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Anyone who’s sat through this year’s NBA playoffs has probably noticed: the basketball league has a big problem with its referees.
There’s the poor flopping management for starters, where players try to exaggerate or fabricate physical contact with opposing teams in order to draw penalty calls. Flopping has become something of an epidemic over the 2026 playoffs, with certain suspects flailing to the floor on one in every ten field goal attempts.
Then there are the missed non-physical violations. During a critical game five matchup in Oklahoma City earlier this week, refs flubbed a major out-of-bounds call at a crucial point in the later half of the game. Making matters worse, they refused to overturn the call even after huddling to review their decision. That kicked off some major discourse online about the call in particular, and the quality of NBA refs in general.
Like his refs, NBA commissioner Adam Silver evidently has his eyes elsewhere. Speaking on the Pat McAfee Show, Silver used that game five controversy as a springboard to soft-launch a new AI initiative, which he says could take over for human refs in critical moments.
“The officiating is incredible,” Silver said, defending NBA officials. “I think, in terms of replay, I think we’re going to get to the point fairly quickly where, for example out-of-bounds… where, just like [when] you’re a tennis fan and they have Hawk-Eye… we’re gonna move to a system like that, where that whole category of calls will be automatic.”
Hawk-Eye refers to a Sony-owned camera system which uses high-speed sensors to help refs in sports like baseball, cricket, and soccer make accurate calls on close plays. While Sony advertises the service as accurate within 0.1 inches, it’s had quite a few controversies itself, and is certainly no substitute for solid refereeing in the moment — a distinction other major league sports commissioners seem well aware of.
According to Silver, however, the NBA’s automated system would supplement referees for line calls, not augment them.
“Those calls will be done by an AI automated system, with cameras lined around the court, and it’ll take all those so-called objective calls out of the hands of the referees,” Silver explained. “It’ll just be instantaneous, it’ll be automatic, just play on, y’know, let’s go, Spurs in-bounds, and you move on.”
Adam Silver says the NBA will implement an AI automated system to review calls.
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