Memo to Refs: It's Time for A Makeup Call

I like NBA referees as much as the next basketball junkie -- who doesn't delight in watching Joey Crawford tee up Jerry Sloan? -- but as they sit at home these days watching "Forget Paris" on DVD, I have one bit of career advice for them:

Grab your whistles and get down to the arena ASAP.

At the moment, the NBA -- in a contract dispute with the refs -- is using replacements to officiate preseason games, and when the regular season begins later this month, it will continue to use replacements.

The NBA also locked out the referees for 68 days in 1995. This time around, if necessary, the league will lock them out for 68 weeks.

The regular refs need to know two things:

1. You have no leverage.

2. You can't outduel David Stern -- it's like trying to swap spit with an alligator.

The NBA and refs' union are at odds mainly over pension, retirement and severance packages.

(I was once locked out by my first wife. Pension and retirement packages were not at issue; rather, she was insisting on "immediate severance.")

So let's talk leverage.

Frankly, the referees at NBA games are as interchangeable and replaceable as toll-takers along Interstate 95. I'm not saying they don't do a good job -- most of them do -- but finding other people to nail Anderson Varejao for flopping is not as difficult as, say, finding other people to analyze mitral valve prolapse data at the Mayo Clinic.

To most fans, the games look the same no matter what three-man crew is working.