A few questions for ref bashers

[SNPA]

They also got to be billionaires by assessing relative risk vs reward. It's not worth risking the dozens of eggs their golden goose will naturally lay each year for one additional corrupt egg.

I have the opportunity to cheat at work to my own $ gain every day and the odds of getting caught each day are miniscule but why bother when the gain is proportionately tiny to what I can gain through regular legitimate business operations and the consequences of exposure would be catastrophic?

Your argument is basically anti corporate malfeasance, just in the NBA context. Why would any corporation take a risk to make more than they otherwise could have? I’m sorry, I’ve enjoyed the conversation but that’s just not a level of naive I can get it.

They would poison the basketball and slowly kill of fans in the front row from exposure if it made billions and they thought they could get away with it. What we are talking about with refs is nothing, it’s so small time. Zero ethical concerns. It’s a nothing burger. Of course they would. No one even gets physically hurt. It’s just blowing a whistle a little differently and getting rewarded for it, all under the proven guise of plausible deniability. It’s actually pretty genius.
Hi

The people who run any corporation would be expected to take any hypothetical risk if it was justified in a risk/reward analysis be the size of the reward vs the size of the risk. Here it is not. This is not a blanket argument against the existence of corporate corruption, which is obviously real. It is an argument that not every conceivable scheme for corrupt gain is always followed, risk/reward be damned.

Funny, I've never said anything about ethics but you keep straw manning it anyway.

Just like applying fairness in officiating a game between two parties, this is about ethics. I don’t trust giant corporations ethics, no one should. There’s no reason to do so, billions of reason not to.

Commissioner has interests. The concept I’ve put forward aligns with his interests. The risk is mitigated by the process. No smoking gun means less risk, which means more incentive to get more reward.

I’ll finish with one question:

1) Why hasn’t the NBA, with all this public talk about “rigged,” simply taken the issue off the table by handing over ref oversight to a neutral third party that doesn’t financial benefit from anything but impartiality? Doesn’t that squash this whole drama, and future dramas? Isn’t that good for business and profit? For a truly ethical company that didn’t want even the perception of unfairness occurring…isn’t this the best path?

Why not just invite a neutral third party for ref oversight like they do for draft lotto oversight with the accounting firm that oversees the process? Hmmm…

[rand]

Billionaires care about maximizing profit. That’s how they got to be billionaires. They will literally poison people to death, take away healthcare, make them ride in a van all day and **** in a bag the employee had to bring. What about this aren’t you getting?

The system Stern designed has plausible deniability built in at all levels, it is court level sufficient. There will not be a smoking gun. Silver tells no one to cheat. The plausible deniability has already been tested, at the drop of a hat they’ll scream rogue ref and use their billions to destroy anyone that says anything. They will suspend a player for life.

Corporate culture is a real thing. People wanting to reach the apex of their field is a real thing. Plausible deniability is a real thing. Hundreds of billions…real thing. Again, I’m unclear on which part you aren’t getting. It seems you are hung up on they wouldn’t risk anything to make more money…good luck with that.

They also got to be billionaires by assessing relative risk vs reward. It's not worth risking the dozens of eggs their golden goose will naturally lay each year for one additional corrupt egg.

I have the opportunity to cheat at work to my own $ gain every day and the odds of getting caught each day are miniscule but why bother when the gain is proportionately tiny to what I can gain through regular legitimate business operations and the consequences of exposure would be catastrophic?

Your argument is basically anti corporate malfeasance, just in the NBA context. Why would any corporation take a risk to make more than they otherwise could have? I’m sorry, I’ve enjoyed the conversation but that’s just not a level of naive I can get it.

They would poison the basketball and slowly kill of fans in the front row from exposure if it made billions and they thought they could get away with it. What we are talking about with refs is nothing, it’s so small time. Zero ethical concerns. It’s a nothing burger. Of course they would. No one even gets physically hurt. It’s just blowing a whistle a little differently and getting rewarded for it, all under the proven guise of plausible deniability. It’s actually pretty genius.

It’s worked. And continues to work. Why change?

If this shield of plausible deniability is so strong, why does the league have to pass up opportunities to fix games where plausible deniability shields them so completely, as in the case of Game 2 of the Lakers series? All they had to do is blow the whistle a little differently and they get LeBron and the Lakers a huge win that not only extends the series but greatly boosts the chances of getting their biggest cash cow to the second round. What, do they just flip a coin before the game to decide whether they'll try to rig this one in favor of the team the league wants to win?

