A contingent of fans have been idiots for 150 years, and therefore NBA officiating is optimal and nothing should ever be improved or even sought to be improved.
That's not what I said at all.
The NBA constantly takes steps to improve the officiating. This year, for example, they are introducing tracking technology in an attempt to make out-of-bounds and goaltending calls more accurate. The issue isn't that the league has been complacent. Just the opposite.
The issue is that, as I said, human beings refereeing an NBA game will probably always make more mistakes than fans will find acceptable.
That doesn't mean the NBA shouldn't do things to improve the refereeing. It does mean the things the NBA does to improve refereeing are unlikely to affect fans' perception of the refereeing.
NBA officiating is some of the most inconsistent I've seen from play to play, night to night, series to series, team to team, player to player, ref to ref, across sports. Even the group stage in FIBA has far more consistency; I find myself agreeing way more that the fouls are in fact fouls. I'm hardly the only one that feels this way. I just don't buy that this is as good as it gets. If anything, it's felt like it's been getting worse over the course of my life and I should be feeling the opposite as I become more knowledgeable about basketball and less of a rabid fanling of just one team.
But even if I accept what you say to be true and it's the perception of the league officiating that's the problem, exacerbated by platforms like Twitter, then closing an investigation without a determination (no matter how much of a sham that investigation was) isn't exactly the right move to instill public confidence. Can we at least agree on that?
A contingent of fans have been idiots for 150 years, and therefore NBA officiating is optimal and nothing should ever be improved or even sought to be improved.
Sure, these discussions often end up with that straw man argument. But really, there's a pretty good chance that NBA officiating really is optimal or close to optimal. This is because there's really no solution for inevitable rates of human error, bad visual angles, and deception through flopping and the like. Furthermore, a lot of fans will insist that correct calls are wrong, as a result of partisanship. Fans often don't understand the rules, and announcers contribute to this.
The league has spent about 15 years working on the officiating, dating back to the days of the Donaghy scandal. There's a rigorous system for training and evaluating officials. So yes, it is possible that this is as good as it gets.
In soccer, the federations and leagues have adopted an elaborate system for video review. The results have been a mixed bag, as is true for the coaches' challenges in the NBA and instant replay in the NFL. This may be all that can be done, until we get ChatReferee to automate officiating. And then people will just claim that SkyNet is out to get their teams.
I never said it's impossible that this is as good as it gets. Certainly it's possible. The game as hard to officiate, and it's becoming harder with super smart basketball minds chopping up footage and trying to gain any little advantage or exploit any subjectivity in the rules. I understand the refs are under scrutiny.
I grow very skeptical that it's as good as it can get when L2M reports confirm the totally incorrect call after reviewing it in 4K. That's what stinks of bull.
I'm honestly not swayed by a consortium valued at 90 billion hiring 15 underpaid "data scientists" and a vague committee of reviewers as the solution to officiating problems. It's not even close to their top priority as a league. It's also perfectly possible that a league with total hegemony over professional basketball in the biggest markets isn't exactly solving this problem optimally because they're simply unmotivated to do so, incapable of doing so, or disagree that it's a problem at all despite fans listing "we feel the NBA is rigged" as one of the top reasons for not watching.
Maybe their officiating program is really state-of-the-art and we expect too much. Frankly, I don't know. I only know what gets released publicly, and what's been released publicly has stunk of bull. If they were taking my advice, I'd advise them not to publicly release things that stink of bull.
Forgive me for making you suffer through another strawman: by your characterization, entertainment consumers are fundamentally irrational, yet entertainment producers are fundamentally rational.
NBA officiating is some of the most inconsistent I've seen from play to play, night to night, series to series, team to team, player to player, ref to ref, across sports. Even the group stage in FIBA has far more consistency; I find myself agreeing way more that the fouls are in fact fouls. I'm hardly the only one that feels this way. I just don't buy that this is as good as it gets.
It's possible that at some point someone will figure out a solution, perhaps a technology one, that will eliminate or reduce the human flaws in refereeing. However, lots of people have put lots of work into this, and I've never seen a proposal that would move the needle. I just think there is a very large rate of error when human beings try to officiate an NBA game in real time.
