An officiating task force of coaches and general managers, created after last season to address complaints, is changing how WNBA games are called this season.
Foul calls per game rose to start the season, and officials are emphasizing freedom of movement, which means letting the offensive player move without getting knocked off-course.
The transition hasn’t been smooth.
Liberty star Breanna Stewart complained early on that ‘‘unnecessary’’ fouls were killing the flow of games.
Last week, Aces coach Becky Hammon forcefully criticized the officiating, wondering aloud — with expletives — how her stars possibly could have drawn fewer fouls than the Wings did. Then she invited the league to fine her for saying so.
Clearly, the task force isn’t declaring victory just yet. But at least one member thinks the WNBA is headed in the right direction.
‘‘I give them credit,’’ Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve said. ‘‘The leadership that I was talking about at the end of last season got to the space of, ‘OK, we do have a problem. We do need to listen to our key stakeholders a little bit more. There has to be a little more collaboration,’ and that’s happening. I give them credit because they’re an open book right now.
‘‘I think we’re on the right path.’’
Reeve is one of four coaches on the task force, along with Stephanie White (Fever), Nate Tibbetts (Mercury) and Sandy Brondello (Tempo). She said she sees the uptick in foul calls as part of the correction.
‘‘We’re fouling in ways that we don’t want as a league,’’ she said. ‘‘There are things that players are doing that they have to adjust to and stop doing. We all knew this thing was probably going to need some recalibration.’’
Reeve blasted the officials in the WNBA semifinals last season after star Napheesa Collier was injured on a no-call at the end of Game 3. In her exit interview, Collier said the league had dismissed players’ concerns about officiating and its impact on injuries.
For years, the chief complaint was consistency, not knowing what to expect from game to game or even quarter to quarter. The task force was the WNBA’s answer. But all that criticism also fed a broader debate in women’s basketball about the ‘‘right’’ level of physicality and what it does to the product.
Some, such as UConn coach Geno Auriemma, argued the lack of freedom of movement made the WNBA less watchable than college. Others countered the physicality set it apart from a more watered-down NBA product.
Collier reignited the debate in an NPR interview at the start of the season, saying WNBA officiating caters to the defender and allows too much physicality. She wants it to favor the offensive player because that, she argued, is what people come to watch.
It’s a lively debate and one Sky coach Tyler Marsh declined to inflame. Asked about the officiating before the Sky’s last game, he offered his usual, down-the-middle take.
‘‘I would assume I share the sentiments of most coaches around the league,’’ Marsh said. ‘‘We don’t want to take the physicality away from the game.
‘‘I think it’s about balance. When it crosses the line of injury risk and health risk, that’s where the line has to be drawn. But at the same time, defense is part of basketball. You’ve gotta be able to play defense in a way that still allows the game to be the game.’’
Come to think of it, that last part sounded like a vote for catering to defense.