as someone who wrote a long post years ago about how Big XII refs were assigned based on how they called KU games, I thought this article would be interesting to all. This guy writes a blog about all kinds of things and is very entertaining.
The NBA Playoffs:
It's Eight Against Five
By New York Times Bestselling Author Michael Levin
The fix is still in, and don't let anybody tell you otherwise.
A decade ago, the NBA was rocked by a scandal relating to one of its officials, Tim Donaghy, who, it was discovered, had been feeding inside information to gamblers affiliated with organized crime.
Donaghy was disgraced and spent more than a year in prison.
The NBA made a pretense of cleaning up its referee mess, but don't let that pretense fool you. NBA refereeing is still a sham, and I know this is true because I worked with Tim Donaghy on his book.
Many NBA fans believe that the commissioner's office dictates the outcomes of series based on who they want to win, TV ratings, extending series for the purpose of making more money, and similar reasons.
It was all true then, and it's still true.
Here's why, and this is what I learned from Donaghy himself.
The NBA has three ways of ensuring the outcomes of games with less than honest refereeing.
First, it sends videos to the referees of specific plays on which they want the refs to call fouls. The referees review these videos prior to the start of the game. It is abundantly clear which player on which team is the one who commits the specific type of foul that the videos focus on. This represents a clear signal to the refs to call fouls on a particular player or team.
The second way the NBA influences the outcomes of games is by sending rookie refs to games where the League wants the home team to win. It's a given that most new refs have "rabbit ears" and simply won't have the guts to make a call that will infuriate a home crowd of more than 16,000 people. So rather than make the right call, they swallow the whistle, and the League knows they will do just that.
The third method: Refereeing is ultimately a subjective business. You could call a foul, or not call a foul, practically every time the ball goes down the floor. So it's not as though there are objective standards for measuring the quality of a given referee's calls.
The refs know that they will have the honor, glory, and extended salary that comes along with calling games throughout the playoffs and into the Finals - but only if they have good ratings for their work during the regular season.
What constitutes good work? According to Donaghy, it means that the referees call the games just as the League would want them to, and they get the results that the League wants to see.
A referee who is reliable is far more likely to extend his season deep into the playoffs, or perhaps even have the privilege of referring the NBA Finals, as long as he "plays ball" and gives the League what it wants.
Those who don't, watch the playoffs on TV.
Since the ratings are subjective, there's no way to prove that the NBA is favoring a ref who goes along with the program over one who does not. But the short of it is that this is how refs advanced to the playoffs in the bad old days a decade ago, and it's still how they advance to the Finals today.
So if you're watching, let's say, a Game 2 of the series, you can count on the fact that the referees will call early fouls on the stars of the team that lost Game 1. The NBA wants series to go long, for the reasons stated above.
So if your team won Game 1 of the series, or even Game 5, and they are now up three games to two, the players know, and now you know, that the actual game is going to be eight on five.
It's going to be your five guys against the other team's five guys... plus the referees.
Does the NBA's approach guarantee outcomes of games?
No. This isn't professional wrestling.
But it's not far off.
The NBA. I love this game.
The NBA Playoffs:
It's Eight Against Five
By New York Times Bestselling Author Michael Levin
The fix is still in, and don't let anybody tell you otherwise.
A decade ago, the NBA was rocked by a scandal relating to one of its officials, Tim Donaghy, who, it was discovered, had been feeding inside information to gamblers affiliated with organized crime.
Donaghy was disgraced and spent more than a year in prison.
The NBA made a pretense of cleaning up its referee mess, but don't let that pretense fool you. NBA refereeing is still a sham, and I know this is true because I worked with Tim Donaghy on his book.
Many NBA fans believe that the commissioner's office dictates the outcomes of series based on who they want to win, TV ratings, extending series for the purpose of making more money, and similar reasons.
It was all true then, and it's still true.
Here's why, and this is what I learned from Donaghy himself.
The NBA has three ways of ensuring the outcomes of games with less than honest refereeing.
First, it sends videos to the referees of specific plays on which they want the refs to call fouls. The referees review these videos prior to the start of the game. It is abundantly clear which player on which team is the one who commits the specific type of foul that the videos focus on. This represents a clear signal to the refs to call fouls on a particular player or team.
The second way the NBA influences the outcomes of games is by sending rookie refs to games where the League wants the home team to win. It's a given that most new refs have "rabbit ears" and simply won't have the guts to make a call that will infuriate a home crowd of more than 16,000 people. So rather than make the right call, they swallow the whistle, and the League knows they will do just that.
The third method: Refereeing is ultimately a subjective business. You could call a foul, or not call a foul, practically every time the ball goes down the floor. So it's not as though there are objective standards for measuring the quality of a given referee's calls.
The refs know that they will have the honor, glory, and extended salary that comes along with calling games throughout the playoffs and into the Finals - but only if they have good ratings for their work during the regular season.
What constitutes good work? According to Donaghy, it means that the referees call the games just as the League would want them to, and they get the results that the League wants to see.
A referee who is reliable is far more likely to extend his season deep into the playoffs, or perhaps even have the privilege of referring the NBA Finals, as long as he "plays ball" and gives the League what it wants.
Those who don't, watch the playoffs on TV.
Since the ratings are subjective, there's no way to prove that the NBA is favoring a ref who goes along with the program over one who does not. But the short of it is that this is how refs advanced to the playoffs in the bad old days a decade ago, and it's still how they advance to the Finals today.
So if you're watching, let's say, a Game 2 of the series, you can count on the fact that the referees will call early fouls on the stars of the team that lost Game 1. The NBA wants series to go long, for the reasons stated above.
So if your team won Game 1 of the series, or even Game 5, and they are now up three games to two, the players know, and now you know, that the actual game is going to be eight on five.
It's going to be your five guys against the other team's five guys... plus the referees.
Does the NBA's approach guarantee outcomes of games?
No. This isn't professional wrestling.
But it's not far off.
The NBA. I love this game.
