- I want you to imagine that you are a player
on the Denver Nuggets and it's the closing seconds
in double overtime of a critical playoff game.
Game is tied.
You chase down a long rebound, you get tied up
and it's time for a jump ball.
- That is a very easy visualization
because that is just like something I would do.
- Yeah. You've found yourself in this situation before.
And when you were in that situation, you were thinking,
"All right, I just need to get my hand on this ball,
get Nuggets possession, and then we'll have a shot maybe
to win it at the buzzer."
- Easy. Yeah.
- Obviously the Blazers are thinking the same thing.
The ref lines you two up, chucks the ball up in the air,
and this is what happens.
(goofy music)
- But that, okay.
But that ball doesn't go near me.
- Yeah. Does that seem fair to you?
- (laughing)
- And if you watch the replay here
and listen to the announcers, they agree with you.
- [Announcer] See, it goes left.
It goes left. There's no question about that.
- I wanted that ball.
- Yeah, and I don't feel like you got a fair crack at it
because the ref messed up.
That's what I'd like to talk about today.
Basketball includes the occasional situation
where the ball gets tied up,
where both teams have sort of equal possession.
And in cases like this, the NBA and WNBA still have a rule
where that leads to a jump ball.
- Sure. - Where the referee
does something that's, if you try it,
actually kind of difficult.
They take the ball and they throw it straight up in the air
between the two players.
But as you can see here, that can be messed up
and it can inadvertently favor, because referees,
just like the rest of us, have one strong hand,
maybe one arm's longer than the other one.
- [Will] Sure, sure.
- Maybe spent too much time lifting with one hand
and not the other one.
These things happen. - For sure, lifting, yeah.
- Referees already influence the game a lot, obviously,
a referee's judgment, their decision-making.
But we don't usually expect refs to influence a game
by making athletic errors of this kind.
- Right, we're used to, like,
okay, that's a questionable call.
That is, clearly he has a grudge against this player,
is kind of what you would hope is the worst case scenario.
- (laughing) Yeah.
- Not like, this ref was physically unable
to perform their duties.
- What's interesting is the rule book
contains all sorts of stuff about what the players involved
are and are not allowed to do.
There's stuff about where you can put your feet,
about who's allowed to be
in that little semicircle with you.
- [Will] When you can and cannot tickle an opponent.
- [Seth] Well the tickling rule is kind of its own separate
handbook. - That's a subcategory.
- But there's nothing in here that specifically tells you
what the ref ought to be doing,
other than throw the ball straight up.
You know, there's not really a protocol for,
well, you kind of biffed that one.
- There's an assumption placed on their tasks.
- Right, it's like, and you just do this perfectly
and then we proceed from there.
- Ball go up.
- And you do see referees take a second crack at it
but usually they'll blame the player for something,
like, "Ah, you touched the ball too early."
Or like whatever, someone was stepping in the wrong place
and they'll throw it again.
- Did the ref who did this jump ball
in the Portland-Denver game,
did he say anything about it afterwards?
- It ended up not mattering a ton, thankfully.
- Okay, boring.
- So it was sorta like, might as well have never happened.
- [Will] 'Cause in my mind, you can like hit the presser
and just be like, look, double overtime.
We were all dogging it out there.
Like, I'm no different from any player
other than they give me a whistle.
- [Seth] Listen.
You practice for moments like these.
I let my team down in the clutch.
- I've always found it weird
that they still allow the referees
to dump Gatorade on the head ref after each game.
- (laughing) But that's only if they hit the over
on the bet that they made, you know?
- (laughing) Right, right.
- The Blazers-Nuggets example
is probably the most critical one I've found,
but referees do mess this up now and then.
Look at, this is at I think the beginning of a game
so it doesn't matter that much.
But look at, even Enes Kanter reacts to this one.
- (laughing) He's flailing!
And the energy of the rest of the players within that
is just so good.
Like everyone knows no one gave a 100% there.
- And so those two are examples
where the direction of the ball was messed up,
but you can see refs can also kind of screw up the timing
in a way that inadvertently favors one player.
