Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr joined San Francisco’s KNBR radio on Thursday, and the interview turned into a scathing rant against NBA referees and, in Kerr’s opinion, their immense struggles to correctly call travels.
“(Traveling) is a point of emphasis on one particular play, and that’s when you catch-and-go,” Kerr said. “Like if a ball is swung to a guy on the wing, he catches and he goes. That’s an automatic travel whether he travels or not. Honestly. It’s just the one that the officials are taught to see.
“I can literally put together a blooper reel of plays that are embarrassing travels that are just not called. I believe what you just said. It’s a case of they have so many things to look at. They are looking at defensive three seconds, they’re looking at contact in the lane when people are cutting through. They are looking at the charge and block circle. They are looking at everything they should be looking at, which is the basic rule of the game: which is traveling.
“It’s a shame. Guys are getting away with murder out there. And 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?”
The issue goes further back than this week, or even this season. A missed travel by Russell Westbrook late in Game 1 of the 2016 Western Conference Finals, which Oklahoma City narrowly won:
https://vine.co/v/i0rxhi6nIBn
In March, Kerr went on a sarcastic little rant after Spurs guard Danny Green got away with a travel on a key bucket in a win against the Warriors.
“I need to write down that traveling is now allowed in the NBA. Silly me. I forgot that they got rid of that rule, so we’ll have to adjust.”
To be clear, missed travels don’t happen only in Warriors games. Far from it. It’s been an issue for several years throughout the league. Kerr readily admitted the Warriors travel as well.
“To me it’s such an important rule, it’s the foundation of the game,” Kerr said. “And when it’s violated it just feels like we’re not actually playing the game.”
[KNBR]