The NBA has a replay review problem (and one simple change would fix it)

There are likely going to be playoff games that get completely derailed by instant replays, but after spending some time in the NBA’s Replay Center, it’s clear that there is an easy fix.

Even Mike Breen is getting a little impatient.

It’s the fourth quarter of an important, nationally televised Western Conference tilt in Golden State midway through March, with the visiting Denver Nuggets leading the Warriors by nine. The Warriors’ Stephen Curry has been whistled for an offensive foul after bowling over Denver’s Russell Westbrook on a drive, but a Steve Kerr challenge is being deliberated.

And deliberated. And deliberated.

A full three minutes after putting their headsets on to begin the review, crew chief Marc Davis and his crew take them off and confer – then put them back on again. Broadcast viewers have already seen over a half-dozen replays from several angles. This is beginning to drag. “You’ve gotta get the call right, but it’s gotta be quicker,” Breen says.

Over four minutes after being initiated, the review is still ongoing.

“We talk so much about transparency and Last 2 Minute reports and stuff,” says color commentator Richard Jefferson. “How about transparency on why this takes as long as it does?”

The call is finally reversed, and Curry shoots free throws – over five minutes after the initial play took place. A normally raucous Chase Center seems to have fallen asleep in the interim, despite a single-digit game with under five minutes remaining.

The NBA Replay Center has been a part of game operations for over a decade, and reviews have taken a larger and larger role in the NBA ecosystem through the years. Too often, though, drawn-out reviews like these leave fans, players and other stakeholders in the sport wondering if replay is really being used effectively. Are major delays that kill the game’s flow really worth the time they take?

What if there was a way to curb many of these issues? What if, instead of goofy ideas like changing quarters to 10 minutes apiece, the NBA could accomplish Adam Silver’s long-stated goal of shortening the average NBA game in part through tweaks to its replay system – all while also reducing bias concerns, getting more calls right, and leveraging modern technology in optimal ways?

I have just such a proposal.

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I’m lucky enough to be one of a handful of journalists who has spent time in the NBA Replay Center in Secaucus, NJ on an NBA game night (two nights in my case; it was two years ago, for a story at another outlet that sadly never ran). The understanding doing so gave me on the center’s basic operations helps set the table for this proposal.

The unheralded lifeblood of the Replay Center is its staff of Replay Operators, or ROs. ROs sit around the perimeter of the room, each assigned solely to a single game, with several monitors plus numerous camera angles and replay tools at their disposal. Their job is to watch that game intently and call out any possible review matters that may arise in it, from simple score or time reviews up to challenges or flagrant foul reviews. They’re the eyes and ears of the entire operation.

Behind the RO slots are stations with the same video tools, presided over by a duo: An actual NBA referee assigned to the Replay Center that night, plus a Senior Replay Manager (SRM) – a more experienced RO, essentially, whose job is to deliver ideal play angles quickly to the referee beside them. Each ref/SRM combo can cover up to two games at once; there can be up to four ref/SRM combos working in the Replay Center at once on busy game nights, and a combo will often jump from an early game into a later one on the same night if scheduling permits. Anytime the RO for one of their games calls out a potential review need, the duo pulls the play up and adjudicates it as necessary. Crucially, the Replay Center referee is the one to make every actual call here; calls are never made by NBA management or any other employee.

Most of these reviews are simple and can take place during play without a stoppage. For instance, anytime a corner three is made, it’s common practice for that game’s Replay Center crew to simply confirm that the shooter was indeed behind the three-point line and in bounds; original broadcast views can be deceptive due to limited corner space and possible fans in the way, so Secaucus checks other angles to be sure.

In fact, of over a dozen reviewable matters the Replay Center can cover, a wide majority of calls are made by the referee in Secaucus without the on-court crew ever stepping to the monitor. Crucially, though, the on-court crew makes the final call for any foul-related review, plus all coach’s challenges and various flagrant/alteraction reviews. And that’s where the trouble lies.

