Thing is, I think Stern has a relatively simple solution to the whole problem, if he wanted to solve it.
He needs to say/do the following:
"The NBA is a very hard game to officiate. We have huge athletes moving very fast with a lot of calls made on judgments.
I understand that every fan base thinks that their team receives an unfair proportion of bad calls. Clearly, it's mathematically impossible for every team to be on the wrong end of the most unfair calls; this is how the human mind works, and I acknowledge that. Furthermore, I understand that there is a perception that certain players are called differently than other players. I also do not believe this is true, and this again has to do with how our minds work.
Let's start with "superstar" calls. We remember the bad calls made in favor of a "superstar." However, we quickly forget or never even realize the calls that said superstar should have received yet never got whistled. In addition, we as fans rarely acknowledge or remember the bad calls that go against a superstar. What I believe is really going on here is two things.
-First, we are misdirected by shear volume. Great Players have the ball in their hands a lot of the time. Since we disproportionately choose to remember bad calls that favor the superstar, and the superstar has the ball a lot of the time, it appears that said superstar has a lot of unfair calls in his favor. However, in that same amount of time, this superstar has the same number of unfair calls go against him; we do not remember those. Furthermore, Non-superstar players also have unfair calls for and against them at the same rate as do superstars. However, because they have the ball less often, they don't SEEM to have as many unfair calls in their favor.
-Second, there is confusion between "superstar calls" and "calls that go in the superstar's direction" I have news that will upset. some of you: Superstars are superstars because they are better players than others. They are able to do things better than other players, and thus end up getting fouled. They are just so slightly more athletic that they can get to a spot before a defender, thus getting fouled. Because they are better, their defenders are more jumpy, more likely to go for their better fakes, and thus more likely to commit a foul.
The same is true on defense. Some people feel the league has an agenda to not allow certain players to foul out. As evidence, they cite low fouls per game, and watch a specific player for a game and say that "player x could have been called for 7 fouls that game and only got called for 2." I will strongly argue that there is no conspiracy from the league. Instead, why not acknowledge, again, that superstars are superstars because they are better at basketball. They have better body control, and are able to avoid fouling at a much greater RATE than non-stars. They are intentionally using their basketball skill to AVOID fouls by the way the game is being called. It is not enough to say "player x committed 6 fouls and was called for 2." What were you calling a foul? You were also focusing on player x to prove your point. What about the other players? I will wager that if player x "committed" 6 fouls and was called for 2, that an impartial judge would find that other players on the court that were called for 4 fouls "actually" committed 12 fouls, if we were to apply the criteria used to judge the fouls the superstar "committed." It is not enough to say the refs did not call all the fouls player x committed, we must see whether player x was called for the same percentage of fouls that they committed by the same standards as all other players. I venture that this is the case in the NBA.
In conclusion about superstars, it is not enough to just count the number of calls that go in their direction. Instead, we must count the number of WRONG calls in their direction, the number of WRONG NO-calls in their direction, the number of WRONG calls AGAINST them and the number of WRONG NO-calls AGAINST them, and see if they balance. Superstars are better at basketball. They do not "earn" more calls. Rather, because they are better, they CAUSE the defense to foul them if they are trying to stop them.
There are similar problems with any fan's given favorite team, and similar factors are at work. We remember the bad calls made against our team at a far greater rate than we remember the bad calls made against our opponents; we remember the bad no-calls that hurt our team far more often than we remember the bad no-calls that helped.
I understand your frustration. I care deeply about this product and about your feelings toward this league. So we are going to fix this.
First, we do not need players and especially coaches clouding the facts. Thus, we are going to implement heavier fines and actual suspensions for criticisms of refereeing. But this by itself will not work. By itself, this can be seen as just not acknowledging a problem; this is just censorship. I do not want this to be the case. We are not implementing these suspensions to stop players and coaches from pointing out injustices; rather, we are implementing these suspensions to stop coaches and players from CONTRIBUTING to such injustices.
Second, we will attack this issue from another angle. Our referees are very good at their difficult jobs, and they get an overwhelming number of calls correct. But, as with any job, there need be accountability and there is always room for improvement. Because this issue is so important to you and me, here is what we are going to do.
1. We will assemble a large group of impartial game reviewers whose job is to be trained on the rules of basketball, watch all games, and just enter raw data into databases. They will log all calls made that were correct, all calls made that were incorrect, all non-whistles on close plays that were correct, and all non-whistles on close plays that should have been called. They will enter this data attached to given subjects: A correct call will be entered in correlation with the ref that made the call, the player that earned a beneficial call, and the player that earned a negative call. An incorrect call will be entered in correlation with the ref that made the bad call, the player that benefited from the bad call, and the player that was unjustly punished from a bad call. Same idea for non-calls.
As we track this data, we will see whether certain players get more "bad" calls in their favor, not in absolute values, but RELATIVE to other players. We will see how accurate our refs are, and where they can improve: are their errors due to making bad calls or NOT making calls they should have made? In addition, we can track whether our referees have a harder time consistently correctly calling certain teams and/or players. Fans may call this referee bias; I would call it needing more individual education on interpreting our rules. As the data comes out, we will have educational training seminars so we may work with our referees to correct any disturbing trends.
In addition, we will make available a weekly 1-hour online and NBA-TV broadcasted show detailing how our staff breaks down a sample game from each week, so you at home can follow along and judge the fairness of our evaluators.
Clearly, there is more transparency in this model and also makes the job more difficult for referees. As such, I worry that it may decrease the incentive for good referees to continue their jobs. As such, and because this is so important to get right, we are also raising overall referee salaries. We will begin with a slight decline in base salary, then add significantly large (and continuously increasing) bonuses for hitting certain benchmarks of consistency and accuracy as determined by our review team. This is not relative to each other, but is based purely on individual ref accuracy. As such, my dream world would be to give all refs the full bonus for 100% accuracy every year. For example, right now the average ref salary is 128K. Compared to the league-wide revenue, this is small. The general idea is to decrease the base salary to 100K. If a ref is 90% accurate, they get a 10K bonus. 91%, 20K. 92%, 30K. So perhaps a nearly perfect ref could double his or her salary for the year. That is significant incentive to make the right call, even if being intimidated by players, coaches, or fans. And it is worth the league budget to do so.
I love this league, and your fandom and respect is critical to my job. I fully believe that the data we will compile will fully match what I have told you today. Thank you."
-David Stern.
Topic: Stern ready to suspend coaches, players who criticize refs (Read 13030 times)