Explainer / Published 2026-10-26

How the NBA’s new full-time referees will continue G League work

Nate Cearley, Brent Haskill and Chelisa Painter bring hundreds of G League games, prior NBA assignments and different development paths into the 2026-27 staff.

Conceptual basketball court with two referee silhouettes on the floor and a third figure at a replay monitor; visible headline “Three officials,” with no team logos or readable replay interface.
Conceptual editorial illustration; not a documentary photograph.

THE SHORT VERSION

  • The three officials joined the NBA staff but will continue to officiate G League games.
  • Their prior records range from 215 to 336 G League games, with different NBA, college and postseason assignments.
  • The published assignment board and position descriptions distinguish daily duties from season-long staff status.

Three G League officials joined the NBA staff

On October 14, the NBA named Nate Cearley, Brent Haskill and Chelisa Painter to its full-time officiating staff for the 2026-27 season. The announcement came from Albert Sanders, the league executive vice president who leads referee operations, and Monty McCutchen, the senior vice president who leads referee development and training. All three had worked NBA G League games before the promotion.

“Full-time” in the headline describes their NBA staff status, not a departure from the G League. The league says Cearley, Haskill and Painter will continue to officiate G League games alongside NBA assignments. It also says every NBA referee with fewer than four years of NBA service works G League games to gain additional experience as a crew chief and develop as a leader. The official announcement makes that continuing pathway explicit.

The pathway combines assignments at two levels

The announcement gives no fixed game-count threshold for promotion. The three biographies therefore describe completed experience, rather than a formula that another candidate can satisfy merely by reaching the same total.

Their records show different amounts of NBA exposure before the change. Cearley refereed eight NBA regular-season games as a non-staff official in 2025-26. Haskill worked 32 NBA regular-season games across five seasons, from 2021-22 through 2025-26. Painter refereed three NBA regular-season games as a non-staff official last season. These are prior assignment counts, not a rating of each official’s performance.

Nate Cearley brings five G League seasons

Cearley has officiated five seasons in the NBA G League, totaling 234 games. The NBA says he earned playoff assignments in all five seasons, including the 2026 G League Finals. That combination describes both repeat work over multiple years and postseason appointments. The league identifies him as a Kansas native and reports eight NBA regular-season appearances as a non-staff referee in the season immediately before his promotion.

A playoff assignment in every G League season is a factual marker of the roles he received, not a guarantee about future NBA assignments. The number of games and the distribution across regular-season and playoff work help explain the experience behind the promotion. The league announcement does not publish a comparative evaluation score, so the public record is the career and assignment history it lists.

Brent Haskill has the longest listed G League record

Haskill has eight years of G League service and 336 games, the largest G League total among the three officials in the announcement. He worked each of the last four G League Finals. Before joining the NBA staff, he also appeared in 32 NBA regular-season games as a non-staff official across five seasons. Those assignments place his promotion after sustained work at both levels rather than a single season of exposure.

His basketball assignments extended beyond the NBA and G League. The league says Haskill has worked the Basketball Africa League and NBA Summer League, including the Summer League championship game in Las Vegas in 2023, 2025 and 2026. Those are separate competitions with their own schedules. The details show a broader officiating calendar, while the four consecutive G League Finals are the clearest repeated postseason marker in his league profile.

Chelisa Painter brings college and G League experience

Painter enters the NBA staff after five G League seasons and 215 games, with playoff assignments in three of those seasons. She worked three NBA regular-season games as a non-staff referee in 2025-26. Before that, the NBA lists seven years of NCAA Division I officiating. The record places the new assignment alongside both professional development and college experience.

Her appointment brings the number of women on the NBA’s full-time officiating staff to nine for 2026-27. The league names the other eight as Dannica Baroody, Simone Jelks, Sha’Rae Mitchell, Ashley Moyer-Gleich, Jenna Reneau, Natalie Sago, Jenna Schroeder and Danielle Scott. That count is tied to staff status for the season, not to every official who may work a particular NBA or G League game.

The daily board separates staff status from game duties

The NBA’s assignment page is organized by game day and says assignments are posted at approximately 9 a.m. Eastern. Its columns distinguish the Crew Chief, Referee, Umpire and Alternate. A name on the staff announcement does not itself identify which of those positions an official will hold in a particular game. Checking the date and the position column answers a different question from reading a promotion notice.

The same page describes the crew chief as the crew’s leader, the referee as carrying a larger share of coordination than the umpire, and the umpire as responsible for basic mechanics, positioning and clock and foul awareness. NBA’s posted Rule 2 duties page also identifies a Replay Center role and communication with the floor crew and scorer’s table. These descriptions explain why the work extends beyond watching one referee make a whistle call.

Crew leadership includes work around the game itself

NBA’s posted Rule 2 gives concrete examples of responsibilities around a game. Officials must inspect the court, baskets, balls, backboards and timing and scoring equipment before play. They enter the court before the 15-minute mark on the game clock to observe warm-ups and report unusual situations. The crew chief checks the active list. If a coach wants to discuss a rule before the game or between periods, the other coach must also be present. These tasks involve preparation and communication as well as judging live action. A referee’s public game count records appearances, while the duties describe work carried out during those appointments; the count alone does not reveal how equipment checks or conversations were handled.

The three career summaries show different forms of preparation: Cearley’s repeated playoff work, Haskill’s four consecutive Finals and Summer League title games, and Painter’s mix of G League, NCAA and NBA assignments. The league’s release calls these years of development and high-level performance. It does not claim that one pathway is better than another; the public information records the distinct work each official completed.

The promotion changes staff status, not the public record

The promotion announcement gives each official’s career background and new staff designation. The daily board and published role descriptions explain how a game’s responsibilities are divided. They serve different purposes: a biography can establish previous work, while a dated assignment identifies a job on a particular slate. A reader following the three new staff members can use the announcement for their histories and the live board for subsequent game-day appointments.

Cearley, Haskill and Painter had already worked NBA games as non-staff officials before this appointment. The promotion date marks a staff designation; their first appearance in an NBA box score can precede it. That distinction helps when comparing a league biography with an older game record.

Sources & reporting limits

  1. NBA Names Three Referees to 2026-27 Officiating Staff
  2. NBA Referee Assignments — daily board and position descriptions
  3. Rule No.2: Duties of the Officials
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