OT: Eric Lewis Retires

[Pablo]

Eric Lewis is Coach Vanessa Blair-Lewis' husband - https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/38291889/nba-ends-investigation-ref-eric-lewis-retiring

"NBA referee Eric Lewis is retiring, effective immediately, so the league is ending its investigation into his social media activity.

Before the Finals, some now-deleted tweets were revealed by a pair of then-Twitter users that appeared to show a referee defending himself and other officials against critiques of their work. The league opened an investigation into whether Lewis violated NBA rules by speaking about officiating in an unauthorized manner. It had not been determined whether Lewis was using the account, which used the name 'blair cuttliff.'"


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[MasonFanatic]

This is sad but not a surprise. The Lewis family were victims of some pretty horrific Twitter cyberbullying due to a large Lakers fan account spreading fake news about the Lakers' supposed record when Lewis ref'd their games, a blown call by another member of Lewis's crew that was falsely attributed to Eric, and an old photo of VBL and the kids in Celtics gear.

The best way to improve the quality of officiating is to encourage open accountability, not drive people out of the profession. How many potential future NBA officials won't consider the career after seeing what happened to Eric Lewis? That only diminishes the talent pool from which good officials can be identified.

Eric Lewis has been hired as the MEAC's new coordinator of officials: https://meacsports.com/news/2023/5/...coordinator-of-mens-basketball-officials.aspx