[rand]

Your argument is basically anti corporate malfeasance, just in the NBA context. Why would any corporation take a risk to make more than they otherwise could have? I’m sorry, I’ve enjoyed the conversation but that’s just not a level of naive I can get it.

They would poison the basketball and slowly kill of fans in the front row from exposure if it made billions and they thought they could get away with it. What we are talking about with refs is nothing, it’s so small time. Zero ethical concerns. It’s a nothing burger. Of course they would. No one even gets physically hurt. It’s just blowing a whistle a little differently and getting rewarded for it, all under the proven guise of plausible deniability. It’s actually pretty genius.
Hi

The people who run any corporation would be expected to take any hypothetical risk if it was justified in a risk/reward analysis be the size of the reward vs the size of the risk. Here it is not. This is not a blanket argument against the existence of corporate corruption, which is obviously real. It is an argument that not every conceivable scheme for corrupt gain is always followed, risk/reward be damned.

Funny, I've never said anything about ethics but you keep straw manning it anyway.

Just like applying fairness in officiating a game between two parties, this is about ethics. I don’t trust giant corporations ethics, no one should. There’s no reason to do so.

Commissioner has interests. The concept I’ve put forward aligns with his interests. The risk is mitigated by the process. No smoking gun means less risk, which means more incentive to get more reward.

I’ll finish with one question:

1) Why hasn’t the NBA, with all this public talk about “rigged,” simply taken the issue off the table by handing over ref oversight to a neutral third party that doesn’t financial benefit from anything but impartiality? Doesn’t that squash this whole drama, and future dramas? Isn’t that good for business and profit? For a truly ethical company that didn’t want even the perception of unfairness occurring…isn’t this the best path?

Why not just invite a neutral third party for ref oversight like they do for draft lotto oversight with the accounting firm that oversees the process? Hmmm…

Seems to me a third party to monitor officiating would be an enormously larger and more operationally demanding regulatory feature than simply inviting an accounting firm to witness some balls being selected on one day each year. Why saddle yourself with this complication when you're running a clean operation to begin with?

Once again, I never said anything about ethics but you can't stop pretending my position has anything to do with it because it's easier than addressing the issues I actually raise.

[SNPA]

The people who run any corporation would be expected to take any hypothetical risk if it was justified in a risk/reward analysis be the size of the reward vs the size of the risk. Here it is not. This is not a blanket argument against the existence of corporate corruption, which is obviously real. It is an argument that not every conceivable scheme for corrupt gain is always followed, risk/reward be damned.

Funny, I've never said anything about ethics but you keep straw manning it anyway.

Just like applying fairness in officiating a game between two parties, this is about ethics. I don’t trust giant corporations ethics, no one should. There’s no reason to do so.

Commissioner has interests. The concept I’ve put forward aligns with his interests. The risk is mitigated by the process. No smoking gun means less risk, which means more incentive to get more reward.

I’ll finish with one question:

1) Why hasn’t the NBA, with all this public talk about “rigged,” simply taken the issue off the table by handing over ref oversight to a neutral third party that doesn’t financial benefit from anything but impartiality? Doesn’t that squash this whole drama, and future dramas? Isn’t that good for business and profit? For a truly ethical company that didn’t want even the perception of unfairness occurring…isn’t this the best path?

Why not just invite a neutral third party for ref oversight like they do for draft lotto oversight with the accounting firm that oversees the process? Hmmm…

Seems to me a third party to monitor officiating would be an enormously larger and more operationally demanding regulatory feature than simply inviting an accounting firm to witness some balls being selected on one day each year. Why saddle yourself with this complication when you're running a clean operation to begin with?

Once again, I never said anything about ethics but you can't stop pretending my position has anything to do with it.

You are making a pro giant-corporate ethics argument. You are on their side, willingly or not.

Zero chance I buy a process based argument for why it’s just to cumbersome to hand over to a third party. The basic outlines of a deal could be sketched out in minutes. The NBA has an army of lawyers and operations people. The NBA just doesn’t want to. Ask yourself why from a profit standpoint (their sole reason to exist) why that is?

[SNPA]

Last bit before I go…you mentioned “clean operations.” If that was the case shouldn’t the NBA be excited to prove it? Show how clean you are. Great. Let’s do it. Nonprofits do this all the time, everything is open to inspection. Yet…no. Hmmm.

