Miami brothers making NBA officiating history in playoffs. And Bam on DPOY disappointment
Two of the 36 officials who earned spots to work the first round of this year’s NBA playoffs are from Miami. And they are brothers.
John and Jacyn Goble, who both were born and raised and still reside in Miami, are making officiating history this year as the first siblings to work on the NBA’s referee staff in the same postseason. John, in his 14th season as an NBA official, entered this season with 90 playoff games under his belt, but Jacyn, in his fifth season as an NBA official, is making his debut as a member of the playoff staff.
Playoff officials are selected by the NBA Referee Operations management team based on three specific criteria assessed throughout the season: NBA Referee Operations graded rankings, play-calling accuracy and team rankings. Officials are evaluated after each round of the playoffs to determine who will continue working in the postseason.
“It’s a tremendous accomplishment, in my opinion,” Jacyn said of being chosen to work the NBA playoffs along with his brother. “I believe that these are the best athletes in the world. I believe that we are the best referees in the world, along with the best coaches in the world. So to be a part of that group, the elite of the elite, is just a tremendous accomplishment, in my opinion.”
The Goble brothers are not part of the crew who will work Game 2 of the Miami Heat’s first-round series against the Milwaukee Bucks on Monday at Fiserv Forum. But John is the crew chief for Monday night’s playoff matchup between the Denver Nuggets and Portland Trail Blazers at Ball Arena.
Before reaching the NBA level, John and Jacyn reffed basketball games at Tamiami Park and in adult leagues around Miami. But their roads to reaching the professional level are different.
John, 42, played one season as Heat forward Udonis Haslem’s teammate at Miami High. He attended Florida International University and was hoping to become a high school or college athletic director before he eventually found himself officiating on the college level and then became interested in jumping to the NBA level.
“Being an NBA referee wasn’t even on the list or radar, whether it be the ultimate goal or a short-term goal,” John said. “When I started officiating, it was basically a means to try to help pay my way through school, to pay for books and start taking care of myself. Then when I got into referring college basketball, my goal was to try to referee in the SEC. Then along the way, I was invited to an NBA summer league. And when I refereed in the summer league, it’s when the bug hit me. I said, ‘I really like this style of basketball.’ ... Once I refereed there, that become a goal. I wanted to see if I could make it.”
Jacyn, 40, also played basketball in high school, attending Miami High before transferring to Coral Park Senior High and then spending time at Miami-Dade College and FIU. He worked as a police officer for the Miami-Dade Police Department for nearly 14 years before becoming an NBA official about nine years after John took on that same role.
“They’re very similar jobs,” Jacyn said of the transition he made from serving a police officer to becoming an NBA referee. “One job is more enforcing the laws. And in this job, we’re enforcing the rules and the guidelines that are set forth. So they’re very similar jobs.”
The schedule that comes with being an NBA official is different, though. John estimates that he is home for about one week every month during the season.
For John and Jacyn, that means finding a way to fit family time into a busy work schedule. John is the father of a 17-year-old and 13-year-old, and Jacyn is the father of a 13-year-old and 10-year-old.
“It’s like balancing the unbalanced. Way too much time on the road,” John said. “Thankful for things like FaceTime that help you stay a little bit more connected. But just physically not being there is very tolling. So when we are home, we try to maximize our time at home.”
When John and Jacyn are on the road, they search for a taste of home. Born and raised in Miami to a Cuban mother, the brothers look for different Cuban restaurants in NBA cities across the country during their road trips.
Toward the end of the regular season, Jacyn said he found a Cuban restaurant in Detroit and showed one of the employees how to make proper Cuban coffee.
“I showed him how to do the espumita [the first drips of coffee whipped with sugar] and he didn’t know. He didn’t know, but they had Cafe Pilon,” Jacyn said.
John added: “That’s probably one of our little scavenger hunts when we get into a city is to find a place that has Cuban food and we can find a cafecito.”
The two have yet to work an NBA game together, but they’re hopeful they will be assigned to the same game at some point down the road.
“I ask Santa for that every year, but I’m not very good throughout the year,” John joked. “If it happens, it happens. It would be a tremendous thing and experience to have to be able to work a game with my brother. We don’t have any say in our schedule. So at the end of the day, when we get our schedule, we got to go where we got to go.”
BAM ON DPOY DISAPPOINTMENT
Despite recently campaigning for himself, Heat center Bam Adebayo was not named a finalist for the NBA’s Defensive Player of the Year award.
The finalists for the award, announced last week, are Utah’s Rudy Gobert, Golden State’s Draymond Green and Philadelphia’s Ben Simmons.
“There’s just certain stuff you got to laugh at, you know what I mean,” Adebayo said during a recent appearance on 790 The Ticket’s Tobin & Leroy show. “It’s just expect the unexpected. The way I deal with that is I laugh at it. But that’s the thing, I don’t feel like I should have to like campaign for myself to get an award.”
Adebayo was one of 13 NBA players who averaged at least one steal and one block this season. He’s known on the defensive end for his unique versatility and ability to effectively switch onto every position on the court at 6-9 and 255 pounds.
“It’s disappointing to see that,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said of Adebayo not getting picked as a finalist for the award. “The only thing you can do right now is win. That changes people’s perspectives. I don’t know what it was based on, whether it’s analytics, stats, whatever. But we’re moving on.”
This story was originally published May 24, 2021 at 11:33 AM.