Over two dozen challenges took place during my two nights in Secaucus. On well over half, the crew inside the Replay Center already knew the correct decision before the on-court officials even made it to the halfcourt monitor. The Secaucus team had already viewed multiple angles, often in slow motion, but because rules require the on-court crew to make the call, the review would often take far longer than necessary as they requested view angles to a single monitor, discussed the play among themselves and communicated the decision.

My proposal is simple: Move the final decisions on all non-flagrant/altercation calls to the Replay Center referee rather than the on-court crew, and eliminate the on-court crew’s use of the monitor outside those flagrant and altercation reviews (for which on-court officials possess important context, such as what may have been said during a given altercation).

Time savings and improved watchability for fans are the primary impetus here, but not the only ones. This change would also limit the potential for confirmation bias, or the mind’s tendency to default to its initial position even when challenged. I respect the mental work NBA officials put into their jobs as much as anyone, but even the smartest and most fair-minded among us can fall victim to simple psychological biases like these. Instead of refs reviewing their own calls, an additional layer of objectivity would benefit perceptions of fairness.

This proposal is no quick fix, and would require some logistical tweaks. It’s been discussed in the NBA’s Competition Committee, sources say, and opposition to it remains – some points reasonable, others less so. Let’s dive into the particulars.

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Much of the NBA’s reasoning for on-court crews retaining these particular decisions boils down to experience.

“We think it’s really important that the most experienced person makes those decisions,” Monty McCutchen, NBA VP of referee development and training, told SB Nation recently. “If we have someone in their first year assigned to that game as the Replay Center official, we don’t think it’s in the best interest of service to the game that a person with one year of experience make critical coaching challenge decisions up against someone with 32 years of experience, which might be our crew chief.”

It’s logical on its face. A few issues, though.

For starters, these calls make up an incredibly small percentage of total decisions within a given game – the vast majority of which still reside with the on-court crew. Any issues of experience are also mitigated during the league’s most important games in the postseason, where the officiating pool is smaller and more senior officials are assigned to Secaucus.

But even excluding those, the idea of “experience” as the deciding factor doesn’t pass the smell test in today’s NBA. The league has a rulebook, a casebook and an official’s manual; these spell out the rules and interpretations of the game in excruciating detail. Any official who makes it to this level – through the G League and various other developmental programs, through years of dedicated training and rules education – should be able to apply these, especially with the assistance of a dozen replay angles and slow-motion tools. McCutchen essentially concedes as much.

“It’s one thing to miss a call with the best athletes in the world that are big and fast, in real time,” he says. “It is unacceptable to not be able to get the call right with multiple angles, and to then get the call wrong a second time even with the advantageous nature of all the angles we get.”

While he’d go on to clarify that he believes repetition and confidence that come from experience also play a role, those qualities don’t really matter when adjudicating the rulebook via replay (they are much more relevant for various on-court tasks the in-game crew plays). A foul is a foul, and anyone paid six figures to adjudicate NBA rules should be able to call it with a suite of replay tools.

Certain folks prone to the use of tinfoil hats might wonder about transparency here. If important calls are being made by a nebulous official no one can see, could the NBA be thumbing the scales and exerting influence over games? Honestly, though, it’s hard to imagine increased use of the replay center increasing such discourse much, simply because those looking to cry “rigged” over NBA games will find their reasoning somewhere regardless. Any real exploration of these kinds of conspiracies quickly reveals their silliness.

Other forms of opposition exist, but answers to these issues are also available. One active NBA official, who requested anonymity to speak about this topic, voiced concerns about trying to explain a challenge decision to a coach or player when the decision itself was made in Secaucus; it’s a fair point, but why can’t the Replay Center official simply communicate the call’s reasoning to the on-court crew? (More on how this communication could be facilitated efficiently in just a bit.) Some may even view it the opposite way: A bit of a buffer for the decision-maker on certain calls might actually help relieve the in-game tension.

A different source with Replay Center experience raised the issue of staffing: If the Replay Center official will be making all challenge decisions, shouldn’t each referee in Secaucus only cover a single game at once rather than possibly two? That way their full focus would be on that game and any relevant context needed during a challenge review. The NBA’s officiating staff is 75 strong, though, with dozens of other elite refs in the G League and WNBA – some tweaks might be necessary to scheduling logistics, sure, but increasing referee staffing in the Replay Center is far from impossible and likely not even especially expensive.