[rand]

Just like applying fairness in officiating a game between two parties, this is about ethics. I don’t trust giant corporations ethics, no one should. There’s no reason to do so.

Commissioner has interests. The concept I’ve put forward aligns with his interests. The risk is mitigated by the process. No smoking gun means less risk, which means more incentive to get more reward.

I’ll finish with one question:

1) Why hasn’t the NBA, with all this public talk about “rigged,” simply taken the issue off the table by handing over ref oversight to a neutral third party that doesn’t financial benefit from anything but impartiality? Doesn’t that squash this whole drama, and future dramas? Isn’t that good for business and profit? For a truly ethical company that didn’t want even the perception of unfairness occurring…isn’t this the best path?

Why not just invite a neutral third party for ref oversight like they do for draft lotto oversight with the accounting firm that oversees the process? Hmmm…

Seems to me a third party to monitor officiating would be an enormously larger and more operationally demanding regulatory feature than simply inviting an accounting firm to witness some balls being selected on one day each year. Why saddle yourself with this complication when you're running a clean operation to begin with?

Once again, I never said anything about ethics but you can't stop pretending my position has anything to do with it.

You are making a pro giant-corporate ethics argument. You are on their side, willingly or not.

Zero chance I buy a process based argument for why it’s just to cumbersome to hand over to a third party. The basic outlines of a deal could be sketched out in minutes. The NBA has an army of lawyers and operations people. The NBA just doesn’t want to. Ask yourself why from a profit standpoint (their sole reason to exist) why that is?

I haven't made a single ethical argument regarding the motivations of the league. Every argument I've made is explicitly based on risk/reward analysis while presuming that corporate actors generally will engage in corruption if the variables warrant it. Here they do not.

[rand]

Last bit before I go…you mentioned “clean operations.” If that was the case shouldn’t the NBA be excited to prove it? Show how clean you are. Great. Let’s do it. Nonprofits do this all the time, everything is open to inspection. Yet…no. Hmmm.

Why bother proving it? I never said they gain anything from proving they are clean. What, are their ratings going to go up because they hire a 3rd party officiating oversight firm? How ridiculous.

[rand]

Last bit before I go…you mentioned “clean operations.” If that was the case shouldn’t the NBA be excited to prove it? Show how clean you are. Great. Let’s do it. Nonprofits do this all the time, everything is open to inspection. Yet…no. Hmmm.

And of course you're going to run before you resolve the questions that actually matter, like this one:

If this shield of plausible deniability is so strong, why does the league have to pass up opportunities to fix games where plausible deniability shields them so completely, as in the case of Game 2 of the Lakers series? All they had to do is blow the whistle a little differently and they get LeBron and the Lakers a huge win that not only extends the series but greatly boosts the chances of getting their biggest cash cow to the second round. What, do they just flip a coin before the game to decide whether they'll try to rig this one in favor of the team the league wants to win?

[SNPA]

Last bit before I go…you mentioned “clean operations.” If that was the case shouldn’t the NBA be excited to prove it? Show how clean you are. Great. Let’s do it. Nonprofits do this all the time, everything is open to inspection. Yet…no. Hmmm.

And of course you're going to run before you resolve the questions that actually matter, like this one:

If this shield of plausible deniability is so strong, why does the league have to pass up opportunities to fix games where plausible deniability shields them so completely, as in the case of Game 2 of the Lakers series? All they had to do is blow the whistle a little differently and they get LeBron and the Lakers a huge win that not only extends the series but greatly boosts the chances of getting their biggest cash cow to the second round. What, do they just flip a coin before the game to decide whether they'll try to rig this one in favor of the team the league wants to win?

Asked and answered several times.

In your view corporations, specifically the NBA, are running “clean operations” and won’t take big risks to maximize profits, and are so confident they they can make money without proving they are “clean” that they should not have too. We should just accept their statements it’s all up and up and hand over our money and allegiance. Despite our lying eyes. Totalitarian much?

Freedom is slavery.

[rand]

Last bit before I go…you mentioned “clean operations.” If that was the case shouldn’t the NBA be excited to prove it? Show how clean you are. Great. Let’s do it. Nonprofits do this all the time, everything is open to inspection. Yet…no. Hmmm.

