WizBoard Braintrust Tracking NBA Refs Thread

[doclinkin]

Detroit pulls-off the upset at home, beating Orlando in a low-scoring game.

Dwight Howard: 17 mins, 6 fouls. Marcin Gortat: 23 mins, 6 fouls. No Piston with more than 4 fouls.

Pistons bigs: Ben Wallace and Kwame Brown, 2 fouls each.

Free Throws: Detroit 31-38 Orlando 12-16

Technical fouls: Howard, Redick, Orland bench.

Looks like the Wizards weren't the other team that got screwed by the refs tonight.

Officials: Javie, Roe, Forte.

Interesting idea: maybe we should have a 'Tracking NBA Refs' thread where we collate and spot trends in the data on NBA refs.

Hmnn: nate? Turn it into a blog and all the degenerate gamblers would pay real money for your info... Slice me a small fee for the concept?

Cross reference Refs vs player trends (more/less than average fouls). Refs vs final point spread. Refs vs home team (which are affected most by home crowd). You'd have to run regressions to separate which of the three has the which game effect, and real trends would emerge until you had a year's worth of data or so, but still seems to me the idea is sound.

In any case let this thread stand as a watch dog to keep an eye on the watchmen, see if any egregious or obvious trends pop up.

[Zerocious]

Interesting idea: maybe we should have a 'Tracking NBA Refs' thread where we collate and spot trends in the data on NBA refs.

yeah, let's do that! oh wait....nvrmnd

[nate33]

Didn't Mark Cuban threaten to do this several years ago?

[BigA]

This is an interesting resource:

http://nba.pointspread.com/scores

Don't know if there are significant differences among odds sites. Wizards were a +11 point dog last night, lost by 12. Pistons were a +8.5 point dog and won by 5.

[LyricalRico]

Didn't Mark Cuban threaten to do this several years ago?

I think he actually did it and sent a report to the league office asking for an explanation. He got fined like 6-figures for it IIRC. Tried go Google it but all I got were Cuban's anti-ref tweets.

[dobrojim]

great idea, they can't fine us can they? How far does SternPower carry?

[dlts20]

Its funny because in the Preseason the refs were terrible and everyone said that you can really see the difference between these guys and the real fefs and we need the real one's back. Now that the season has started, I honestly think they have sucked in every single one of our games, even the ones that we won. On top of that, Im still wondering if these guys are still some replacments because for some reason, alot of these guys seem foreign to me like I honestly have never seen them before

[go'stags]

I know Bill Simmons has said he wants someone to start a blog like this, because he is fed up with the refs also, and said if it is good he would direct a ton of traffic to the site.

[LyricalRico]

For this to really work, I don't think we could rely just on the box score showing how many fouls were called on each player. We'd have to actually watch the game to have some context for those fouls. Which refs called which fouls? Did the refs create or stop runs with their whistles? How was the game called in the critical moments?

It would be painstaking but very interesting at the same time. Reminds of SD20's "Want to make a million dollars?" thread from a few years back.

[BigA]

^Exactly. It would work best as a group blog of people who could collectively take suggestions for fishy games, watch the games and do some analysis of each fishy game. Ideally fans of different teams, so a fan wouldn't be analyzing their own team. Use embedded video of bad calls or series of bad calls that influence outcomes.

Then keep track over the course of the season of individual refs and recurring situations.

Maybe call it the "Donaghy Files."

This isn't an exact analog, but look at the work that goes into this:

http://mgoblog.com/content/upon-further-review-offense-vs-penn-state-2

I'm assuming there wouldn't be more than 4-5 games a week that you'd have to do this for, so a group of 2-3 guys who watch alot of basketball could cover it. They could probably quickly build the right sort of community so that every game is evaluated by commenters who would nominate fishy games.

[VictorPage44]

for those who are interested, the 4th quarter of game 7 of the 2000 western conference finals is about to come on the NBA channel (lakers-Blazers). aprrox. 10:50 EDT. This was one of the most poorly officiated quarters of all time. Lakers made a 20 point turn around in the final 10 mins.

Edit: after watching the 4th quarter it wasnt as bad as I had remembered. Maybe thats because I was pulling hard for the Blazers at the time. The refs may have just been very good at making the subtle calls though. The first time Shaq got the ball in the post in the 4th, the refs immediately called a phantom foul on arvydas sabonis giving him five fouls at about the ten minute mark, forcing him to sit (after he had held shaq to 11 points up until that point). The biggest difference though was the way they let the play go against shaq and sheed. robert horry was all over sheed in the post on every possession, and shaq could have been whistled for 3 seconds on any possession in the 4th. There were also two phantom fouls against sheed, but he was also the beneficiary of a borderline goaltending call.

When sabonis came back with about four minutes, it took one possession for the lakers to go to shaq in the post. Shaq cleared his way with the right elbow, and the foul was called on sabonis, disqualifying him. I remember watching the game with my dad who doesnt follow basketball. He described the way shaq played "like watching a bear maul the tourists". That was spot on. He was too big for anyone on the blazers to move, and the refs let him camp out in the lane all he wanted. Still, the blazers could have won if they didnt go ice cold from the field in the 4th.

That blazers team was nice though. Rasheed was a stud back then, sabonis was great, they had stoudemire, and detlef schrempf. and they had three guards in bonzi wells, pippen, and steve smith who were murder in the post.

[doclinkin]

Beat to the punch-- interesting breakdown of referees tendencies:

Here.

Interesting to see which refs are most effected by the home crowd. Steve Javie so far this year is the worst in that respect. How far in advance are the refs assigned to a particular game? This info should definitely be included in any game thread.

[nate33]

Beat to the punch-- interesting breakdown of referees tendencies:

Here.

Interesting to see which refs are most effected by the home crowd. Steve Javie so far this year is the worst in that respect. How far in advance are the refs assigned to a particular game? This info should definitely be included in any game thread.

Looking at last season when there's a large sample size, the worst referees call the road team for fouls 52.6% of the time. At the other extreme, some refs call the road team for fouls just 48.6% of the time. That's pretty darn close to a 50/50 split. Certainly, the road team foul percentage stat isn't revealing much bias.

It would be interesting to see a study to see if ref's call the game in favor of the team down by more than 10 points early in games. I'd also be interested in the home/road stats for crunch time only.