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Bobcats' Brown irked by replacement refs
AP Photo
Coach Larry Brown got an early shower Monday night.
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Published: October 14, 2009
Updated: 10/13/2009 10:50 pm
CHARLOTTE - Larry Brown preaches to everyone to play the game the right way.
So Brown, the sometimes-cranky Charlotte Bobcats coach, is having a hard time adjusting to the inexperienced replacement officials calling a foul on seemingly every other possession.
Brown said that it makes it hard to play. Period.
"It's like the summer-league games," Brown said yesterday, referring to where most of the new officials have worked. "I've always had issue with that. You never get to see the kids play. There's always fouls being called."
Statistics prove his point. According to STATS LLC, there have been average of 57.5 personal fouls per game through Monday's exhibition schedule. That compares to 49 fouls per game in the preseason with the regular referees last year. There were 42 fouls a game in the regular season in 2008-09.
The average is even higher in the Bobcats' four exhibition games. There were 77 fouls and 95 free throws in the New Orleans-Charlotte game last week. The crew Monday night called 61 fouls and five technicals in Charlotte's game at Atlanta. Brown was ejected, one of the early uncomfortable moments for the league since it locked out the regular referees in a labor dispute.
Kevin Scott, who has worked in the NBA Development League, whistled Brown for two technical fouls, then called for security when Brown lingered on the court. Brown, who picked up a technical foul in another game that Scott worked last week, eventually left for the locker room without an escort.
"I don't want to get into that," Brown said when asked a day later of the ejection, before adding that "I'm sure I did" deserve to get ejected.
NBA spokesman Tim Frank said they had no problem with Scott calling security as the league prepares to perhaps play regular-season games with replacement officials for the first time since 1995. There have been no talks since the referees union rejected the NBA's latest offer two weeks ago.
"Without getting myself in trouble, I think the older refs knew how to not take the rules literally all the time. It created a flow," Bobcats guard Raja Bell said. "Some of that stuff they're going to let go for the benefit of a good flow to the game. I think the younger guys, it's not unlike an NBA player, you have to learn the rhythm of the game."
As Bell spoke after practice, one veteran NBA referee, Joe Forte, was across town at the Big South's basketball media day. Forte, who also serves as that league's coordinator of officials, said that the union has forbid referees from speaking publicly on the issue.
"And I think that's the right thing to do," Forte said, before smiling and asking a reporter to "tell Larry I miss him."
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