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gng930
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 Posted: Sun Sep 03, 2023 7:38 pm Post subject: |
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| activeverb wrote: | | gng930 wrote: | | I think it depends on your level of understanding when it comes to statistical analysis. |
Oh, I have a pretty high level of understanding about statistical analysis. It's a big part of my job so I live it day in day out. |
Then there was really no need to be reductive. It should have been clear that the argument was about more than superficially glossing over W/L numbers. That's cool if you disagree.
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gng930
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| Posted: Sun Sep 03, 2023 7:58 pm Post subject: |
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| Aeneas Hunter wrote: | | gng930 wrote: | | 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. |
At the same time, just because the NBA doesn't want to consider these calls subjective doesn't mean that they aren't. How else does a seasoned ref like Steve Javie, as a guest ref expert for ESPN/ABC games, get calls wrong even with replay? I wouldn't be surprised if there are actually panels that judge missed calls and I would be surprised if they were always unanimous.
But that's also beside the point. Even if you were to argue that missed calls are fully objective, how much does that weigh into a ref's grade? Is it a lazy even split based on the number of metrics they could come up with? Or is it arbitrary in the same manner in how Hollinger weighs individual stats into his PER calculation?
In the end, I don't believe the NBA is out to get us; why bite the hand that feeds you? If you look back I originally questioned if there was some validated statistical methodology that could help determine bias and how it might be applied in a fairly straightforward manner. For all I know the NBA might apply something like what you suggested (I have to admit I'm not familiar with the ICs/INCs that you are citing) but uncovered so much bias that is too impractical to fully account for. Unfortunately, I think my point was conflated with some of the more extreme conspiracist points.
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Aeneas Hunter
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| Posted: Mon Sep 04, 2023 2:44 am Post subject: |
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| gng930 wrote: | At the same time, just because the NBA doesn't want to consider these calls subjective doesn't mean that they aren't. How else does a seasoned ref like Steve Javie, as a guest ref expert for ESPN/ABC games, get calls wrong even with replay? I wouldn't be surprised if there are actually panels that judge missed calls and I would be surprised if they were always unanimous.
But that's also beside the point. Even if you were to argue that missed calls are fully objective, how much does that weigh into a ref's grade? Is it a lazy even split based on the number of metrics they could come up with? Or is it arbitrary in the same manner in how Hollinger weighs individual stats into his PER calculation?
In the end, I don't believe the NBA is out to get us; why bite the hand that feeds you? If you look back I originally questioned if there was some validated statistical methodology that could help determine bias and how it might be applied in a fairly straightforward manner. For all I know the NBA might apply something like what you suggested (I have to admit I'm not familiar with the ICs/INCs that you are citing) but uncovered so much bias that is too impractical to fully account for. Unfortunately, I think my point was conflated with some of the more extreme conspiracist points. |
I think the disconnect here may be the word "subjective." The NBA has standards. If there can be disagreement about the application of the standards, you call it "subjective." That's not really accurate. There are objective standards. The fact that the video evidence may lack clarity does not make the decision subjective. (Likewise, I don't know why you think that Hollinger's PER formula is "arbitrary," but that's getting way off topic.)
ICs and INCs are shown on every L2M report: Incorrect Call and Incorrect No Call. It wouldn't be difficult to determine whether Referee X has a higher (or lower) rate of ICs and INCs in favor of (or against) team Y, and then to assess whether the difference is statistically significant against some benchmark. This is how you would do it. You wouldn't look at raw numbers of fouls. If the foul was called correctly, it's just statistical noise for this purpose.
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activeverb
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| Posted: Mon Sep 04, 2023 8:10 am Post subject: |
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| gng930 wrote: | | activeverb wrote: | | gng930 wrote: | | I think it depends on your level of understanding when it comes to statistical analysis. |
Oh, I have a pretty high level of understanding about statistical analysis. It's a big part of my job so I live it day in day out. |
Then there was really no need to be reductive. It should have been clear that the argument was about more than superficially glossing over W/L numbers. That's cool if you disagree. |
Your argument is not clear to me. You seem to dismiss every method of evaluating referees that you don't like as "arbitrary." (You don't seem to see a difference between the words subjective and arbitrary, and use them interchangeably, so I'm not sure what you mean when you throw these terms around.)
