The NBA’s officiating has been a talking point, and it’s only getting bigger year after year. It reached the peak after a Game 5 in San Antonio that left Spurs head coach Mitch Johnson so furious he was hit with a technical foul.
The commissioner decided to make the league’s position clear on how they plan to address it. He went on the Pat McAfee Show on Wednesday and announced the most significant change to NBA officiating in the modern era.
Adam Silver Reveals Major New Change to the NBA Officiating System
In Game 5 of the Western Conference Finals, Victor Wembanyama dribbled the ball off Chet Holmgren’s foot. It was Thunder ball, according to the referees. Johnson walked directly in front of an official to call for a review. The official did not grant it. Johnson was hit with a technical foul for pressing the issue.
Silver laid out exactly what is coming. “I think where, just like you’re a tennis fan and they have what they call Hawkeye, and it’s like that animation, and you quickly see where the line was, and the oohs and ahhs of the crowd, it touched the line, or it was out of bounds,” Silver said on the Pat McAfee Show.
“Flopping has been a conversation..
There’s a difference between selling a call, exaggeration, and a true flop..
Officials can be fooled sometimes but our officiating is incredible” ~ Adam Silver #PrimetimeSports pic.twitter.com/V0XLwaTWjo
— Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) May 27, 2026
“We’re going to move to a system like that, where that whole category of calls will be automatic. It’s going to be, you know, Laker ball, Knick ball, Thunder ball. Those calls will be done by an AI automated system with cameras lined around the court. And it’ll take all of those so-called objective calls out of the hands of the referees.”
“It’ll just be instantaneous. It’ll be automatic. Just play on, let’s go, Spurs inbound, and you’ll move on,” Silver concluded.
The system Silver describes is already in use in other sports. Tennis has used Hawkeye technology for years to settle line calls with an instant animated graphic showing the ball’s exact landing position.
Silver also addressed the flopping problem, which has also been a massive topic. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has been at the center of it. The reigning MVP has drawn a record number of foul calls in this year’s playoffs, and a significant portion of the league’s fanbase has spent two months accusing the league of protecting him.
The NBA commissioner mentioned that the league is working to improve officiating and admitted that players are also taught to sell calls more effectively nowadays.
It’s quite evident that the AI system will not fix things immediately. But it’s certainly a huge step in the right direction for one of the world’s biggest sports leagues, where officiating shouldn’t be a problem every week.
