Dwight Howard/Goaltending

[PierceMVP08]

I disagree about Howard not appealing to the causal fan.  He set a record with over 3 million all star votes this season.  So that's a really weak argument on your part.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/allstar2009/news/story?id=3853409

He does goaltend A LOT and they don't call many of them.  I agree with RAcker, throw a pump fake at they guy he'll fall for it almost every time.  

Tell me, who else do people have to vote for at Center in the east?  Those votes are clearly inflated.  Simply talking to the common person, you mention Dwight Howard and he doesn't have that name recognition that you say he does.

Yeah those numbers are inflated    First time in history a player gets over 3 million votes.  Think about it, Yao has 2 huge countries voting for him and he had less votes by almost a million and Yao, Shaq, and Gasol are really the only centers out west since Duncan is listed as a Forward. 

How bout listing who in the east takes votes away from Howard? Shaq can still draw votes and you forget Pau plays for the most popular team in the league and has spain voting for him as well.

If you want stats that are more indicative of his marketability (yes that means people spending money rather than just filling out a paper) look at Jersey sales from the last two years.

2008: http://www.cnbc.com/id/22663891

Dwight Howard is 14

Top 15 Jerseys:
1. Kevin Garnett
2. Kobe Bryant
3. Allen Iverson
4. LeBron James
5. Steve Nash
6. Dwyane Wade
7. Gilbert Arenas
8. Dirk Nowitzki
9. Stephon Marbury
10. Carmelo Anthony
11. Kevin Durant
12. Paul Pierce
13. Tracy McGrady
14. Dwight Howard
15. Chris Paul

As for this year, 2009: http://www.nba.com/2009/news/04/30/jersey.leaders.2009/index.html?rss=true

Dwight Howard is 10

Top 15 Most Popular Jerseys
1.    Kobe Bryant (Lakers)
2.    LeBron James (Cavaliers)
3.    Chris Paul (Hornets)
4.    Kevin Garnett (Celtics)
5.    Allen Iverson (Pistons)
6.    Dwyane Wade (Heat)
7.    Paul Pierce (Celtics)
8.    Nate Robinson (Knicks)
9.    Pau Gasol (Lakers)
10.    Dwight Howard (Magic)
11.    Derrick Rose (Bulls)
12.    Ray Allen (Celtics)
13.    Steve Nash (Suns)
14.    Shaquille O'Neal (Suns)
15.    Carmelo Anthony (Nuggets)

Good old Paul Pierce and Keving Garnett are ahead of him both years.  Don't you think they should be getting the favorable calls according to your logic.  Oh, wait.  It doesn't apply to the Celtics because the league is out to get us. 

Why cannot someone simply say the reffing in this league is horrible at best w/o being labled a conspiracy theorist? Nobody is saying the league is out to get us, we who believe something needs to be done just want there to be comsistency between all players and not tiered. With technology the nba can clean this up a lot, but they dont because stern likes the superstar to look better than they already are. He is allowing freat players to look greater than they are.

This a great sport to get into, and it could have many more fans if it cleaned its image up. It needs to get looked at as a legit sport again to the casual fan.

What you fail to realize is that Celtics players get the same treatment at times. If you remember KGs dunk in the finals last year in game one, when he went past gasol early in the game, that was a travel.  He took of one foot and landed on that same foot which is a travel.  Do I think the refs let it slide because it was KG? Maybe?  But not because they thought that they need him to score that bucket to make him a bigger star or to make more advertising money.  I think it had more to do with them missing the call and perhaps taking Garnetts reputation into account.

I don't think its all a product of official bias so much as it is that they miss calls.  Yeah, i think they can be swayed by home fans at times just because it can be easy to be swept up in the emmotion of a run and a crowd goin crazy.  I agree, they miss calls and it can effect games.

To say that they are doing it on purpose, with an agenda is a conspiracy theory.  If you don't want to be called a conspiracy theorist, change your argument.

[PierceMVP08]

i wasnt callin u ignorant i was calling people as a whole that might believe there is no slant at all ignorant.  Nor did i say anything about the refs being out to get us. Nor did i say anything about the refs deciding that game against us.  I agree with the person that says Pierece gets star calls.  Although i see him getting a ton less this year than last year.  If you dont wanna believe that Celtics Lakers was more or less set up and you dont wanna beleive that Lakers Cavs is set up thats your own choice.  But the league has been doin this for years.  76ers Lakers finals a few years back was about as set up a finals as there has ever been.  Coincidence that Celtics get real good..then Jerry West GM of the Grizz trades Pau Gasol for a 2nd rounder and BAM! we got a Celtics Lakers finals.  Wow now that is impressive.  One of the greatest Lakers of all time trades his best player for a 2nd round pick to his former team.  Now that is just gorgeous.  Sorry but no1 is going to change my mind about this league.  It is a huge scam and whether its the refs fault or ownerships fault i dont care but something needs to be done because its becoming a ton more obvious.  