- (laughing) Yep, I--
(laughing)
This looks like a little kid doing something.
This is a child that hasn't fully
formed their motor skills yet.
It reminds me a lot of MADtv's Stuart.
It looks like a real like, look what I can do moment.
"Look what I can do, look what I can do!"
- What's funny about this one
is that it backfires so terribly
that it actually benefits the team it initially hurt.
The ball goes to, like Amar'e Stoudemire is so surprised
that the ball ends up going to the Pacers.
So this is an avenue
by which referees can influence the game
in a way that they're not really supposed to.
And that is exactly why, since dating back to the 80s,
college basketball games use a possession arrow
instead of letting the referees dictate this stuff.
Coaches complained enough about refs screwing this up
that they basically just made it, you take turns,
it's effectively a coin flip.
On the other hand, you have the NBA and WNBA,
which are among the only remaining leagues on earth
that still do a jump ball to decide a held ball.
And the idea is basically
that they want to let the players decide
as many things as possible.
But we end up with these situations where,
oops, the ref kind of decided it.
But I still think that there's gotta be a way
that isn't a possession arrow
but doesn't allow for so much referee error.
- Oh yeah, two words. Fan vote.
(kazoo blowing) - Okay.
So talk me through this.
- So you have a bunch of people who are watching the game.
The goal of basketball is to entertain the masses.
- Sure.
- So why not do what has worked so well for American Idol?
Get Randy there, step one.
Step two is let the fans say who has possession.
- And we're talking all of America here?
- I think because of the delay
that you need to naturally bake into live broadcasts,
it's just those in attendance,
which can then also encourage more fan travel
because fans want to go attend road games
in order to not give certain teams
such massive home field advantages.
- Okay, well, that's definitely,
in the spirit of letting the players decide,
just about the worst idea possible.
- Okay.
- My proposition here is what I call Skyball.
- Skyball. - Skyball.
- [Will] that sounds like a 90s movie with Kevin Costner.
- And it could be,
'cause this is some exciting stuff that I'm about
to describe to you. - Cool.
- Before the game they go and they set up,
under the jumbotron, a basketball
that's suspended by some sort of contraption,
right at center court.
In the event that there's a held ball,
everyone knows what's coming.
The whole crowd goes, "Skyball! Skyball! Skyball!"
And then they line up the players
the same way they would for a jump ball.
And then instead of the ref throwing the ball up,
the ball drops from the sky.
- So a bit closer to a puck drop in hockey.
- Yeah, it's actually a lot like a face-off.
- I love it. I love what you got going on.
I'm gonna fix it a little bit.
If you were to take some learnings from the WWE,
they have that one match style
where there is a suitcase full of money
hanging above the ring and there's some ladders,
and everyone is trying to get up the ladder first
to then retrieve the briefcase full of money.
If you also gave these seven-foot tall
basketball monstrosities a ladder to then fight over,
like I think the entertainment value of that
would go through the roof.
- Can they also have chairs with which to hit each other?
- Oh yeah, duh.
- What if they did it dodgeball style,
put it right in the middle.
All five players have to stand behind their own baselines.
Ref blows his whistle.
- I mean, if we really want to,
'cause wait, we're trying to fix basketball, right?
So if we're really trying to fix basketball,
the broken sport, as we all call it.
- Yeah.
- [Will] Five balls, one for each player,
just keep them in play then.
- I think basketball gets a little messy
if we're playing with five balls,
but in this event of a held ball
where we need to determine possession,
you put five balls out there.
Four of them have quietly been filled with cement.
One of them is an actual, useful basketball.
You find out which
when you get it. (grunting)
- Oh, that that is interesting.
I mean, I think the reason a lot of sports get held back,
is it usually comes down to people like you, frankly,
who hear a good idea for evolution.
And then they're like, "Oh no, that's not fun."
- Needs more cement.
- "Needs more cement," they say.
- That's my contribution to every idea conversation.
(warm music)