The only things you've mentioned that matter to you is team winning percentage and box score data like free throw attempts, and how that correlates to specific referees.
And now you are saying it's about "more than a superficial glossing over w/l numbers." But you never provide any specifics, so I don't see what you're suggesting that is more than superficial.
If you have an idea for what the NBA should be doing that is better than what it's doing now, you really haven't expressed what that idea is.
As I noted before, sure, there's nothing wrong with seeing if a team's winning percentage is particularly different with one referee and then looking closely at the referees performance against those teams. But ultimately, you need to evaluate the ref based on their individual performance, which is what the grading system does. Sure, it has its faults. But every system is going to have faults. Certainly, the idea of using statistical correlations in isolation, and treating those correlations as causation, is an approach that is riddled with errors |
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gng930
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| Posted: Mon Sep 04, 2023 8:53 am Post subject: |
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| Aeneas Hunter wrote: | | gng930 wrote: | At the same time, just because the NBA doesn't want to consider these calls subjective doesn't mean that they aren't. How else does a seasoned ref like Steve Javie, as a guest ref expert for ESPN/ABC games, get calls wrong even with replay? I wouldn't be surprised if there are actually panels that judge missed calls and I would be surprised if they were always unanimous.
But that's also beside the point. Even if you were to argue that missed calls are fully objective, how much does that weigh into a ref's grade? Is it a lazy even split based on the number of metrics they could come up with? Or is it arbitrary in the same manner in how Hollinger weighs individual stats into his PER calculation?
In the end, I don't believe the NBA is out to get us; why bite the hand that feeds you? If you look back I originally questioned if there was some validated statistical methodology that could help determine bias and how it might be applied in a fairly straightforward manner. For all I know the NBA might apply something like what you suggested (I have to admit I'm not familiar with the ICs/INCs that you are citing) but uncovered so much bias that is too impractical to fully account for. Unfortunately, I think my point was conflated with some of the more extreme conspiracist points. |
I think the disconnect here may be the word "subjective." The NBA has standards. If there can be disagreement about the application of the standards, you call it "subjective." That's not really accurate. There are objective standards. The fact that the video evidence may lack clarity does not make the decision subjective. (Likewise, I don't know why you think that Hollinger's PER formula is "arbitrary," but that's getting way off topic.)
ICs and INCs are shown on every L2M report: Incorrect Call and Incorrect No Call. [b][b] It wouldn't be difficult to determine whether Referee X has a higher (or lower) rate of ICs and INCs in favor of (or against) team Y, and then to assess whether the difference is statistically significant against some benchmark. This is how you would do it. You wouldn't look at raw numbers of fouls. If the foul was called correctly, it's just statistical noise for this purpose.[/b][/b] |
So if you were to admit that video evidence sometimes lacks clarity how would you describe what I would as lending to lack of objectivity? In your mind, are calls (not the standards) objective?
Otherwise, I have to admit your suggestion in bold makes some sense. When I get a chance I'll see to what extent the NBA implements something like that. The foul/FT differential may be noise as you put it but I maintain there can be value in tracking W/L disparities. Agree to disagree.
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gng930
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| Posted: Mon Sep 04, 2023 9:04 am Post subject: |
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| activeverb wrote: | | gng930 wrote: | | activeverb wrote: | | gng930 wrote: | | I think it depends on your level of understanding when it comes to statistical analysis. |
Oh, I have a pretty high level of understanding about statistical analysis. It's a big part of my job so I live it day in day out. |
Then there was really no need to be reductive. It should have been clear that the argument was about more than superficially glossing over W/L numbers. That's cool if you disagree. |
Your argument is not clear to me. You seem to dismiss every method of evaluating referees that you don't like as "arbitrary." (You don't seem to see a difference between the words subjective and arbitrary, and use them interchangeably, so I'm not sure what you mean when you throw these terms around.)
