Veteran Referee Steve Javie Retires
Although NBA referees, after agreeing to a new five-year contract earlier this week, are assured of returning whenever the league resumes play, veteran Steve Javie will not be among them.
Javie, rated as one of the league’s top officials during the past 15 years, is retiring because of an arthritic right knee.
The injury forced him to miss the end of the 2009-2010 season, but he returned last fall with the hope of making it to the 25-year mark as an NBA referee.
He accomplished that, but filed his retirement papers when the pain in his right knee and his doctors convinced him a 26th year was not realistic.
“I would like to stay at it and end it on my own terms, but in a way I feel as if I’m doing that in that I got to work that 25th year,” he said. “Adrenaline is an amazing drug. The two weeks after the season, the knee was so painful I couldn’t believe it. My doctor said it was because the adrenaline from the season had finally worn off. Every time I start to think maybe I still could do it, my knee has let me know, one way or another, that I can’t.”
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