NBA Is Rigged? Fan Shows Some Suspect Proof The NBA Needs Lakers In The Playoffs

The NBA does seem to have a vested interest in the Lakers. Maybe less so now that the Knicks are quasi-relevant again.

I still watch because it isn't infallable. The San Antonio Spurs have 4 titles with their tiny market, personality-free stars and casual NBA fan apathy...no way the NBA "fixes" their way to four titles.

 

And that was the first one in how long??

It was a crazy play. Frankly, I think the official was caught off-guard and blew his whistle because he couldn't really comprehend what happened. Bizarro. And it made the headlines. Any others?

 

But why did the NBA allow the Lakers to drop below .500 in the first place?

 

Oh yeah, this kind of stuff happens all the time. Look at the other thread. I posted a clip where they called a foul for Duncan with 5 seconds left (it was a foul, but the same thing they didn't call on Cousins). For a more iffy example, there was a Nuggets/Sixers game the other day where they kind of made a cheap 3pt call to end the game:
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/S7LYutMp7WI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

The refs will call these fouls, but only selectively and it's the inconsistency that leads to the conspiracy claims.

 

Not even the refs can help them if they suck so bad in the first place

 

There is not one shred of evidence that the NBA lottery is rigged (frozen envelope? dafuq?), and anyone who suggests otherwise is wrong and childish. This is the same kind of lazy thinking that fuels idiotic government conspiracy theories. If you're going to be skeptical of the official line, you must also be skeptical of conspiracy claims.

Statistical analysis also has shown that there is not a Laker bias. http://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/194ef2/larry_coon_puts_nba_reffing_conspiracy_theorist/The bias is towards swallowing their whistle late in games (ie Durant v Lebron in game 2 last year) and such.

 

http://www.oregonlive.com/nba/index.ssf/2009/06/professors_nba_officating_stud.html

 

All these calls going the Lakers way yet they still aren't in the top 8 in the west LOL!!!

 

Dirk flopped on Griffin the Flopper. I guess Griffin was too concentrated on catching the ball and he momentarily lost the flopping instinct.

 

Um...Lakers vs Kings 2002?

 

old-time rockets fans can remember the league's targeted shakedown of wiggins/lloyd to get the fakers back to the finals

 

Keep in mind that Larry Coon is a moderator on Lakersground.net, which is the home of more crackpots than the Flat Earth society, so it's kind of hard to take his word for gospel.

Personally, I think down to the definition of a "conspiracy". I don't believe that the NBA issues mandates and has secret meetings with refs to decide who will win etc-- that would involve way too many people and would just be too risky for big fish like Stern. However, I think it's VERY possible that the ref assignments are made based on their tendencies and records with certain teams in the attempt to extend series or even promote desired outcomes. And to me, that constitutes rigging even though the refs themselves may not be in on it.

As a small example, let's look at the 2010 NBA Finals, where the Lakers beat the Celtics in 7 games. In the Finals, the NBA uses the 12 "best" refs + 2 alternates (based on a review that is not released to the public), with 3 working any one game and the assignments are supposed to be random to prevent bias (but the selection process is also not released to the public). So in these Finals, there were effectively 21 ref assignments which means each ref should have worked either 1 or 2 games (21/12). But Joey Crawford-- who had the reputation as being somewhat favorable for the Lakers (perhaps for legitimate reasons in that he calls a lot of fouls and they draw a lot of fouls)-- reffed 3 games, including the game 7 in which the Lakers shot 20+ FTs in the 4th quarter alone. It could be coincidence, sure, but when you realize how rare 20+ FTs in a quarter is, and that it has only happened in a fe games including the equally controversial 2002 LA/SAC Game 6 and 2000 LA/Portland Game 7.. well, you might start to question things too.

 

So much this...

 

The NBA could easily clear this up by making the records of their apparently comprehensive referee review system public, so we saw the calls they deemed incorrect and which refs were making them, with the intent of demoting refs that performed poorly. This would give the refs public accountability not to screw up. So either it promotes competence or legitimacy, either of which is fine.

It will never happen though. Robot refs are more likely.

 

In your example, why does the NBA care who wins game 7 between the Lakers and Celtics? The playoffs have already gotten to the ultimate game with two storied franchises. Why risk "fixing" the game by having a "pro-Laker" ref working it? Why risk ruining everything a league works for by working towards having the Lakers win game 7 of the finals?

 

Because people would much rather watch a Spurs/Thunder vs. Lakers series than any series with the Jazz in it.

 

But the NBA does not NEED the Lakers in the playoffs in order to succeed. As I wrote earlier, of course they WANT all of the big market teams in, but if the Lakers miss a year, the league isn't going to suffer.

 

To give a timely example of this, look at the ref assignments for today's game vs. the Mavs. Obviously it would be in the league's best interest for the Lakers to win this game. Now they aren't going to go so far as to blatantly fix the game, but what they can do is provide refs that give the Lakers a good chance at success, to give them as much of an edge as they can, if you will. So here are the ref assignments:
http://www.covers.com/pageLoader/pageLoader.aspx?page=/data/nba/matchups/g5_referees_5.html

What stands out here is the home team record ATS, which means "wins vs losses against the spread". This number should be roughly even (because the oddsmakers are VERY good with setting the line at this point of the year); half of the refs should have a slight "winning" record (these are the "homer" refs) and half should have a slight "losing" record (these are the "away" refs). Well, in this example, all three refs are "homer" refs.

Curtis Blair: 27-23-0 (#18/67)
Derrick Collins: 31-29-3 (#26/67)
Ron Garretson: 31-24-1 (#9/67)

Now that is certainly possible on a sheer "random" ref assignment as the NBA claims, but I was pretty confident that the refs chose would be like this before I even checked. And that confidence means that even if I don't want to believe in a conspiracy, deep down I know something isn't quite right here.

 

to guy who made the video,

you must be new to the NBA.

love,
kobe

 

It made for a far better story. Phil Jackson gets two in a row and goes for his fourth three-peat. The Lakers even things up with the Celtics setting up the inevitable rubber match sometime down the line.

That game was pretty bad. It was actually well officiated through three quarters and then in the 4th the whistles just started blowing (with the Lakers being the main recipients). There were also numerous questionable calls in the last few minutes (eg, Gasol getting away with a clear up-and-down travel, shoving Rondo out of bounds, and others).