SAN ANTONIO — The NBA announced on Tuesday that Curtis Blair will serve as a referee in the 2026 NBA Finals, marking his first selection to the league’s championship series. Blair is the only first-time referee among the 12 officials chosen for the Finals, which will begin Wednesday between the San Antonio Spurs and New York Knicks.
Blair, who has officiated more than 1,000 NBA games since 2008, described the selection as a deeply personal milestone. "Very emotional moment, very emotional moment for me, because I’ve been right there on the doorstep for so many years. This is my 18th year and one thing I had to realize going through this journey is that everybody has their own journey. Everybody has their own timetable," he said. Blair added that he checked his email every two minutes over three days while awaiting word on his selection: "Every two minutes, I’d check."
NBA executive vice president and head of referee operations Albert Sanders Jr. personally called Blair to deliver the news. The league traditionally reveals the specific crew for each Finals game around 9 a.m. EDT on game day, but the full group of 12 referees was disclosed publicly on Tuesday.
Byron Spruell, the NBA’s president for league operations, praised the selected officials. "Being selected to work the NBA Finals is the highest honor for an NBA official, and I congratulate them on an outstanding and well-earned achievement. We are grateful for their unwavering dedication to the game and pursuit of excellence in their craft," he said.
Blair’s path to the Finals includes prior recognition as an alternate referee in 2021 and 2022, roles that earned him the league’s special white warm-up jackets awarded only to Finals officials. He recalled a fellow referee’s message upon his official selection: "One referee called me and he said, ‘I know you got two other white jackets, but they had an asterisk on it. So, you can throw those away. Now you got a real one.’"
Before becoming a referee, Blair was a second-round draft pick by the Houston Rockets in 1992 but never appeared in a regular-season NBA game. He played basketball internationally before transitioning to officiating.