Lakers latest to meet with Monty McCutchen on player-ref relations

The Los Angeles Lakers were at the end of a nine-day road trip, tired and undermanned from injuries.

But in a players-only meeting on Monday morning with longtime former referee Monty McCutchen at their team hotel before playing at Detroit, the players were engaged about the topic of improving relations between NBA players and officials.

"I think their view is communication can be better," said McCutchen, NBA vice president and head of referee development and training. "We are open to that. In the last decade as our social media platforms have overwhelmingly exploded, I think that people [players and coaches] are living under a scrutinized world that has made us all maybe that much more defensive.

"The real goal is how do we get to the point where we are disagreeing respectfully with one another. I think that is maybe where things have gotten to where we can have growth on all sides. How do we get to the point where we are disagreeing about the call itself instead of all the extra white noise. How we do that respectfully with one another is really what is driving our desire to reach out and meet."

Since just before the All-Star break in February, McCutchen has visited with 25 teams as part of a five-pronged NBA initiative to address and improve the on-court relationship between players and referees and re-emphasize its "Respect for the Game" rules with referees, coaches and players to ensure consistent enforcement of violations.

With Michelle Johnson, senior vice president and head of referee operations, and Shareef Abdur-Rahim, vice president of basketball operations, McCutchen will visit and collect feedback from all 30 teams by the end of the regular season. Many of the meetings that have taken place have included coaches and even some general managers.

McCutchen and Johnson are telling teams that the league and referees are working on improving relations, including trying to keep explosive disagreements from happening on the court and perhaps explaining why certain calls were made with better "communication, listening, empathy and strength without arrogance."

This season, technical fouls on players and coaches are slightly up. Player technical fouls are being whistled at a rate of 0.67 per game this season, up from 0.62 last season and the highest since the 2012-13 season, according to ESPN Stats & Information. Coaching technicals are at 0.13 per game this season, the highest rate since 2008-09.

Ejections are averaging one every 17.2 games (.058 per game). Last season, there were the most ejections on average since 2010-11, with an ejection every 17.8 games (.056 per game).

Over a three-day span this month, LA Clippers head coach Doc Rivers, Pelicans head coach Alvin Gentry and Pistons head coach Stan Van Gundy were fined $15,000 each for criticizing officials.

After a 107-101 home loss to the Houston Rockets, an upset Gentry fumed, "All we want is an equal opportunity to win the game. Not have a situation where we are guessing on the biggest play of the game."

Following a 100-87 loss to Portland, Van Gundy said of the officiating: "It's embarrassing. It's embarrassing for them and embarrassing for the league."

McCutchen, however, says the relationship between officials and players and coaches is not more contentious than in seasons past, and that the current state of relations is "overwhelmingly strong."

"Do I think that we as a staff [of officials] are an embarrassment? I absolutely do not," McCutchen said. "But I don't take that for anything more than what it is, which is the comments [made] at a critical time, immediately after a game, and they shouldn't be given any more weight than what they are."

"When a narrative like this builds up, I think the answer lies in looking inward and not outward, and we are willing to do our part to look inward on how we can improve our group," McCutchen added. "And hopefully each set of constituencies will do the same and we will get back to a point where we get back to the game being the focus. And I think we are already well on that path. A lot of this has died down as well as it should have and we are back to what we all love, putting the focus on the game."

A group of players, referees and officials from the referees' and players' unions met during All-Star Weekend in Los Angeles last month in an attempt to improve relations. Commissioner Adam Silver said it was "fantastic" that all sides were trying to work together. The sides agreed to establish a direct communication line between the unions that would not involve the NBA league office in order to address issues.

Oklahoma City Thunder forward Carmelo Anthony recently said that things have changed considerably since he came into the league as a rookie in 2003-04.

"The players and the officials had that dialogue, whether it was good or whether it was bad, there was always a point where they would let you get a little steam off, and then would come to you and say that's enough, let's move on," Anthony said. "And now, the trigger is too quick. You look at somebody wrong, you get a technical foul. You say one wrong thing, you get a technical foul."

Player technical fouls are not close to the highest average over the last 20 seasons, which was 0.98 per game during the 2000-01 season. From 1998-99 to 2006-07, the average for player technical fouls was higher each season than it is this season, according to ESPN Stats & Info.

"Any time though that there is a narrative that develops, you are wrong to discount it only through the view of analytics," said McCutchen, who officiated for more than 25 seasons. "To some degree, whether the technical fouls are on par or not, if there is a feeling that things are not in a good shape, then it behooves all of us to take the time to find what truth there is in that and grow out of that truth.

"Even if the majority of it isn't right, if there are parts of it that are right, meaning communication can get better, our listening skills can get better, our strength without arrogance and our humility without weakness can get better, then we are willing to put that work in."