Frankly, the most cogent opposition to the proposal revolves around a basic question: Would it actually save that much time?

Per proprietary NBA officiating data obtained via a source (for games up to March 18), average additional stoppage time on challenges beyond the standard timeout length this year is 44.8 seconds for fouls, 44 seconds even for out-of-bound challenges, and 34.7 seconds for goaltending.

Those numbers are deceiving, though: The league only defines this period as beginning when the crew chief puts on the headset until the time they remove it. This excludes significant time in many cases, including full-crew deliberations both before and after the headset is used. It feels safe to assume the actual average is higher than those numbers, perhaps markedly so.

And just as important as per-challenge timing is challenge volume, which has doubled leaguewide since the NBA added a second challenge per team if the first is correct for the 23-24 season. There’s even been a near 33% increase in challenges per game from last season to this one (1.04 to 1.34), likely due in large part to the league’s addition of “proximate” foul language that allows for additional purview within certain kinds of challenges.

The G League, meanwhile, is testing an even broader system this year: Two guaranteed challenges for each team whether they’re right or wrong, plus widely expanded guidelines that allow for a much wider range of reviewable matters during challenges. The G League is the NBA’s incubator for ideas like these; this testing is a clear sign that the league is considering expanding challenges even further at the NBA level. The change has been part of a modest increase in average G League game time this season, per a source; all signs point to challenges taking longer on a per-game basis in the future, at least under the current system.

Also, vitally: We’re not just talking about challenges here. There are other review types that involve the on-court crew spending time at the monitor, including certain wildly inefficient situations that rear their heads now and then.

On the same day as that five-minute review in the Golden State-Denver game, the crew for the Portland-Washington game spent over three minutes reviewing whether any time remained in the first quarter for a jump ball due to a tie-up that occurred right as the period ended. How could it take that long to make such a simple, black-and-white call?

The answer is a confounding process that involves both the on-court crew and the Replay Center. In these situations, Secaucus will run a video of the play, and the on-court crew is tasked with identifying the moment the tie-up (or a different relevant event, in other cases) took place. The Replay Center official marks that moment, then checks whether the clock had expired. The mechanisms here are rudimentary: The on-court crew chief just says “now” when the event takes place. In this case, the convoluted system led to an error on the initial review that essentially doubled the time it took.

That’s not remotely efficient! Why can’t the Replay Center official simply handle both elements of this call? Why create a game of broken telephone for such a simple review?

Streamlining processes like these is an easy fix for the NBA. And before long, modern technology could play a key role.

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The NBA has tested both earpieces and similar wearable devices for referees at recent Summer League events, sources say.

This tech isn’t ready to go right away, I’m told. One referee who was part of last summer’s testing told me there were logistical issues to work through, such as minimizing distractions from the earpiece that might interfere with accurate calls during gameplay. Earpiece wiring configurations were also an issue, the official said.

But the eventual model here is easy to see: A soccer-like setup where an earpiece or similar device replaces much of the inefficient monitor-based communication with the Replay Center. Does the on-court crew need to know why a given call was overturned to offer an explanation to a coach? Just ask via the earpiece. The potential for streamlining various areas we’ve discussed here is immense.

Automation is on the way, too. The Replay Center is already utilizing an automated goaltending detection tool via Hawk-Eye optical tracking data this season, which utilizes cameras and machine learning algorithms to pinpoint the ball’s trajectory, and sources say the NBA is investigating further such uses that may include other black-and-white calls like out-of-bounds, basket interference and clock timing. If these systems prove reliable, they’d do more than just improve efficiency and timing; they’d also free up referees to allot more of their attention to nuanced calls like fouls, knowing the yes-or-no stuff was already handled.

So there you have it. Both to speed up games and improve the call review process, a move toward greater responsibility within the Replay Center is the way to go. Any questions, Mr. Silver?