Foul! NBA plans to keep stats on referees

The NBA will start keeping stats on officials, too.

The league will launch an Officiating Advisory Council, among a number of initiatives announced Thursday following a six-month review of the officiating program conducted by Byron Spruell, president of league operations.

While praising the refs’ performance, Spruell said the NBA has already expanded the data it reviews and another step is “bringing in more talent to this demanding profession.”

“As I say, they do a good job but how do we continue to improve it? Evaluate it with a very comprehensive data system that allows us to look at accuracy of their calls, errors in a game,” Spruell said. “And while that can be sensitive to some extent for our officials, it’s still just ultimately going to make the current pool of 64 officials better and better as we evaluate their talent day to day, game to game, play to play.”

The current staff of 64 will grow to at least 70 next season and the league plans to increase it by 25 per cent over the next three years. Spruell said the league will consider promotions from the NBA Development League and NCAA referees, former players and referees working internationally.

A larger staff would allow the league to have what Spruell called “game administrators,” who would sit courtside and communicate between the game officials and the Replay Center. Spruell said the league also could keep certain crews together, similar to the NFL and Major League Baseball, rather than assign them individually to games. That could trim their travel and improve chemistry.

Other initiatives include:

Data review. Spruell said a new tracking system launched Feb. 1 allows the league to video review about triple the plays per game to 250 from the previous 75-80.

Coaches’ evaluations. Coaches provide mid-season and end of season evaluations of referees, but now have an app to submit comments after each game.

Training techniques. The league will use virtual reality among new methods to train refs.

Rule book rewrite. Spruell said a long-term goal is rewriting the rule book to more closely match the way the game is played.