I'm Done With the NBA

[youcanthandlethetruth113]

There is a simple solution for those of you who continually complain about how bad the NBA is and how bad David Stern is....

Don't watch it.

Did you read my original post?  That what I said.  I'm not watching anymore, except for the Celtics.  I wish I could stop watching the C's too, but I'm addicted to my team.

Agreed!

[Chris]

There is a simple solution for those of you who continually complain about how bad the NBA is and how bad David Stern is....

Don't watch it.

Disagree with this conclusion. Being concerned about the fairness of the game is reasonable and also relevant. I wouldn't quit watching my games, as I'm a total addict.
Quiting is not an option. But wanting it to be played fair is not asking too much.

I agree.  But I also think there needs to be some meeting halfway.  While the refs have some work to do, there also is an oversensitivity to them by a lot of people these days.  I think a lot of people expect the refs to be bad, and because of that, all they see is the bad calls.

So, instead of suggesting not to watch it, I would suggest just trying to ignore the refs.  Focus on the players.  Focus on how they are influencing the game.  If the refs make a bad call, focus on how the players could have made that call irrelevant by doing their job better.  It also might help to stop listening to Tommy.  I love the guy, but he is like gasoline to the flame of conspiracy theory.

I know its hard to do, but believe me, it makes the experience so much more enjoyable.

[mmbaby]

Who says complaining isn't enjoyable? 

Stop listening to Tommy? NEVER!

[FLCeltsFan]

I was a little bothered by the refs allowing that basket after reviewing it because they had to make a conscious decision to ignore the facts to allow that call to stand.  

I have been extremely bothered about the refs' selective enforcing of the new technical rules.   In the Miami game, the camera followed LeBron up the court complaining and making faces and gestures about his unhappiness with a call.  The camera also caught Wade complaining about a call.  They were not given technicals.   In the Cleveland game,  Varejao was jumping up and down and complaining about an out of bounds call.  No technical.  But let a Celtic calmly approach a ref during a stoppage to ask a question and he gets a T.  Let a Celtic raise an eyebrow in surprise over one of the many terrible calls and he gets a T.    The refs are selectively deciding when to enforce the new rules and when not to.  How is that respecting the league?  

[Chris]

Who says complaining isn't enjoyable? 

Stop listening to Tommy? NEVER!

Haha, well I never said stop complaining.  But I personally find it better to think the league is on the level, and save my complaining for the players, who really are responsible for what happens on the court. 

[FLCeltsFan]

I agree.  But I also think there needs to be some meeting halfway.  While the refs have some work to do, there also is an oversensitivity to them by a lot of people these days.  I think a lot of people expect the refs to be bad, and because of that, all they see is the bad calls.

I always feel that reading the comments from the boards on both sides is very telling about the officiating.  It is true that a lot of times we see the bad calls on our team but don't notice  the bad calls going the other way.  If I read the boards from both teams and they are both complaining about the calls, I'm usually ok with that.  That means that they are at least calling it both ways.  They may be incompetent but they are trying to be fair.  But when I read one team's board and they are complaining about the calls and the other team's boards are talking about how they can't believe all the calls they are getting in their favor, then I know that the refs are calling the game in one direction and trying to influence the outcome by making calls for one of the teams.  That is inexcusable.  It is worse than a ref betting on the league.  It is worse than just being incompetent.  It is dishonest and it is criminal.  Unfortunately, this happens a lot. 

[Chris]

I agree.  But I also think there needs to be some meeting halfway.  While the refs have some work to do, there also is an oversensitivity to them by a lot of people these days.  I think a lot of people expect the refs to be bad, and because of that, all they see is the bad calls.