The only things you've mentioned that matter to you is team winning percentage and box score data like free throw attempts, and how that correlates to specific referees.
And now you are saying it's about "more than a superficial glossing over w/l numbers." But you never provide any specifics, so I don't see what you're suggesting that is more than superficial.
If you have an idea for what the NBA should be doing that is better than what it's doing now, you really haven't expressed what that idea is.
As I noted before, sure, there's nothing wrong with seeing if a team's winning percentage is particularly different with one referee and then looking closely at the referees performance against those teams. But ultimately, you need to evaluate the ref based on their individual performance, which is what the grading system does. Sure, it has its faults. But every system is going to have faults. Certainly, the idea of using statistical correlations in isolation, and treating those correlations as causation, is an approach that is riddled with errors |
Nothing you're saying here is wrong. But again, I maintain that two different points (detecting bias and overall ref grading) are getting conflated. My original post alluded to the former and response is that the methodology for the latter is not necessarily relevant to that. Yes I tend to dismiss the grading system altogether but more to the point, I am dismissing it as a reliable means of detecting bias. From what I can gather from this:
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-the-nba-uses-its-data-on-referees/
Ref bias towards teams/players is not necessarily assessed, only reviewer bias towards refs.
I'm not opposed to refs getting promoted/demoted or paid more/less based on the grading system. I'm merely posing that if there are multiple reliable statistical indicators reflecting bias (such as what AH may be suggesting), that it should factor into ref assignments. I only posed a question and I don't see why you insist that the ref grading system addresses that when it doesn't seem to be meant for that. It's been steered away (admittedly through no small part of my own) but I'd like to refocus the discussion.
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Aeneas Hunter
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| Posted: Mon Sep 04, 2023 9:14 am Post subject: |
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| gng930 wrote: | | So if you were to admit that video evidence sometimes lacks clarity how would you describe what I would as lending to lack of objectivity? In your mind, are calls (not the standards) objective? |
The possibility of error doesn't make a call subjective. Consider one of those close out of bounds plays: Who was the last player to touch the ball? You can look at every available video angle, and it may not be clear. Or there may be a perfect video angle that makes it crystal clear. Either way, it's not a subjective call, much less an arbitrary call. The officials and the video reviewers need to make the best decision based on the available video evidence. They are aiming for an objectively correct decision, or at least as close as they can get.
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activeverb
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| Posted: Mon Sep 04, 2023 12:40 pm Post subject: |
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| gng930 wrote: | | Nothing you're saying here is wrong. But again, I maintain that two different points (detecting bias and overall ref grading) are getting conflated. My original post alluded to the former and response is that the methodology for the latter is not necessarily relevant to that. Yes I tend to dismiss the grading system altogether but more to the point, I am dismissing it as a reliable means of detecting bias. |
The NBA's concern is that a ref is making accurate calls. If that is happening, things like FT disparity and winning percentage are just noise.
So I am not sure how you think you could determine a ref is biased for or against a certain team with an approach that is distinct from the accuracy of the ref's calls. |
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| Posted: Mon Sep 04, 2023 1:06 pm Post subject: |
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There is an importance to game context when measuring Referee bias. The greatest impact will come either in assigning fouls to star players, or calls made in the last five minutes of a close game.