So, no, I don't think at this moment there is any way to significantly improve the accuracy of NBA officiating.
levon wrote:
But even if I accept what you say to be true and it's the perception of the league officiating that's the problem, exacerbated by platforms like Twitter, then closing an investigation without a determination (no matter how much of a sham that investigation was) isn't exactly the right move to instill public confidence. Can we at least agree on that?
From a PR standpoint, it might have made more sense for the league to say the investigation was ongoing and leave it at that.
It does make me wonder how this all played out. The account is deleted. Twitter isn't going to give the NBA any information. I would presume that after Lewis retires he has no obligation to speak to the NBA about this. I wonder if, realistically, there was any way for the NBA to continue the investigation. If so, maybe they decided it was better to close the investigation, endure a couple of days of grief, and put it behind them.
Or maybe Lewis retired under the condition that this be put to rest. Or maybe the NBA found something they didn't want to reveal and Lewis retire under the condition of keeping it secret.
Who knows? Just adds some more fun conspiracy theory to the league.
Last edited by activeverb on Thu Aug 31, 2023 11:37 am; edited 2 times in total
Joined: 13 Jan 2002 Posts: 8084 Location: Lake Forest
Posted: Wed Aug 30, 2023 7:47 pm Post subject:
The NBA admitted they prefer their refs "craft" games for entertainment.
Last possession rules
Star Calls
Rookie Calls
"Pet Moves"
Known Defender non-calls
It's all to create and maintain narratives. They're not overtly stated, but employees know the unwritten rules.
The biggest rule of all - Never make a mistake helping the Lakers in the last minute. That's the only subjective call the League has openly suspended a ref for.
The NBA admitted they prefer their refs "craft" games for entertainment.
Last possession rules
Star Calls
Rookie Calls
"Pet Moves"
Known Defender non-calls
It's all to create and maintain narratives. They're not overtly stated, but employees know the unwritten rules.
The biggest rule of all - Never make a mistake helping the Lakers in the last minute. That's the only subjective call the League has openly suspended a ref for.
The only trouble I have with your post is the first line. Don't think the NBA ever admitted anything like this. If this is just your personal interpretation of what's going on, it's cool with me.
Joined: 13 Jan 2002 Posts: 8084 Location: Lake Forest
Posted: Wed Aug 30, 2023 8:14 pm Post subject:
activeverb wrote:
LakersRGolden wrote:
The NBA admitted they prefer their refs "craft" games for entertainment.
Last possession rules
Star Calls
Rookie Calls
"Pet Moves"
Known Defender non-calls
It's all to create and maintain narratives. They're not overtly stated, but employees know the unwritten rules.
The biggest rule of all - Never make a mistake helping the Lakers in the last minute. That's the only subjective call the League has openly suspended a ref for.
The only trouble I have with your post is the first line. Don't think the NBA ever admitted anything like this. If this is just your personal interpretation of what's going on, it's cool with me.
It wasn't a quote about fixing games. It was back in the Shaq/Kobe days and I believe the verb used was "manage." It had more to do with how much physicality and how many calls / stoppages to make.
Joined: 24 Dec 2007 Posts: 36545 Location: Santa Clarita, CA (Hell) ->>>>>Ithaca, NY -≥≥≥≥≥Berkeley, CA
Posted: Wed Aug 30, 2023 8:36 pm Post subject:
LakersRGolden wrote:
The NBA admitted they prefer their refs "craft" games for entertainment.
Last possession rules
Star Calls
Rookie Calls
"Pet Moves"
Known Defender non-calls
It's all to create and maintain narratives. They're not overtly stated, but employees know the unwritten rules.
The biggest rule of all - Never make a mistake helping the Lakers in the last minute. That's the only subjective call the League has openly suspended a ref for.
How do you explain the Lakers this past season having the largest free throw differential advantage of any team in the league in the past five years if the league is rigging games against us?
With that said, 2008 finals still feel off to me. The feel good narrative seemed to be more in favor of the big three finally winning, not Kobe/Pau coming together mid-season and winning instantly without first having to experience failure. _________________ Damian Lillard shatters Dwight Coward's championship dreams:
The NBA admitted they prefer their refs "craft" games for entertainment.
