugget. He didn't have a call go his way for basically 3 weeks after that and took some brutal non-calls. We will see what happens with FVV, but that is the reason these guys don't call out individual refs.

[ChampionRed]

Any chance the NBA fines AND suspends him for this? I mean I've never seen a player go this hard when criticizing the refs.

[Johnny Bball]

Any chance the NBA fines AND suspends him for this? I mean I've never seen a player go this hard when criticizing the refs.

I'm guessing both, but I don't know that the CBA allows suspension for comments made.

[visionquest]

This was epic. Not sure it will change anything though.

[nikster]

1. Fred is gonna get a huge fine and the refs union is going to throw a hissy fit.

2. He's going to accomplish what he tried to do, people will be more watchful and aware of Ben Taylor the rest of the season. If there's a sus tech assessed by him on a game that isn't on national TV, you can bet its going to be plastered everywhere.

Yeah I wonder if this causes Ben Taylor to ene up being a more "household name" the way Brothers and Foster are. Gonna be interesting next time he refs Fred (if the league doesn't purposely avoid matching them rest of the year)

[Godaddycurse]

Any chance the NBA fines AND suspends him for this? I mean I've never seen a player go this hard when criticizing the refs.

I'm guessing both, but I don't know that the CBA allows suspension for comments made.

I thought Paul calls out Foster repeatedly without getting suspended

[Jerry Maine]

Fred should have left the expletives out, would have come across more considered rather than reactive.

Just my 2c

[Birth of the Cool]

Good for him. NBA refs are awful year in and year out. Yes the game is hard to officiate with the size, speed and quickness of the players and the action BUT that isn't an excuse for these Refs to be giving out these undeserved Tech's because they have fragile egos. The Tech that Jordan Poole got for doing a normal bounce pass of the ball back to the Ref was egregious and that Tech alone should have that Ref fined/warned/disciplined but nothing happens.

If the players are to be held accountable then so should the Refs. No one wants to see these guys control and dictate the game like they do. When people believe the league is fixed by the refs or that some refs are fixing games there is a problem.

and this has been going on for a very long time. NBA refs are some of the worse in all of sports and have been for decades (Tim Duncan tech for laughing while on the bench is a classic).

I hope the media and fans look carefully at how FVV is officiated for the rest of the season because these guys are a little gang and they don't like any of their members to be played like how FVV just owned that Ref. Bravo FVV!

[Lord_Zedd]

I agree it is annoying for the most part, but I mean Fred has 8 techs this year and 5(!!) Are from Ben Taylor.

LOL what?!?
If that isn't a case of bias, I don't know what is.

https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/11mmh5w/fact_checked_fvv_on_ben_taylor/

Ben Taylor even dished out 2x to Fred in one game

[moderndarwin]

This is embarrassing- crying to media about it - file a complaint.

I think it’s embarrassing how much players complain to refs. We tell kids in rec leagues to play the game and not talk to refs. I don’t know when we normalized players complaining on every call or constantly talking with refs. It’s so disrespectful to the extremely tough job they have and it takes away so much from the watchability of the game.

I’d go full reverse and say from now on any talking to a ref is an automatic technical. Any demonstration toward a ref is a technical. And let the players union decide on referees and how they are measured, rated, etc. Let the players be the ones deciding who the refs are but take away the ability of in game complaining.

[Godaddycurse]

I agree it is annoying for the most part, but I mean Fred has 8 techs this year and 5(!!) Are from Ben Taylor.

LOL what?!?
If that isn't a case of bias, I don't know what is.

https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/11mmh5w/fact_checked_fvv_on_ben_taylor/

Ben Taylor even dished out 2x to Fred in one game

Other refs are going to hand out more techs to FVV to make ben taylor no longer the majority..

[BodieB]

I definitely wouldn't call that a rant, that was calculated and well articulated. He even used the curse words with purpose lol. Good stuff.

[Ryoga Hibiki]

Lol good. I want to see more of this and a REAL uprising from the player movement.

Refs are corrupt as hell, and with gambling now being more common than ever, there is definitely bull crap going on behind the scenes. I want to see more players call refs out, especially by name. Refs need to finally be held accountable. They have way too much power.

this is a Perkins level defamatory accusation