But in a broader sense, as long as they limit a player’s ability to deliberately use Referee inaccuracy for advantage, I’m fine with an imperfect human system. It mimics real life more. Sometimes you have to work through mistakes and even bias. |
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activeverb
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| Posted: Mon Sep 04, 2023 1:18 pm Post subject: |
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| Laker's Fan wrote: | | There is an importance to game context when measuring Referee bias. The greatest impact will come either in assigning fouls to star players, or calls made in the last five minutes of a close game. . |
Sure, some calls are more important than other calls. But still this is all about how accurate a specific ref calls are. The NBA could easily analyze everything you're mentioning with the data in its ref evaluation system. |
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gng930
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| Posted: Mon Sep 04, 2023 2:34 pm Post subject: |
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| activeverb wrote: | | gng930 wrote: | | Nothing you're saying here is wrong. But again, I maintain that two different points (detecting bias and overall ref grading) are getting conflated. My original post alluded to the former and response is that the methodology for the latter is not necessarily relevant to that. Yes I tend to dismiss the grading system altogether but more to the point, I am dismissing it as a reliable means of detecting bias. |
The NBA's concern is that a ref is making accurate calls. If that is happening, things like FT disparity and winning percentage are just noise.
So I am not sure how you think you could determine a ref is biased for or against a certain team with an approach that is distinct from the accuracy of the ref's calls. |
Because a bias may be highly specific and circumstantial. I don't think this is a very radical concept. For instance an otherwise fair, upstanding, and intelligent judge can (and should) be excused from a case where there is potential bias or conflict of interest.
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gng930
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| Posted: Mon Sep 04, 2023 2:40 pm Post subject: |
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| Aeneas Hunter wrote: | | gng930 wrote: | | So if you were to admit that video evidence sometimes lacks clarity how would you describe what I would as lending to lack of objectivity? In your mind, are calls (not the standards) objective? |
The possibility of error doesn't make a call subjective. Consider one of those close out of bounds plays: Who was the last player to touch the ball? You can look at every available video angle, and it may not be clear. Or there may be a perfect video angle that makes it crystal clear. Either way, it's not a subjective call, much less an arbitrary call. The officials and the video reviewers need to make the best decision based on the available video evidence. They are aiming for an objectively correct decision, or at least as close as they can get. |
Certain calls lend to more subjectivity than others. A classic scenario is a charge versus a block. You can have every perfect angle available and there are many instances where a panel would still not be unanimous.
And I don't believe I have ever referred to officiating or calls as arbitrary, namely a grading system based on arbitrary weights to metrics.
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Aeneas Hunter
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| Posted: Mon Sep 04, 2023 3:01 pm Post subject: |
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| gng930 wrote: | | Certain calls lend to more subjectivity than others. A classic scenario is a charge versus a block. You can have every perfect angle available and there are many instances where a panel would still not be unanimous. |
Again, the disconnect is the word "subjective." It's not like anyone would be deciding whether it is fair to call a charge.
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activeverb
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| Posted: Mon Sep 04, 2023 6:05 pm Post subject: |
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| gng930 wrote: | | activeverb wrote: | | gng930 wrote: | | Nothing you're saying here is wrong. But again, I maintain that two different points (detecting bias and overall ref grading) are getting conflated. My original post alluded to the former and response is that the methodology for the latter is not necessarily relevant to that. Yes I tend to dismiss the grading system altogether but more to the point, I am dismissing it as a reliable means of detecting bias. |
The NBA's concern is that a ref is making accurate calls. If that is happening, things like FT disparity and winning percentage are just noise.
So I am not sure how you think you could determine a ref is biased for or against a certain team with an approach that is distinct from the accuracy of the ref's calls. |
Because a bias may be highly specific and circumstantial. I don't think this is a very radical concept. For instance an otherwise fair, upstanding, and intelligent judge can (and should) be excused from a case where there is potential bias or conflict of interest. |
It's very rare for judges to be removed for bias. When this happens, there is generally clear and compelling and specific evidence, like the judge having a significant financial stake in a company on trial. And there is a rigorous process where that evidence is presented to another judge, who evaluates whether it's compelling enough to merit the judge's removal. The bar for removing a judge for bias is very high. Circumstantial evidence won't do it.
I am sure the bar for the NBA to remove a ref on the grounds of bias would be very high as well. The league isn't going to concede a ref has bias easily, especially if the league's grading system indicates the ref is making accurate calls against the team in question. It would take some very compelling evidence to support the accusation.