Last possession rules
Star Calls
Rookie Calls
"Pet Moves"
Known Defender non-calls
It's all to create and maintain narratives. They're not overtly stated, but employees know the unwritten rules.
The biggest rule of all - Never make a mistake helping the Lakers in the last minute. That's the only subjective call the League has openly suspended a ref for.
The only trouble I have with your post is the first line. Don't think the NBA ever admitted anything like this. If this is just your personal interpretation of what's going on, it's cool with me.
It wasn't a quote about fixing games. It was back in the Shaq/Kobe days and I believe the verb used was "manage." It had more to do with how much physicality and how many calls / stoppages to make.
Oh, sure, during Showtime, I remember there was a lot of debate about how much physicality the league should allow. The league has said it routinely provides guidance to officials on subjective stuff like that to try to make calls more uniform. And without question the league implements rules to make the game more entertaining -- it's an entertainment product after all. There's nothing wrong with any of that.
I don't know that I agree with your position that the league has a bunch of unwritten rules to create and maintain narratives. (There has been some really good articles, which include off-the-record interviews with referees that convincingly disputes a lot of the "unwritten rules" you list and give more credible, less conspiracy theory explanations for some of these perceptions). I don't think the league needs to do anything special to create narratives -- they happen organically. No matter what the outcome is in any situation, it always produces some narrative than people can latch onto.
Last edited by activeverb on Wed Aug 30, 2023 10:18 pm; edited 1 time in total
Joined: 13 Jan 2002 Posts: 8084 Location: Lake Forest
Posted: Wed Aug 30, 2023 9:44 pm Post subject:
CandyCanes wrote:
LakersRGolden wrote:
The NBA admitted they prefer their refs "craft" games for entertainment.
Last possession rules
Star Calls
Rookie Calls
"Pet Moves"
Known Defender non-calls
It's all to create and maintain narratives. They're not overtly stated, but employees know the unwritten rules.
The biggest rule of all - Never make a mistake helping the Lakers in the last minute. That's the only subjective call the League has openly suspended a ref for.
How do you explain the Lakers this past season having the largest free throw differential advantage of any team in the league in the past five years if the league is rigging games against us?
With that said, 2008 finals still feel off to me. The feel good narrative seemed to be more in favor of the big three finally winning, not Kobe/Pau coming together mid-season and winning instantly without first having to experience failure.
Never said anything was against the Lakers - it's mostly the opposite - except that you can't have the opposite of the Boston game last year or all hell breaks loose in the fan base.
Star Calls and Pet moves usually help the Lakers because we tend to get a hold of stars.
Last possession rules are a little hinky but not team specific.
Just realize that calling a game close/loose will benefit one team. Crews that emphasize things like travels or Jump Balls will also alter the game.
I grow very skeptical that it's as good as it can get when L2M reports confirm the totally incorrect call after reviewing it in 4K. That's what stinks of bull.
I'm not sure why you react that way. If the alternative is to review every call during the game, that is not optimal. Even with VAR in soccer, only a limited number of calls can be reviewed by video. This is primarily scoring plays, penalty kick decisions, and red cards. The whole thing has been something of a fiasco at times, with lengthy delays while the video assistant referees try to decide whether a play was offside, etc. There have been cases in which the video assistant referees got the call wrong. Overall, though, I think it has been a positive change, though many people would disagree with me. In basketball, on the other hand, every possession is a potential scoring play. You could literally have 10-20 VAR checks in the final two minutes of a game.
So, once again, I think that there is a real possibility that NBA refereeing is as good as it gets. Perhaps we can use coaches' challenges and the like to help at the margins. However, I have seen no one propose a solution for the ordinary rates of human error.