Yeah, maybe there was something there to that trade, but that would be more because Jerry West wanted to make his old team better, not because the league got involved.  If you think the league goes that far into orchestrating things, why did the spurs beat the cavs in the finals a couple of years ago.  why did the Bulls play the Jazz in the finals two years in a row instead of Phoenix (with the incredibly popular Charles Barkley) over and over?  Why did the league let the Celts be bottom dwellers for about 20 years?  Why didn't they fix the draft lottery so the celts got Tim Duncan?  Why did Lebron go to Cleveland instead of New York? 

The reason why the casual fan has a bad image of the NBA is because those that call themselves fans keep perpetuating that image.  yeah Donaghy was terrible and self inflicted, but odds are great that he was on his own.

[yagru]

no offense but thats a pretty nieve stance

this is a billion dollar industry, if you think that there isnt persuasion going on on certain levels in any industry this size then i just dont know

and im sorry but listing the no of jersey sold is a very ignorant argument.. fans span all accross the country

[Amonkey]

I have been working a lot since yesterday so I am coming into the middle of a thread but I do wanna go back to the original intent, which is the goaltending!  I was in shock that they didn't call.  There were three instances where I thought for sure they HAD to call a goaltending and they didn't do it.  I had recorded the game (had to work) so I could go back and every single time I went back, I thought for sure they should be called goaltending.  Then they would show the replay and every angle looked like goaltending to me, but the announcers just talked about Howard's abilities.  I thought I was a little crazy.  I was extremely mad of course, but somebody else mentioned three plays that looked like goaltending, and I think we all know which ones we are talking about so I guess it was pretty obvious but they just didnt call it.

[PierceMVP08]

no offense but thats a pretty nieve stance

this is a billion dollar industry, if you think that there isnt persuasion going on on certain levels in any industry this size then i just dont know

and im sorry but listing the no of jersey sold is a very ignorant argument.. fans span all accross the country

If you want to live life as a cynical, angry person, that's your decision.  If you truly believe that things are rigged, well then why even watch?  Why not answer the questions posed above rather than simply saying that I am naieve?  That is truly ignorant.  You brought nothing to the debate.

The jersey information was brought to debate a previous poster's assertion that Howard is more popular than he actually is.  He used all star vote results as the basis for his argument which is an even worse argument.  That does not reflect what people are spending, which is more important to the NBA then what votes say.  Look at the whole thread before you add anything because you don't look too hot.

The NBA would be stupid to apply pressure to the refs or try to rig games because it would come out eventually.  That would ruin the league.  Please think.

[yagru]

your the one being cynical dude.. pretty much the people making the argument are not posing it in a way of outlandish "rigging" but just an allowance for certain players to push the foul envelope.. its pretty obvious

yes that shirt thing is a joke.. to say that the 15th player on that list isnt "as popular".. do you realize how big this country is? do you realize that even the 15th and yes probably even the 30th best player are practically household names lol

[PierceMVP08]

I believe you are far too wrapped up in the nba if you think all those guys are household names.  Maybe in your household but not the average US household. Nate Robinson?  Derrick Rose? Pau Gasol?  Good players no doubt but about 60% of the country have never heard of them.  Explain to me how the fan voting is any better?  The NBA is concerned about people spending.

My contention is not that he is not popular, its that the NBA is not giving them calls to make them more popular or to keep their popularity up.  If you think that that's what they're doing, you shouldn't worry as a Celtics fan.  We'll get the calls in that scenario.

I think you are giving them too much credit.  It would be one elaborate and intricate plan to be able to do that and not get caught.  Come on.

[PierceMVP08]

I agree that certain players get calls that others won't, but not because it was mandated by the NBA. Its more likely due to personal biases in the refs.

[guava_wrench]

no offense but thats a pretty nieve stance

this is a billion dollar industry, if you think that there isnt persuasion going on on certain levels in any industry this size then i just dont know

and im sorry but listing the no of jersey sold is a very ignorant argument.. fans span all accross the country

The problem with the arguments conspiracy theorists make about certain players getting special treatment is they don't have any real evidence of this, yet they talk like the burden of proof is on the league or whoever to disprove the bizarre allegations.

