On Sunday night, Sacramento Kings coach Mike Brown sat at the press table ready to answer questions but also ready to give a demonstration. With his laptop set up, he went through a series of plays showing Kings players being fouled but not getting calls. His team had just lost to the Milwaukee Bucks on a last-second shot, but Brown didn't see it. He was in the locker room after being ejected.

"The referees are human, and they're going to make mistakes, but you just hope that there's some sort of consistency and there's some sort of communication between the refs," Brown said, laying out his case that the Bucks were given calls the Kings were not.

Yes, it's odd for a coach to give a postgame presentation on the officials. But, in 2024's NBA, these kinds of comments are getting more commonplace from coaches and players thanks to a rash of player ejections early in the season and the revelation that several high-profile players like Chris Paul have long running feuds with refs, in some cases, dating back years.

There is a good argument to be made that complaining is at an all-time high. In a recent story about the Association's officiating in The Athletic, former ref and current ESPN analyst Steve Javie (a hothead himself as many Rockets fans might remember) said, "But what I’ve found in the last couple of years, and I don’t know why it’s changed, I’ve found there’s a lot of complaining with the players."

It's true, certainly. You don't need anything but your eyes to see that. But, the level of contentiousness between players and referees, regardless of the situation, is always going to wind up the same way: people will believe players and coaches.

The NBA has long had a perception problem when it came to even handedness. The idea of the "star call" or no-call wasn't invented in a basketball arena, but it sure feels like it was perfected in pro basketball. With so few great players on any team, keeping them on the floor is paramount for the league and its stakeholders. Fans want to see stars play. It is one of the reasons why the league has implemented new rules that punish teams and "star players" when they don't play without good reason reason.

It has also long been the case that, real or not, fans believed teams in the bigger media markets got preferential treatment. From the frozen envelope conspiracy to the inordinate number of games on national television for teams in LA or New York even when they are bad, the NBA doesn't do much to assuage the concerns fans in other parts of the country.

Making matters worse was the scandal involving former disgraced official Tim Donaghy, who bet on games and manipulated outcomes. It may have ended with his 15-month prison sentence except that he claimed, with some evidence, in a 2022 Netflix documentary, that this was a league-wide problem that the NBA swept under the rug by laying the entire scheme at his feet.

None of this may have anything to do with Brown's demonstration after Sunday night's game. His arguments, unlike conspiracies, are likely legitimate. But even he admitted the refs generally do a great job.

The big problem is that with every issue, every complaint, every scandal, it becomes more and more difficult to simply ignore the problems, particularly when the NBA, like all professional sports leagues, keeps its referee review process tightly under wraps.

Then you have the unchecked power of the most powerful conspiracy and anger generator on the planet: social media. People who take officiating to task amass huge followers regardless of whether their frustrations are legitimate or simple coincidental. Search YouTube or TikTok for bad officiating and you'll see hundreds if not thousands of compilations. In the case of some sports like baseball, the pressure has begun to change the league. So called "robo umps" have already been calling balls and strikes in the minor leagues. The NFL has extensive replay.

In the NBA, the replay process is complex and even when a call is challenged (if it is allowed), it can still be gotten wrong. Yes, the play on the floor is fast and difficult to capture by humans doing their best to keep up with guys much bigger, stronger and faster than they. But, even with replay?

It has become a real problem when a sizable percentage of fans believe the game is rigged in favor of the best players and the most popular teams. It's a disaster when coaches like Mike Brown and players begin to echo those sentiments, even while demurring to officials in the course of their critiques to avoid fines.

America is as polarized as ever politically, but it seems many agree that something has to be done about lousy officiating in the NBA. When stories are being written about it and coaches are pulling up practical Power Point presentations in postgame pressers to complain, the league needs to take notice and fast.