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SALT LAKE CITY — The Jazz's front office is frustrated with NBA officiating, and they're going public with their complaints.
In an interview on The Vertical podcast with Adrian Wojnarowski, Jazz general manager Dennis Lindsey went on the record with some of his complaints with how the Jazz are officiated, including some more concrete data from the league's confidential reports that cover the entire 48 minutes of every NBA game.
"The data does tell us at times, that when we're grabbed, held, pushed or pulled, it's about every third or fourth game that it's not appropriately called, we'll suffer from what's called a high-discrepancy game, which we define as a margin of four or more missed calls in either direction," Lindsey explained.
"Over a three-year period, the high-discrepancy games were 12-72 against us," Lindsey said.
Why is that the case? The data shows that many of the calls that are missed are due to the Jazz moving bodies around the floor on their lengthy offensive possessions, cutting and screening for each other. Opposing teams have found success by "grabbing, holding, pushing or pulling" the Jazz, and getting them out of those motions, even though they're committing fouls.
The Jazz feel that the referees aren't biased against their franchise, coach, or players, but against their style of play. And the league isn't instructing its officials on how to correctly adjudicate that movement-oriented style.
"Where our concern comes in is how management chooses to specifically, or in this case, not specifically, educate officials on particular data," Lindsey said on the podcast. "If they don't know there's a systematic issue, they can't fix it."
Another Lindsey concern is the team's injury record.
"We had two players who were hurt on fouls. One, on Alec Burks, when he was up in the air was fouled, and suffered an ankle and a knee injury," Lindsey said. "Then we had Derrick Favors, who was grabbed and pulled and twisted on a non-call, that made him miss a period of time as well."
The Jazz have tried to be professional about the treatment. The Jazz have picked up 13 technical fouls all season long as a team and coaching staff, the fewest in the league. Six individual players have more, and even mild-mannered San Antonio has 14. But Lindsey says he doesn't want his players to complain more.
"I just don't believe there's ever a good reason to lose your competitive poise," Lindsey said. "I've found the best competitors, whether it be boxing or football or basketball, are those that can keep their sensibilities about them and compete great."
Instead, the Jazz's front office has taken these complaints to the league's office, backed up by data. "We've had a few conversations in New York, and we've had to be blunt and very frank in conversations in GM meetings," Lindsey said. "Other teams will talk about one call, or maybe a subplot with an official. We've backed up and we've tried to be more data driven."
But clearly, the Jazz are frustrated at what the league's data shows: the Jazz have been either near or actually at the bottom of the league in terms of the call margin, and have been for the entirety of Quin Snyder's tenure.
Related: Jazz struggling with NBA referee respect
The NBA's Last Two Minute report in 2015-16 showed the Jazz were last in the league in call margin in those critical game periods.Those meetings haven't sparked the change that the Jazz hoped for: referee education on the kinds of calls that they're consistently missing, nor transparency with the league's refereeing data.
That there's so much frustration that they're going public with their complaints is notable. Given the NBA's famously harsh fines against team personnel who speak publicly about officiating, the Jazz could be sending a big check to the league's office.
But given the stakes, the team feels the step was necessary. With the Jazz's first playoff appearance since 2011-12 two weeks away, the front office decided that a potential fine was worth trying a new avenue to create change in the league's processes.
"What we're asking is for the league to catch up with our style of play, because frankly our fans like how we play," Lindsey said. "Our players like that all five guys touch it. Gordon likes it. Rudy likes it."
Now, can the referees learn to like it too?
