The NBPA has released, for the first time, the results of its 2025-26 referee-player survey, and Tony Brothers was among the league officials players placed in Tier 1. The survey polled 411 players across all 30 teams and asked them to rate 73 NBA officials on a scale from 1 to 5.
The rankings split the officials into three tiers: Elite & Top Performers, Solid Performers and Need Improvement. Brothers was one of 26 referees in the top group, alongside Kevin Cutler, while Zach Zarba was ranked No. 1 and was the only official players placed in the top 12 by every team in the league.
The NBPA said the survey is meant to guide which officials it prefers for the 2026 playoffs and to press for only Tier 1 referees in the 2026 NBA Finals. That gives the player vote more weight than a simple popularity list. It is a recommendation aimed directly at the highest-stakes games, where the league’s judgment on its officials can shape the series as much as the teams do.
The release also drew a sharp line around the officials players trust least. Scott Foster was listed in Tier 2 as a solid performer, and the NBPA singled out Ashley Moyer-Gleich and Sha’Rae Mitchell for positive feedback on their improvement, placing them in the second tier as well. No female referee made it into Tier 1 according to player feedback, a detail that stands out in a survey otherwise built to measure trust rather than optics.
At the other end, John Goble landed in Tier 3, one of 20 referees voted into the need-improvement group. Goble was the crew chief for Game 2 between the Los Angeles Lakers and Oklahoma City Thunder in the Western Conference semifinals, where LeBron James could be heard loudly berating and cursing at him. Austin Reaves said after that game that he felt Goble screamed directly in his face before a jump ball, a reminder that the survey is rooted in lived frustration, not abstract opinion.
Grant Williams, who has been outspoken about officiating, said the issue is less about changing the calls than about the people making them, arguing that officials are human and will make mistakes. What the best referees do, he said, is communicate well and understand when they have gotten something wrong. He added that players adapt when the game is called consistently, and that control of the game still has to leave room for different personalities on the floor.
The NBPA’s message is clear: players are willing to live with mistakes, but they want the officials in the biggest games to earn that trust. With the playoffs ahead and Finals assignments still to be made, the survey now reads less like a snapshot than a blunt recommendation for who should be in the room when the season is decided.
