Steve Kerr has never been one to bite his tongue. The Golden State Warriors’ coach is outspoken about everything, and more often than not, his pointed observations of things are a welcomed addition to discourse around the NBA.
On Sunday, though, Kerr got fined $25,000 by the NBA for criticisms of officials. The Warriors’ coach appeared on a radio show and talked about traveling in the NBA. Among other things, Kerr said he could “put together a blooper reel of plays that are embarrassing travels that are just not called.” Here are his full comments, via CSN Bay Area:
“How is it that everybody on Earth can see these traveling violations except for the three people that we pay to do the job? I don’t get it. It’s bizarre,” Kerr said on KNBR 680. “It’s (traveling) a point of emphasis on one particular play and that’s when you catch and go … it’s just the one that the officials are taught to see.
“But I can literally put together a blooper reel of plays that are embarrassing travels that are just not called. I believe it’s a case of they have so many things to look at — they are looking at defensive three seconds, the contact in the lane when people are cutting through the lane, they’re looking at the charge and block circle — they’re looking at everything except what they should be looking at which is the basic rule of the game, which is traveling.”
And it’s a shame because guys are getting away with murder out there and the fans see it. My favorite is when you see the visiting team travel and you see like a 1,000 fans in the background all doing the traveling signal with their hands. If those people saw it, how come the refs didn’t?”
Kerr has a point. People have been criticizing the NBA for being super lax with traveling rules for decades, and everyone can probably point to at least one super egregious non-call that left them furious. The league could definitely use an overhaul in how it approaches traveling, and while there may not be an obvious solution to the problem (other than, you know, call it when you see it), Kerr gets credit for stating something obvious that no one wants to talk about for some reason.
But saying that dudes “are getting away with murder” is probably never going to be cool. Fining him $25 grand is a bit much, but everyone probably saw this coming, including Kerr.
(Via CSN Bay Area)