One thing that cannot be denied - we are all fallible in our observations. Nutjobs might twist reality into fancy confabulations to fit their mistaken perceptions. As fans, we are very prone to confirmation bias - we notice the borderline calls against us and ignore the bad calls in our favor. We are also guilty of wishful thinking, when our desire for our team to do well distorts our interpretation of what we see. Tommy is a great example of this, especially when Gorman has to shut up Tommy by pointing out in the video why the ref's call was good.

Why is Tommy so often wrong when his vision is fine and he has a deep knowledge of the game? It is because he is seeing what he wants to happen and he refuses to acknowledge his bias. Every fan has bias, but some are more willing to admit it while others prefer to rant.

Conspiracy theorists are often people who confabulate incredible stories to explain their faulty perceptions. This is what we see with the nutjobs who think Stern has been working against the Celtics. They ignore the obvious potential lawsuit that would arise from a team's lost revenue if the league purposefully tried to help a player or team in a game at the expense of another player or team.

[guava_wrench]

His block on Stephon I do believe was on it's way down but aside from that, they all just seemed like awsome blocks in my opinion.

I agree.  At first glance some seemed like they might have been goaltending, but after seeing the replays I couldn't help but admit they were amazing plays.  He seemed to get them just at the peak of their ascent but JUST before they came down.  Really amazing actually.

Sadly, many fans see what they want to happen, not what actually happens.

[CMar65]

If you dont wanna believe that Celtics Lakers was more or less set up and you dont wanna beleive that Lakers Cavs is set up thats your own choice.  But the league has been doin this for years.  76ers Lakers finals a few years back was about as set up a finals as there has ever been.  Coincidence that Celtics get real good.. then Jerry West GM of the Grizz trades Pau Gasol for a 2nd rounder and BAM! we got a Celtics Lakers finals.  Wow now that is impressive.  One of the greatest Lakers of all time trades his best player for a 2nd round pick to his former team.  Now that is just gorgeous.

It would help your cause if you checked the facts behind your arguments. 
http://tinyurl.com/qjjwjd

"Grizzlies GM Chris Wallace went on the offensive against his critics on Thursday, calling the unattributed criticism of the Pau Gasol trade from other general managers "pillow talk" and daring any league executives to go on the record against the deal."

Chris Wallace former GM for the Celtics and current Grizzlies GM.  He does have a history of picking the wrong players (with the exception of Pierce, Billups, and Joe Johnson) in the draft and making trades that does not help his team.  Some of his other highlights include: Trading away Chauncey Billups, botching the 2001 draft, trading for Vin Baker, trading away Joe Johnson (granted it was for a playoff push), and trading away Kyle Lowry (as the Grizzlies GM). 

http://tinyurl.com/ofuybf

[GeoDim]

A little off-topic, but has Howard ever set a legal screen in his life?

[threats13]

learn to get the whole story

If you dont wanna believe that Celtics Lakers was more or less set up and you dont wanna beleive that Lakers Cavs is set up thats your own choice.  But the league has been doin this for years.  76ers Lakers finals a few years back was about as set up a finals as there has ever been.  Coincidence that Celtics get real good.. then Jerry West GM of the Grizz trades Pau Gasol for a 2nd rounder and BAM! we got a Celtics Lakers finals.  Wow now that is impressive.  One of the greatest Lakers of all time trades his best player for a 2nd round pick to his former team.  Now that is just gorgeous.

It would help your cause if you checked the facts behind your arguments. 
http://tinyurl.com/qjjwjd

"Grizzlies GM Chris Wallace went on the offensive against his critics on Thursday, calling the unattributed criticism of the Pau Gasol trade from other general managers "pillow talk" and daring any league executives to go on the record against the deal."

Chris Wallace former GM for the Celtics and current Grizzlies GM.  He does have a history of picking the wrong players (with the exception of Pierce, Billups, and Joe Johnson) in the draft and making trades that does not help his team.  Some of his other highlights include: Trading away Chauncey Billups, botching the 2001 draft, trading for Vin Baker, trading away Joe Johnson (granted it was for a playoff push), and trading away Kyle Lowry (as the Grizzlies GM). 

http://tinyurl.com/ofuybf

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slug=aw-heisleygasol060308&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

thaat says retired GM thank you

[crownsy]

no offense but thats a pretty nieve stance

this is a billion dollar industry, if you think that there isnt persuasion going on on certain levels in any industry this size then i just dont know

and im sorry but listing the no of jersey sold is a very ignorant argument.. fans span all accross the country

The NBA would be stupid to apply pressure to the refs or try to rig games because it would come out eventually.  That would ruin the league.  Please think.

I dunno, a ref's fixing of playoff games didn't seem to slow the league down much...