And of course you're going to run before you resolve the questions that actually matter, like this one:

If this shield of plausible deniability is so strong, why does the league have to pass up opportunities to fix games where plausible deniability shields them so completely, as in the case of Game 2 of the Lakers series? All they had to do is blow the whistle a little differently and they get LeBron and the Lakers a huge win that not only extends the series but greatly boosts the chances of getting their biggest cash cow to the second round. What, do they just flip a coin before the game to decide whether they'll try to rig this one in favor of the team the league wants to win?

Asked and answered several times.

In your view corporations, specifically the NBA, are running “clean operations” and won’t take big risks to maximize profits, and are so confident they they can make money without proving they are “clean” that they should not have too. We should just accept their statements it’s all up and up and hand over our money and allegiance. Despite our lying eyes. Totalitarian much?

Freedom is slavery.

Please point to where you answered for this instance where plausible deniability should shield the league but they chose not to get the result they want.

Once again, I never made a blanket assertion that all corporations are running clean operations or that none would take big risks to maximize profits. In fact I explicitly said they would, but only if the particular cost/benefit analysis warranted it.

And with this "freedom is slavery" fabrication, you've crossed into the realm of hysteria in your straw manning. Seriously, it's intellectually pathetic, even more so than the rest of your fallacious arguments.

[SlimShady83]

1. Do you think game fixing is an active problem in the NBA?

Answer yes if you think it comes from stray officials or the NBA itself.

Yes to some degree some refs would help fix games - not all refs

2. If you answered yes, why do you still watch the NBA given that games are fixed?
For the love of the game

3. Do you think the average NBA ref is bad at the job?
Not really, I think REFS got the hardest job of all even more harder then coaches/players, starting to think there should be 4 refs each game not just 3 lols.

4. If you answered yes, what basketball league has better refs than the NBA?
bit of both for the above, who knows only really watch NBA these days

5. What do you consider an acceptable error rate for NBA Referees?
hmm shouldn't be any errors they should know there jobs LOL, but we're humans and humans make mistakes well all living creatures do eventually

As a frame of reference, the GOAT shooter Steph Curry misses 1 in 11 free throws (9% error)
Then how can Curry be the goat shooter -should be perfect ?

peace out

[SNPA]

And of course you're going to run before you resolve the questions that actually matter, like this one:

Asked and answered several times.

In your view corporations, specifically the NBA, are running “clean operations” and won’t take big risks to maximize profits, and are so confident they they can make money without proving they are “clean” that they should not have too. We should just accept their statements it’s all up and up and hand over our money and allegiance. Despite our lying eyes. Totalitarian much?

Freedom is slavery.

Please point to where you answered for this instance where plausible deniability should shield the league but they chose not to get the result they want.

Once again, I never made a blanket assertion that all corporations are running clean operations or that none would take big risks to maximize profits. In fact I explicitly said they would, but only if the particular cost/benefit analysis warranted it.

And with this "freedom is slavery" fabrication, you've crossed into the realm of hysteria in your straw manning. Seriously, it's intellectually pathetic, even more so than the rest of your fallacious arguments.

When you get to the point of telling people what they see isn’t what’s happening…guess what? You open yourself up to Orwellian linguistic push back.

Best I can get is you are arguing there just isn’t enough profit in this totally deniable scheme to be worth it. Ok. We part company there.

[rand]

Asked and answered several times.

In your view corporations, specifically the NBA, are running “clean operations” and won’t take big risks to maximize profits, and are so confident they they can make money without proving they are “clean” that they should not have too. We should just accept their statements it’s all up and up and hand over our money and allegiance. Despite our lying eyes. Totalitarian much?

Freedom is slavery.

Please point to where you answered for this instance where plausible deniability should shield the league but they chose not to get the result they want.

Once again, I never made a blanket assertion that all corporations are running clean operations or that none would take big risks to maximize profits. In fact I explicitly said they would, but only if the particular cost/benefit analysis warranted it.

And with this "freedom is slavery" fabrication, you've crossed into the realm of hysteria in your straw manning. Seriously, it's intellectually pathetic, even more so than the rest of your fallacious arguments.

When you get to the point of telling people what they see isn’t what’s happening…guess what? You open yourself up to Orwellian linguistic push back.

Best I can get is you are arguing there just isn’t enough profit in this totally deniable scheme to be worth it. Ok. We part company there.

*crickets*

[Zadeh]

the NBA is closer to professional wrestling than an actual competitive sport at this point in its history. legalized gambling isn't helping the credibility perception either.