So, sure, the concept of bias is easy. But we're not talking about the concept of a ref having some bias; we're talking about keeping a ref from officiating a team on the grounds he is biased for or against that team, which would be an absolutely huge thing for the NBA to do.
What, in your view, would be enough evidence for the NBA to remove a ref from officiating games against a specific team on the grounds of bias?
Cause that's really where the bottom line on all this is. |
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gng930
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| Posted: Mon Sep 04, 2023 6:25 pm Post subject: |
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@AH - I'm not sure what more I can add on the matter of subjectivity to be honest. The consensus IMO is that the NBA is one of the more difficult sports to officiate because of its subjectivity.
But getting back to the primary matter, I found some interesting analyses of NBA referee bias based on the premise that it is subjective. The both allude to ICs and INCs as you put it:
From Sports Law Analytics:
https://content.iospress.com/articles/journal-of-sports-analytics/jsa0012
| Quote: | Referees in the National Basketball Association (NBA) are hired by the league to judge games impartially. They evaluate in game situations subjectively and are potentially prone to biases that are not in line with the league’s interest.1 These biases of judgment by the referee can stem from personal preferences towards certain players or teams. Social payoffs in form of home fans applauding for calls in their teams’ favor can serve as another kind of non-monetary reward...
Referees have the task to evaluate in game situations impartially and make decisions within a very short period of time. Yet, there is room for subjective interpretation of situations and a chance for biased decision making. Previous work on referee bias concentrates on statistical differences in frequencies of decisions...Studies mentioned in the previous section share the predicate of analyzing statistical frequency of calls, rather than analyzing call-by-call. Conclusions in the literature have been drawn without knowledge if referee decisions were correct, but simply on how often they occur...
In this paper, calls are analyzed for every close game played during the 2014-15 regular season after March 1st 2015.
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It's quite dense and a bit much to wrap my head around at this hour but the conclusion is that it seems to dispute a lot of ref biases previous cited in literature, at least when it comes to late game decision-making. It also cites the need to expand their analysis to playoff games to factor in more high-stakes decision-making.
Similarly, from Nature Journal:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-31799-y
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Implicit biases occur automatically and unintentionally and are particularly present when we have to make split second decisions. One such situations appears in refereeing, where referees have to make an instantaneous decision on a potential violation. In this work I revisit and extend some of the existing work on implicit biases in refereeing. In particular, I focus on refereeing in the NBA and examine three different types of implicit bias; (i) home-vs-away bias, (ii) bias towards individual players or teams, and, (iii) racial bias. For this study, I use play-by-play data and data from the Last 2 min reports the league office releases for games that were within 5 points in the last 2 min since the 2015 season. The results indicate that the there is a bias towards the home team—particularly pronounced during the playoffs—but it has been reduced since the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, there is robust statistical evidence that specific players benefit from referee decisions more than expected from pure chance. However, I find no evidence of negative bias towards individual players, or towards specific teams. Finally, my analysis on racial bias indicates the absence of any bias...
For this study I used the L2M reports data covering the seasons between 2015 (the first season the NBA started releasing the reports) until this past season 2022. The data were collected and are made publicly available at the following github repo: https://github.com/atlhawksfanatic/L2M. Each entry in the L2M includes several elements but the ones that I make use of in the analysis are: committing player, disadvantaged player, committing side, disadvantaged side, decision. The decision takes 4 possible values: correct call (CC), incorrect call (IC), incorrect non-call (INC) and correct non-call (CNC). While CC, IC and INC decisions are well-defined, CNC decisions are not. In theory, every second in the game with no violation is a CNC. Hence, the instances included in the reports are subjective and the criteria can change from year-to-year.
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As you noted, it's really not that difficult to crunch the numbers if you want to. No glaring biases were detected but I wonder what you'd find if you break it down by ref and by team. However, the inherent downside in any subgroup analysis might be low sample size which sets up any hypothesis to fail. In a theoretical situation where you have a reasonable sample size of Celtics games that Eric Lewis has officiated and no bias is suggested, it would seem to put the matter to rest.