Finally, as to the L2M reports, this was a response to the inevitable complaints about a lack of "transparency." I find them interesting because they show the level of detail of the post-game evaluations and because they provide insight into the way that referees are trained to make decisions. I'm not sure why you think that they stink of bull. _________________ Internet Argument Resolved
Without taking my tin foil hat out of the closet and without being a statistician, I wonder if there are objective ways to determine if Lewis' Celtics record is likely more than a product of human error or reflection of the inherently subjective rules of basketball. In science for instance, we use a "p" value to determine the likelihood a result could have happened by random chance. If it's determined that there is a less than 5% chance your result can have happened by random chance, we consider it statistically significant.
At the very least I imagine statistical analysis would suggest Lewis has (un)conscious bias. Is it not reasonable for the NBA to spot similar statistical anomalies? Then they can either work with that ref on addressing it or even to an extreme, avoid having them involved in high stakes games involving said bias. Maybe a guy with Lewis' history shouldn't be involved in a Finals game involving the Celtics. Or maybe these statistical anomalies are actually not that anomalous and you can't reasonably account for all of them when making ref assignments. _________________ Luxury Tax/FA Spreadsheet (Save to your Google Drive to edit)
Without taking my tin foil hat out of the closet and without being a statistician, I wonder if there are objective ways to determine if Lewis' Celtics record is likely more than a product of human error or reflection of the inherently subjective rules of basketball. In science for instance, we use a "p" value to determine the likelihood a result could have happened by random chance. If it's determined that there is a less than 5% chance your result can have happened by random chance, we consider it statistically significant.
At the very least I imagine statistical analysis would suggest Lewis has (un)conscious bias. Is it not reasonable for the NBA to spot similar statistical anomalies? Then they can either work with that ref on addressing it or even to an extreme, avoid having them involved in high stakes games involving said bias. Maybe a guy with Lewis' history shouldn't be involved in a Finals game involving the Celtics. Or maybe these statistical anomalies are actually not that anomalous and you can't reasonably account for all of them when making ref assignments.
The NBA grades every call make by every ref in every game and puts this information in a database. So the NBA would already be able to determine if a ref is making an unusual number of inaccurate calls for or against a particular team.
(Teams have access to some of this information too; the league doesn't share all the information because they don't want teams leaking it to the media. Fans of course would like to see all the information; the league responds that no company makes all employee performance reviews available to the public, and there might be some union issues with that.)
This referee grading system, as well as input from coaches and GMs about particular refs, are key factors in determining playoff assignments.
That said, some teams have complained that the assignments are affected more by favoritism.
There are also a lot of gambling sites that provide referee information and statistics.
You can analyze more readily available information like team record, foul disparity, FT disparity, etc. in games he officiated versus games he didn't. This can easily be automated. It doesn't have to be an arbitrary and non-transparent grading system. _________________ Luxury Tax/FA Spreadsheet (Save to your Google Drive to edit)
You can analyze more readily available information like team record, foul disparity, FT disparity, etc. in games he officiated versus games he didn't. This can easily be automated. It doesn't have to be an arbitrary and non-transparent grading system.
The Celtics had a higher winning percentage than any other team that Lewis officiated (.633). However, there is no disparity when it comes to free throws or fouls. The Celtics shot fewer free throws than their opponents, and the fouls were about even. Still, the win-loss percentage supports a suspicion, given that Lewis was a Celtics fan.
More generally, every NBA official grew up as a fan of some team. None of the officials lived in a box until they became officials. Given that the Lakers have the largest fan base, it is likely that a sizable percentage of NBA referees grew up as Lakers fans. Furthermore, many officials have a higher winning percentage than .633 for some teams. For example, Ed Malloy has a .674 for the Spurs and a .639 for the Mavs, but .493 for the Lakers. If you're looking for evidence of bias, there's always going to be ammunition. _________________ Internet Argument Resolved
On the general topic of officiating, this is interesting, but this guy lets his biases show through. He appears to be a Knicks guy.
Quote:
What was up with that? Why did it seem like the Magic were being used as a farm system for referees? That’s when I decided to track officials for every NBA game and see whether certain teams got preferential treatment from the NBA. This … was no small undertaking. My database spreadsheet is clocking in at 582,338 cells with about 80 columns of info. And that’s just for one season’s worth of data.
