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 Abdul-Jabbar managing his illness Nov. 15: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar wants to be very clear that his cancer was caught early and that he's not dealing with a death sentence. |
Ask the NBA expert: Ira Winderman |
Do you have a burning question about your favorite team or player? Submit it now, and then check back for our reader mailbag on the 1st and 15th of each month. |  |
Journalists are duty bound to be objective, but they’re human, and occasionally some subjective viewpoint might seep into an otherwise straightforward news account. Judges have an obligation to be fair and unbiased, but they’re human, and it’s only natural that some will allow their personal views to color their interpretation of the law.
Officials are no less human, even though it may seem that way sometimes. Professional sports involve a highly charged, competitive atmosphere in which a lot of money often rides on the outcome of games. Tempers flare. Emotions run high. And refs are in the middle of all that.
They take guff from players all the time. They’re supposed to carefully assess whether a player is letting off an acceptable amount of steam over a call, or whether he’s stepping over a line. They’re trained to do that. And they’re scrutinized — but rarely punished significantly — by the league office.
But over the course of many weeks, many months and many years, a referee will sometimes grow to resent and even hate a player. Poisonous relationships develop in just about every workplace when people determine over the course of time that they don’t like each other. Why would the NBA be any different?
The problem in the past is that the NBA has been in denial about it. Rarely will it admit publicly that a referee has made a mistake, and it’s rarer still when it will acknowledge that a particular striped shirt has a personality clash with a specific player.
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