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gng930
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| Posted: Mon Sep 04, 2023 6:49 pm Post subject: |
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| activeverb wrote: | | gng930 wrote: | | activeverb wrote: | | gng930 wrote: | | Nothing you're saying here is wrong. But again, I maintain that two different points (detecting bias and overall ref grading) are getting conflated. My original post alluded to the former and response is that the methodology for the latter is not necessarily relevant to that. Yes I tend to dismiss the grading system altogether but more to the point, I am dismissing it as a reliable means of detecting bias. |
The NBA's concern is that a ref is making accurate calls. If that is happening, things like FT disparity and winning percentage are just noise.
So I am not sure how you think you could determine a ref is biased for or against a certain team with an approach that is distinct from the accuracy of the ref's calls. |
Because a bias may be highly specific and circumstantial. I don't think this is a very radical concept. For instance an otherwise fair, upstanding, and intelligent judge can (and should) be excused from a case where there is potential bias or conflict of interest. |
It's very rare for judges to be removed for bias. When this happens, there is generally clear and compelling and specific evidence, like the judge having a significant financial stake in a company on trial. And there is a rigorous process where that evidence is presented to another judge, who evaluates whether it's compelling enough to merit the judge's removal. The bar for removing a judge for bias is very high. Circumstantial evidence won't do it.
I am sure the bar for the NBA to remove a ref on the grounds of bias would be very high as well. The league isn't going to concede a ref has bias easily, especially if the league's grading system indicates the ref is making accurate calls against the team in question. It would take some very compelling evidence to support the accusation.
So, sure, the concept of bias is easy. But we're not talking about the concept of a ref having some bias; we're talking about keeping a ref from officiating a team on the grounds he is biased for or against that team, which would be an absolutely huge thing for the NBA to do.
What, in your view, would be enough evidence for the NBA to remove a ref from officiating games against a specific team on the grounds of bias?
Cause that's really where the bottom line on all this is. |
It seems you're in the legal field as is AH. You guys make it really hard not to believe you're not the same person. Just kidding of course...
Clearly there is a high bar to clear to excuse a judge. I would otherwise cite jury selection as an example where the bar is significantly lower.
Otherwise, I don't think it's that big of a deal to exclude a ref from officiating a certain team. I think invoking accusations might be a bit histrionic. Conflicts of interest exist frequently and there's no shame in admitting it can affect your decision-making. I myself freely admit that I should never officiate Lakers games no matter how good of a ref I might become. It is becoming more accepted that unconscious bias is inherent and probably unavoidable. And if you're not thick-skinned enough to acknowledge it in yourself, you probably shouldn't be a ref in a professional sports league.
To answer your question in bold, as I have many times, I feel that serious consideration should be made if there is statistical significance. At this point it feels like we're rehashing the same point so I'll politely excuse myself.
Otherwise, as you can see, I cited some articles above where your noted statistical expertise may come in handy. If you'd rather not chime in, it's all good.
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gng930
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| Posted: Mon Sep 04, 2023 7:16 pm Post subject: |
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Good lord man...you claim to be an expert in statistics. Anybody who has any knowledge of statistics should know that a 95% level of confidence, p-value less than 0.05, or equivalent is generally the bar to clear for statistical significance. Some might have a slightly different bar to clear but that is generally a good starting point. At this point I'm not sure if there's a bit of trolling going on here; I always held you in higher regard than that.
Again, "formally ban" is a bit histrionic and in that regard I can see why you think it's a big deal. To be fair I initially (and then repeatedly) proposed that he shouldn't coach high-stakes Celtics games. Game 7s? Probably not. Hornets in December? Go nuts.
EDIT: Not sure what happened there AV...I was responding to a post you apparently deleted shortly after posting it.
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activeverb
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| Posted: Mon Sep 04, 2023 7:21 pm Post subject: |
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^^^^^
I skimmed the studies you pointed to. They didn't rock my world, but I think they're OK as an academic exercise to try to identify an overall bias in a group. I can't imagine they provide a strong enough foundation that the NBA would use them to take the very serious step of declaring a specific ref was biased, if that is what you are implying.