So here’s what I found: it turns out that the NBA does not spread its high-quality officials equally among its 30 teams. How do I know? Well, every year, the NBA selects its best officials for the playoffs (typically 36 officials) and the Finals (typically 12). I discovered that certain teams consistently receive a higher proportion of those premium officials. On the flip side, those marquee teams seemed to have fewer rookie refs in their games.
Quote:
1.Los Angeles Lakers | 3.146 Ref Score
Surprise, surprise: the Lakers received the top average RefScore among all 30 teams. The Lakers only saw a rookie referee seven times last season, the lowest total for any NBA team (Utah saw 23). On the other end of the spectrum, no team saw more referees that worked the 2022 Finals than the Lakers (61). In other words, the NBA treated Lakers regular-season games like playoff games.
This Finding will do little to kill the perception that the league office takes care of the Lakers. The team received an overly-apologetic Sleepless Nights tweet from the referees’ official Twitter account and fans noticed a historic free-throw differential this past season. The Lakers were on national TV a ton in the regular season and the NBA evidently didn’t want to mess around with inexperienced referees working LeBron’s squad.
The rest of his list is behind a paywall. On Twitter, he says that the Knicks came in 5th with a score of 3.060, which isn't much different from us. I suspect that the disparities have more to do with national TV games than with specific teams, but who knows? _________________ Internet Argument Resolved
You can analyze more readily available information like team record, foul disparity, FT disparity, etc. in games he officiated versus games he didn't. This can easily be automated. It doesn't have to be an arbitrary and non-transparent grading system.
The Celtics had a higher winning percentage than any other team that Lewis officiated (.633). However, there is no disparity when it comes to free throws or fouls. The Celtics shot fewer free throws than their opponents, and the fouls were about even. Still, the win-loss percentage supports a suspicion, given that Lewis was a Celtics fan.
More generally, every NBA official grew up as a fan of some team. None of the officials lived in a box until they became officials. Given that the Lakers have the largest fan base, it is likely that a sizable percentage of NBA referees grew up as Lakers fans. Furthermore, many officials have a higher winning percentage than .633 for some teams. For example, Ed Malloy has a .674 for the Spurs and a .639 for the Mavs, but .493 for the Lakers. If you're looking for evidence of bias, there's always going to be ammunition.
I agree there's always ammunition with superficial analysis but when you throw more nuance into these analyses it lends to more credibility. Lewis' record with the Celtics is nice to know but is it a statistically significant deviation from their record otherwise? How does it compare with other teams and other refs? When you have a plausible hypothesis (based on his potential bias) and you support it with statistically significant data that's as good as it gets when it comes to any retrospective review. If so, IMO the optics would support that he does not officiate in high-stakes games involving the Celtics. It's not like there's a shortage of games he could officiate in otherwise. _________________ Luxury Tax/FA Spreadsheet (Save to your Google Drive to edit)
Where is my man eddiejones to remind us that these refs are garbage?
Like the Koolaid man, I'm smashing thru walls to announce my presence:
I TOLD YOU SO!!!!
TIM DONAGHEY NEVER LIES!!! _________________ Creatures crawl in search of blood, To terrorize y'alls neighborhood.
You can analyze more readily available information like team record, foul disparity, FT disparity, etc. in games he officiated versus games he didn't. This can easily be automated. It doesn't have to be an arbitrary and non-transparent grading system.
Sure, all that stuff is easy to analyze. Any fan can get those numbers. And I suspect the NBA is aware of those numbers for the refs.
The issue is that while things like team winning percentage can raise suspicion, it doesn't prove a ref is doing anything wrong. We see this in criticism of individual games all the time. Fans of one team will complain that the other team got a lot more foul calls. However, that doesn't inherently demonstrate the refs did anything wrong. If one team committed a lot more fouls, a big FT disparity is simply a sign of how the game was played, not some refereeing bias or mistake.
That is where the individual grading system comes into play. It actual evaluates whether the ref got calls right or wrong.
The system is non-transparent, but I wouldn't call it arbitrary at all. It would be more accurate to say the grading system is subjective. But any performance evaluation of referees is going to be subjective to a degree.