I always feel that reading the comments from the boards on both sides is very telling about the officiating.  It is true that a lot of times we see the bad calls on our team but don't notice  the bad calls going the other way.  If I read the boards from both teams and they are both complaining about the calls, I'm usually ok with that.  That means that they are at least calling it both ways.  They may be incompetent but they are trying to be fair.  But when I read one team's board and they are complaining about the calls and the other team's boards are talking about how they can't believe all the calls they are getting in their favor, then I know that the refs are calling the game in one direction and trying to influence the outcome by making calls for one of the teams.  That is inexcusable.  It is worse than a ref betting on the league.  It is worse than just being incompetent.  It is dishonest and it is criminal.  Unfortunately, this happens a lot. 

While I love this site, I don't think I would ever go to a messageboard (or two) to get a rational depiction of what is really going on. 

[kozlodoev]

1.9999 seconds would show as 2 seconds on the clock.  So the most that the could have been on the clock was 1.000000.  And I mean, this most. 

Actually, this is true and I stand corrected on my previous hypothesis that the max could have been 1.999.

There are exactly 24 1-second intervals between the values of 0 and 24 that the shot clock can take. So the shot clock starts at 24.0, and changes values every time 1 full second has elapsed. When the value changes to 23, that means at least 1 full second has elapsed (but not necessarily two full seconds, or the clock would have changed to 22). By extension of this logic, when the shot clock shows 1, then at least 23 (but possibly more) of the shot clock has elapsed.

In other words, while it's still true that the actual remaining time is not necessarily exactly equal to 1 second to the zero, it actually could be anywhere between 0.001 and .999 seconds.

The reverse counting threw me off this one a little bit. But the answer should be absolutely obvious if one recalls that the signal goes off exactly when the clock hits 0, rather than 1 second after that.

I actually timed it after the game and I came up with 1.45 seconds for that one second to come of the clock.  Make no mistake about it, we were jobbed on that play.  But more than likely, it was the clock operator giving the hometown aid there.

The clock operator is supposed to start the timing when the referee put his hand down. So if you're timing the play, it may be instructive to see when this happened.

[Who]

When the ref reviews a replay, he is only allowed to look if the shot got off in time? Correct?

Not allowed to check to see if the shot clock started again in time. Even, if it clearly didn't, if it was late, they are not allowed do anything.

Do I have that right?

[fairweatherfan]

When the ref reviews a replay, he is only allowed to look if the shot got off in time? Correct?

Not allowed to check to see if the shot clock started again in time. Even, if it clearly didn't, if it was late, they are not allowed do anything.

Do I have that right?

I'm not sure - I think you may be right with regard to shots, but I've seen plenty of instances where the clock didn't start/restart correctly and the refs have reviewed the play and ruled how much time elapsed.  But the rules for a scored goal may be more specific.

[Chris]

When the ref reviews a replay, he is only allowed to look if the shot got off in time? Correct?

Not allowed to check to see if the shot clock started again in time. Even, if it clearly didn't, if it was late, they are not allowed do anything.

Do I have that right?

I am not sure what the rule is specifically, but I do know that the ref does not have the tools there to accurately tell how late the clock was started.  So, even if they are allowed to make a call on that within the rules (though I doubt they are), they would have no way to irrefutably overturn a call.

[jdpapa3]

The refs had tied hands last night on that Anthony Parker shot. I knew when they were reviewing it there was no possible way to overturn it that was within the rules.

I'm with you, though, in losing interest in the league because of their priorities. I mean, there was really a meeting where they banned upside down headbands? The worst part about this technical rule is that certain errors show up double on the scoresheet. Instead of a potential 3 point swing on a bad call, it is turning into 5 point swings because of the technicals racking up. It's not the good calls that players get animated about: it's the incorrect ones.

For example. Someone gets called for a charge incorrectly on a bucket that they've hit. He would be going to the line for a 3 point play. -3 points. He complains. -1 point. His buddy asks for clarification -1 points. Boom 5 point swing and a completely different game. Not just one possession anymore.

[Chris]

When the ref reviews a replay, he is only allowed to look if the shot got off in time? Correct?

Not allowed to check to see if the shot clock started again in time. Even, if it clearly didn't, if it was late, they are not allowed do anything.