Why do you watch then?

Because still the best players on the world in this league. Could you understand that? Because your love it or leave it mentality comes with some mental restrictions?

[KembaWalker]

Last bit before I go…you mentioned “clean operations.” If that was the case shouldn’t the NBA be excited to prove it? Show how clean you are. Great. Let’s do it. Nonprofits do this all the time, everything is open to inspection. Yet…no. Hmmm.

And of course you're going to run before you resolve the questions that actually matter, like this one:

If this shield of plausible deniability is so strong, why does the league have to pass up opportunities to fix games where plausible deniability shields them so completely, as in the case of Game 2 of the Lakers series? All they had to do is blow the whistle a little differently and they get LeBron and the Lakers a huge win that not only extends the series but greatly boosts the chances of getting their biggest cash cow to the second round. What, do they just flip a coin before the game to decide whether they'll try to rig this one in favor of the team the league wants to win?

Not really sure why you think this Lakers game 2 is such a big deal but if you really want someone to tell you a plausible scenario it’s not that hard. The league could have hit their budget numbers simply by getting the Lakers to the playoffs to begin with, hence the absurd free throw advantages they’ve been having since Boston last year. Pretty obvious watching the Nuggets now that the Lakers had no business even being in the postseason in the West so the league set and achieved the conservative goal of just getting them there for a series

Again, this is just another hypothetical to address your silly claim that the fact that the Lakers don’t win every single game is evidence that the sport is clean.

[DOT]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor

[ChiTownHero1992]

First off not a ref basher as I officiate myself and the one thing I say to everyone who does bash it..."have you ever done it, no...then shut the h*** up because you dont know how hard it is"

1. Do you think game fixing is an active problem in the NBA?

Yes i do think it is a problem, i think it happens often but in very subtle ways, small calls not large game changing ones

2. If you answered yes, why do you still watch the NBA given that games are fixed?

Not normally watching much anymore as the product itself has been bad the last several years, as soon as i start seeing the shift that in my mind shows it, i turn the game off

3. Do you think the average NBA ref is bad at the job?

Not a chance, these are the best of the best and anyone who calls them bad has no clue how to do it themselves

5. What do you consider an acceptable error rate for NBA Referees?

Honestly anything over 70% correct calls is great for low levels (HS, MS, etc) at least this is how I was trained in it, anything over 75% is great for college, anything over 80% is perfect for refs in professional sports. There is no "perfection" errors will always happen. Reffing is a lot of judgement calls and then later reviews to see if you were right. Its hard to have it "perfect" in the moment.

[ItsDanger]

1. Do you think game fixing is an active problem in the NBA?

Answer yes if you think it comes from stray officials or the NBA itself.

2. If you answered yes, why do you still watch the NBA given that games are fixed?

3. Do you think the average NBA ref is bad at the job?

4. If you answered yes, what basketball league has better refs than the NBA?

5. What do you consider an acceptable error rate for NBA Referees?

As a frame of reference, the GOAT shooter Steph Curry misses 1 in 11 free throws (9% error)

They are are paid well to do a job and I expect them to be competent ad professional.

[sp6r=underrated]

First off not a ref basher as I officiate myself and the one thing I say to everyone who does bash it..."have you ever done it, no...then shut the h*** up because you dont know how hard it is"

1. Do you think game fixing is an active problem in the NBA?

Yes i do think it is a problem, i think it happens often but in very subtle ways, small calls not large game changing ones

2. If you answered yes, why do you still watch the NBA given that games are fixed?

Not normally watching much anymore as the product itself has been bad the last several years, as soon as i start seeing the shift that in my mind shows it, i turn the game off

3. Do you think the average NBA ref is bad at the job?

Not a chance, these are the best of the best and anyone who calls them bad has no clue how to do it themselves

5. What do you consider an acceptable error rate for NBA Referees?

Honestly anything over 70% correct calls is great for low levels (HS, MS, etc) at least this is how I was trained in it, anything over 75% is great for college, anything over 80% is perfect for refs in professional sports. There is no "perfection" errors will always happen. Reffing is a lot of judgement calls and then later reviews to see if you were right. Its hard to have it "perfect" in the moment.

Thanks for your feedback at the ending. It is always interesting to hear the perspective of people who have been through the respective training process.

[ChipotleWest]

Every single game is reffed completely different these playoffs. There's no standard at all.