Duncan’s innocent, so fire Crawford

What a disgrace. It makes me sick. Better yet, he makes me sick. His name is Joey Crawford, an NBA official, and he epitomizes everything wrong with the NBA. As you may or may not have realized by my infatuation with the Indiana Pacers, I’ve been to thousands of NBA games in my life thus far. I usually go to a game and look at the officiating crew and figure out who will blow the game, who will call the quick technical foul and who will make the right calls. Let me tell you, the latter of the three is rarely the case.\nCrawford called a technical foul on San Antonio Spurs center Tim Duncan when Duncan laughed at a call Crawford made during the Spurs 91-86 loss to the Dallas Mavericks on Sunday. The foul, Duncan’s second technical of the game, forced officials to eject Duncan from the game.\nThe NBA has so many conspiracy theories revolving around its officials. Being from Indianapolis, I have come to realize that we have many about our teams and our city. Commissioner David Stern does decent work, but his biggest flaw is his officiating crews.\nBeing an official is no easy task. I’ve tried to do it myself, and I struggled. I can understand a missed call or two because of the speed of the game. I can even handle a little unbalanced foul calling. \nBut where I lose it is when the refs show their egos. And trust me, they definitely have them. Crawford has one enormous ego, and it’s disgusting. I don’t pay $90 to see Crawford call a game. I come to watch the athletes play the game, not the officials play the athletes.\nCrawford has a quick whistle that stems from his ego, and I disagree with much of what he does. If a player complains to him, fine; maybe he should give him a tech, but it better be either for a lot of complaining or a lot of profanity. But a player on the bench laughing? That isn’t worthy of a technical, and it is definitely not ejection-worthy. That is simply his ego not wanting to be shown up on national TV.\nAnd what about asking a classy professional player with a great reputation to fight midgame? That is downright unbelievable. \nCrawford’s list of players he doesn’t like is extensive and you can see it in every game he refs. He hated Reggie Miller, and he clearly has some animosity toward Duncan. These players shouldn’t have to adjust their game to how well an official likes them.\nThe question now: Where does Stern go from here?\nDoes he fire a veteran official? I think he should. I think he should have fired Crawford years ago.\nDoes he just punish Crawford? Maybe it works, but come playoff time when he’s in the heat of the moment in a game, who is to say that his ego doesn’t jump out and ruin a series, taking away a team’s championship hopes?\nStern needs to make a statement, and it needs to be loud. He must publicly acknowledge the situation and publicly punish Crawford so people know things are being handled. Because if Stern doesn’t, the conspiracy theories will continue, the players will feel cheated and fan attendance will drop.\nAnd next time he screws up, we will all be thinking of the day that Tim Duncan was innocent.