Do I have that right?

I'm not sure - I think you may be right with regard to shots, but I've seen plenty of instances where the clock didn't start/restart correctly and the refs have reviewed the play and ruled how much time elapsed.  But the rules for a scored goal may be more specific.

I have never seen it in a situation like this with the shotclock though.  It is easy to do with a regular clock that has the 10ths of a second.  But with the shot clock, you simply can't do that.

[Jon Niednagel]

I'll watch my beloved Celtics only.  I'm so sick of Stern and his league!  That Anthony Parker 3 was the last straw for me.  By itself, it's not a big deal, but giving the refs more power with this technical business banning upside down headbands when there are more serious problems plaguing the league?  What is wrong with this guy?

Anthony Parker had one second, but was given 2-3 second to catch the ball, wind up then shoot.  The play was reviewed and they still allowed it.  Remember Baby's 3?  They reviewed and it was not allowed. They were correct on Baby's 3.  But they were wrong on Parker's. No excuse for getting it wrong after reviewing it.

I don't blame the refs for the loss last night, because the Celtics let the Cavs hang around so that the refs were able to have an impact on the outcome of the game.

I'm just so sick of these refs and Stern.  While they may not be doing any fixing of games, they are so incompetent that it looks that way!

I'm done.

I think they made too much about that 3.  First off, even though there was a 1 on the clock, it could have been 1.99999 seconds, and we wouldn't know.  Second, he didn't take as long as some people say.  Maybe they started the clock half a beat slow, but I don't think its a given.

More importantly though, how could the refs take that off the board?  Unless there was irrefutable evidence that the clock was not started on time, then they had to leave it up there.

Basically, that was just a classic case of the home court advantage.  It happens all the time, but doesn't always involve Mike and Tommy complaining to make it look worse than it is.  

This is not correct.  1.9999 seconds would show as 2 seconds on the clock.  So the most that the could have been on the clock was 1.000000.  And I mean, this most.  

I actually timed it after the game and I came up with 1.45 seconds for that one second to come of the clock.  Make no mistake about it, we were jobbed on that play.  But more than likely, it was the clock operator giving the hometown aid there.

Hmmm, I think your right.  But still, even if it took 1.45 seconds, that means that the clock person may have taken 0.451 seconds to start the clock.  The average reaction time for people is generally about 0.3 to 0.4 seconds.  

To put this into perspective, in a scientific study that looks at reaction time, generally, it would not be considered a lapse or abnormal, unless it were greater than 500 milliseconds.

So basically, there just was nowhere near enough evidence for the refs to overturn that.  Clocks always start a little bit late (or early if they anticipate too much).  It just was unfortunate that in this case, it hurt the C's.  But the refs had nothing to do with it, and could do nothing about it.

I don't claim to know if the delay was due to home cooking or an honest mistake, but don't think the delay was that common or normal and I don't think the outcry is solely due to a global misjudgment of time by a collective group of people with a bias. If errors like this were so common, the delay would have seemed more normal even to die hard Cs fans. I do, however, agree that the refs didn't have enough video evidence to reverse their decision.

[fairweatherfan]

When the ref reviews a replay, he is only allowed to look if the shot got off in time? Correct?

Not allowed to check to see if the shot clock started again in time. Even, if it clearly didn't, if it was late, they are not allowed do anything.

Do I have that right?

I'm not sure - I think you may be right with regard to shots, but I've seen plenty of instances where the clock didn't start/restart correctly and the refs have reviewed the play and ruled how much time elapsed.  But the rules for a scored goal may be more specific.

I have never seen it in a situation like this with the shotclock though.  It is easy to do with a regular clock that has the 10ths of a second.  But with the shot clock, you simply can't do that.

I mean I've seen them do it with a shot clock that didn't start correctly, or wasn't reset.  But I think you're right that the standards are different for a made basket.

EDIT:  Oh, I reread it and I think we're saying basically the same thing.  Cheers!