Pat McAfee hosted an evening special of The Pat McAfee Show on ESPN in which he interviewed commissioners from major professional sports leagues on Wednesday. NBA commissioner Adam Silver was among those guests, and one of the questions McAfee asked him about was on the topic of flopping, which has led to plenty of conversation from fans and those around the league of late.
Silver told McAfee that flopping and how to regulate it has remained a conversation, but he also praised NBA referees.
“It’s been a conversation,” Silver said. “I would only say that there’s a difference between selling the call, exaggeration, and a true flop, where you’re actually fooling the referees. I think sometimes even as I sit in the stands at games, players may be falling down, players may be reacting to a call. But, to me, if they’re not fooling the referees, it’s like, okay, the players are taught to sell calls these days.”
“Can officiating get better? Of course,” Silver continued. “We’re always working on that. Can officials get fooled occasionally? We’re always looking at that as well. But the officiating is incredible.”
Silver proceeded to talk about the future of replay technology in the NBA and how he thinks that will make a big difference in providing more clarity to calls.
“I will also add one other piece to it, because I know there is always controversy around certain calls… In terms of replay, we’re going to get to the point fairly quickly… I think, where, just like if you’re a tennis fan and they have a system called Hawk-Eye, and it’s like the animation, ‘duh duh duh duh duh duh,’ and you quickly see the oohs and aaahs of the crowd, it touched the line, or it was out of bounds. We’re going to move to a system like that, where that whole category of calls will be automatic,” Silver explained.
“Those calls will be done by an AI automated system, with cameras lined around the court. And it will take all of those so-called objective calls out of the hands of the referees,” Silver elaborated. “It will be instantaneous. It will be automatic. Just play on; let’s go… You won’t have to deal with challenges on those calls.
“But it will also allow the officials on the more difficult, subjective calls, to give their full attention to those. There’s often contact on every play. It doesn’t mean there’s a foul. And they’re trying to measure, sort of, whether that contact is impeding the player, how hard that contact is. It’s something that can’t just done be on camera. They’re actually feeling the contact because they’re on the floor there with the player.”
“I think technology will really be helpful here,” Silver concluded on the subject.
About Matt Clapp
Matt is an editor/writer at The Comeback and Awful Announcing.
He can be reached by email at mclapp@thecomeback.com.