Every basketball fan has been there. Ball clearly goes out off the wrong player, referee points the wrong way, coach loses his mind on the sideline, and suddenly a five second moment has turned into a three minute argument that kills the entire momentum of the game.
Adam Silver has apparently had enough of it too. And he’s bringing in AI to fix it.
What’s Actually Changing
NBA Commissioner Silver confirmed on ESPN’s Pat McAfee Show this week that the league will be automating a specific category of calls — out of bounds decisions being the main one. Cameras lined around the court, instant decision, no arguments, no challenges, no drama.
“It’s going to be Laker ball, Knick ball, whatever it is. Those calls will be done by an AI automated system,” Silver said. Clean, simple and apparently coming fairly quickly.
The comparison Silver reached for was Hawk-Eye in tennis — the technology that killed line judge disputes overnight and made the sport cleaner and faster almost immediately. If you’ve ever watched a Grand Slam and appreciated how smoothly those calls get made, that’s essentially the blueprint here.
What Referees Still Handle
Before anyone starts writing the obituary for NBA officials — relax. Referees aren’t going anywhere. The AI handles the objective stuff, the black and white decisions where the ball either went out or it didn’t.
Everything involving contact, fouls, judgment calls — that’s still very much a human job. As Silver put it, “there’s often contact on every play, but that doesn’t mean there’s a foul on every play.” That kind of nuanced decision making isn’t something you hand to a camera system anytime soon.
Why This Is Actually A Big Deal
The NBA has been leaning on replay reviews for years to improve accuracy — but anyone who watches the game regularly knows that replay reviews have their own problem. They slow everything down and kill the flow of the game almost as badly as the disputed call itself.
AI automated decisions are instantaneous. No huddle of referees crowding around a monitor. No awkward wait while 20,000 people stand around not knowing what’s happening. Just a quick call, clean and final, and the game moves on.
The Fans Have Been Waiting For This
Let’s be honest — bad out of bounds calls have been a source of basketball fan misery for decades. Everyone in the arena can see exactly where the ball went. Everyone watching at home can see it. And yet somehow the referee standing three feet away gets it wrong and suddenly it’s a whole thing.
Those days are apparently numbered. Silver didn’t give an exact timeline but “fairly quickly” is good enough for now.
AI won’t fix every officiating complaint — the foul calls and contact decisions will still drive fans absolutely mad until the end of time. But cleaning up the objective stuff? That’s a start.
Progress. Slow, but real. 🏀🔥
