Steve Kerr, the Warriors’ head coach, spoke to the media before the Magic game tonight and addressed this rising trend of criticism directed at officials.
Officiating in the NBA has been a subject of scrutiny for several years now. However, this year, coaches have been extremely verbal about their unhappiness with the officiating.
While he anticipates more frustration from coaches, he understands that there’s a lot of grey area when it comes to making these decisions mid-game.
“I think it’s a really difficult game to officiate. I think the league has tried to make it an exact science, and there’s no way it’ll ever be an exact science,” said Kerr.
“We all have our pet peeves with certain calls, but the way the game is not only officiated but also interpreted. A lot of coaches are going to be frustrated. It’s not that different in other sports. This is high-level stuff, jobs’ on the line and all that. It’s an inexact game; there’s a grey area on call after call, so there’s going to be frustration,” said Kerr in conclusion.
From the Nuggets’ head coach, David Adelman, and the Timberwolves’ Chris Finch getting ejected recently for yelling at officials to multiple coaches like the Rockets’ Ime Udoka and the aforementioned duo getting fined for their conduct towards the referees, the game’s crucial decision-makers are under significant heat from the league.
Even Steve Kerr himself criticized officials during the Warriors’ recent meeting against the Suns, where Draymond Green was ejected. Kerr also received a technical in that situation for verbally barraging the referees from the sidelines.
Draymond Green has been ejected from the game following this sequence 😳 pic.twitter.com/U5pE3NQDje
— Warriors on NBCS (@NBCSWarriors) December 21, 2025
The league has tried to reduce the scope of human error in the game. They have successfully introduced technology into the game’s rules on multiple levels. From giving coaches challenges to the discretion given to the officials to use recorded footage to make the decisions when all three officials cannot come to a consensus.
Yet the final say on how to interpret the information given by the technology is still a human decision. Additionally, the league needs to find a balance between the amount of time it takes for the decision to come and the accuracy of the outcome.
Hence, there’s a key scrutiny of why coaches are not allowed to challenge at will, and officials do not use technology for every controversial decision. But as far as the human involvement is concerned, there will always be some discretion left vulnerable to human error in interpretation that needs to be streamlined for things to work.