Obtaining the numbers as any fan can is not the same as statistical analysis which has been validated in matters of much higher stakes. The methodology behind a grading system can absolutely be arbitrary especially when there is no gold standard to compare it against. _________________ Luxury Tax/FA Spreadsheet (Save to your Google Drive to edit)
Obtaining the numbers as any fan can is not the same as statistical analysis which has been validated in matters of much higher stakes. The methodology behind a grading system can absolutely be arbitrary especially when there is no gold standard to compare it against.
I don't understand what you mean by "statistical analysis which has been validated in matters of much higher stakes." Don't have a clue what you are trying to say there to be honest.
I've read quite a bit about the grading system. Based on what I've read, nothing about it seems arbitrary. Subjective, sure but not arbitrary. So I don't understand what your complaint about the grading system is or if you even actually have a specific complaint about the grading system.
I think we are implicating two different things. I am implicating ways to potentially assess for bias and in that regard we can hopefully avoid/mitigate (but not completely eliminate I admit) the influence of bias on a game, especially a high-stakes one. If Lewis' record with the Celtics showed a statistically significant deviation from the their record otherwise, he should not be officiating Finals games involving the Celtics.
To otherwise clarify and reiterate what I stated earlier (which I admit could've easily gotten lost amidst all this) I mean that we use statistical analysis in science/medicine to direct therapy and clinical trials. If it's been validated for that purpose, I trust it as a means of validation as much as anything else. And it is not difficult to apply the same analysis in this situation when you have strictly numerical measures such as wins/losses, foul/FT differential.
This is different from a grading system which does not assess bias but is intended to assess overall quality of officiating. Any grading system tends to be based on subjective interpretations of what should and what should not be weighed (heavily). The idea of "missed calls", for example, is also highly subjective and the extent to which they weigh it towards a ref's grade is not based on anything validated. There is no gold standard to reference it against and thus it ultimately comes down to personal whims. For example, how did they decide that an All-Star should be determined 50% by the fan vote and 25% by players and coaches each? Do we think that was based on data/evidence or does it feel more arbitrary to you?
Ultimately, this is why standardized testing exists and why anyone who has gone through higher education can see how grading systems can feel arbitrary.
I hope that makes more sense. _________________ Luxury Tax/FA Spreadsheet (Save to your Google Drive to edit)
I think we are implicating two different things. I am implicating ways to potentially assess for bias and in that regard we can hopefully avoid/mitigate (but not completely eliminate I admit) the influence of bias on a game, especially a high-stakes one. If Lewis' record with the Celtics showed a statistically significant deviation from the their record otherwise, he should not be officiating Finals games involving the Celtics.
T.
The NBA should and does use data to evaluate refs and determine assignments. I don't know the exact combination of data and information they use.
I wouldn't make assignment decisions based solely on a team's winning percentage in games officiated by a particular ref myself. I find that way too superficial myself, though it may be a piece of data I would throw in the mix or a piece of data I would use to justify further analysis of a referee.
I think it depends on your level of understanding when it comes to statistical analysis. _________________ Luxury Tax/FA Spreadsheet (Save to your Google Drive to edit)
The idea of "missed calls", for example, is also highly subjective and the extent to which they weigh it towards a ref's grade is not based on anything validated. There is no gold standard to reference it against and thus it ultimately comes down to personal whims.
This is where you lose me. The NBA rejects the idea that there are subjective calls. For the last 15+ years, the NBA has taken the position that calls are objective. NBA officiating doctrine is that there is a correct call (or non-call) every time. That's the basis for the grades and it is how the officials are trained.
Now, we as fans may scoff at this because there is always a human element involved and because we all think that the officials are out to get our teams. Just the same, the idea that the grades are highly subjective is not correct. You won't see any discussion of judgment calls in the L2M reports because that's not the way that the NBA operates. The NBA has a set of standards, and the referees are supposed to follow them.
So if you're looking for evidence of bias, you'd look for deviations from the NBA's standards (ICs and INCs). If the NBA judges that Official X is making calls that conform to the standards, that's the relevant consideration. Just because you think it comes down to personal whims doesn't mean that it does. _________________ Internet Argument Resolved
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