NBA players, refs to meet amid rising tensions

After months of high-profile ejections and superstar frustrations in the NBA and with tensions between players and officials so high that their respective heads of state spent more than two hours meeting on the matter in December, the two sides finally agree on one thing: Something must be done. According to NBA Players Association executive director Michele

Roberts, a private meeting to address the situation that will include three players, three officials and potentially a moderator will take place Feb. 17 during AllStar weekend in Los Angeles. “I think if the aim is to have candid discussion between the players in attendance and the officials in attendance, I think it needs to be done without a third party, including, frankly, even perhaps me or others being there,” Roberts, who hosted National Basketball Referees Association general counsel Lee Seham for a two-plus-hour meeting last month at the NBPA’s office in New York, told USA TODAY by phone. “I think it will be both spirited and enlightening.” Incidents have involved stars, among them Cleveland’s LeBron James (first ejection of his career on Nov. 28), New Orleans’ Anthony Davis (first ejection of his career on Nov. 29) and the Golden State duo of Draymond Green and Kevin Durant (the two league leaders in technical fouls, with 19 combined). But no situation was more symbolic than the Dec. 3 head-butting between official Courtney Kirkland and the Warriors’ Shaun Livingston, with Kirkland being removed from the referees’ rotation for a week and Livingston suspended for one game. On Monday, Green told “The Athletic” that officials were “ruining the game.”