I think you significantly overestimate how easy it would be for the NBA to decide a specific ref was biased, and you significantly underestimate how big a deal it would be for the NBA to do so. |
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gng930
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| Posted: Mon Sep 04, 2023 7:33 pm Post subject: |
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Nature is a well-respected journal with one of the highest impact factors. To put it into perspective, an impact factor greater than 10 is considered excellent. Nature's impact factor is more than 60. They may be considered "academic" from your perspective but the studies they publish are a frequent basis for medical therapies and clinical trials.
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activeverb
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| Posted: Mon Sep 04, 2023 7:45 pm Post subject: |
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| gng930 wrote: | | Nature is a well-respected journal with one of the highest impact factors. To put it into perspective, an impact factor greater than 10 is considered excellent. Nature's impact factor is more than 60. They may be considered "academic" from your perspective but the studies they publish are a frequent basis for medical therapies and clinical trials. |
Again, this is apples and oranges. Determining whether a medical therapy is worthwhile is very different than trying to determine ref bias.
Ironically, I have spent all day working with medical studies, and I think I have reached my limit of wanting to talk about statistics and studies without being financially compensated to do so  |
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gng930
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| Posted: Mon Sep 04, 2023 7:45 pm Post subject: |
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Keep up the good fight then, ironically I find reading scientific journal articles a dreary chore. That's the wifey's department.
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Aeneas Hunter
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| Posted: Mon Sep 04, 2023 9:56 pm Post subject: |
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| gng930 wrote: | | But getting back to the primary matter, I found some interesting analyses of NBA referee bias based on the premise that it is subjective. The both allude to ICs and INCs as you put it: |
The German researchers call it subjective, but it can't really be subjective if you label the results IC, INC, CC, or CNC. If a call is subjective, you can't grade it. More importantly, this is not the way that the NBA operates. NBA doctrine is that there is an objectively correct call every time. Once again, the word "subjective" seems to be the disconnect here.
As for the other article, implicit bias has been trendy for the last few years. This is something we deal with a lot in my practice, but I don't want to get into the weeds. Everyone has implicit biases. They don't necessarily follow logical patterns, and there is no effective cure for most of them. Eric Lewis may very well have some level of implicit bias in favor of the Celtics, but then every official in the league would have the same thing with respect to teams and players that they like. When it comes to Lewis, the accusation is not that he has implicit bias, but rather that he has actual, conscious bias. That's a different kettle of fish.
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gng930
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| Posted: Tue Sep 05, 2023 11:25 am Post subject: |
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Isn't objective by definition free of bias? Grading does not preclude subjectivity, otherwise how would you grade an essay for instance?
And I wasn't necessarily accusing Eric Lewis of conscious bias, only that any uncovered bias, conscious or not, should be taken into consideration when making officiating assignments, especially in high stakes games.
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LakersRGolden
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| Posted: Tue Sep 05, 2023 12:12 pm Post subject: |
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| gng930 wrote: | Isn't objective by definition free of bias? Grading does not preclude subjectivity, otherwise how would you grade an essay for instance?
And I wasn't necessarily accusing Eric Lewis of conscious bias, only that any uncovered bias, conscious or not, should be taken into consideration when making officiating assignments, especially in high stakes games. |
Subjective means influenced by opinion. I'm not sure you can determine many charge block calls without forming opinions about how player movement and contact are to be categorized.
Incidental seems like an opinion too. |
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Aeneas Hunter
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| Posted: Tue Sep 05, 2023 12:24 pm Post subject: |
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| gng930 wrote: | | Isn't objective by definition free of bias? Grading does not preclude subjectivity, otherwise how would you grade an essay for instance? |
This isn't an essay. It's a true-false test. And no, the possibility of bias or human error does not make something subjective. If the call is wrong, it gets graded as IC or INC.
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