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Chaos in the
NBA
By Paul Minard
paulminard@hotmail.com
October 25
Since you're here, you obviously
appreciate something of what basketball
has to offer. It has exciting,
athletic action. It provides equal parts
creativity and cunning, rewards
effort and brains, and can thrill the victor
and demoralize the loser.
But a lot of sports can make similar boasts. If
we are going to compare sports,
we should use more objective measures.
Imagine a scale, a line along which
all sports can be placed by virtue of
the objective fairness of their
competition. Put track and field at one
end, basketball somewhere in the
middle, and rhythmic gymnastics at the
other. The winner of any race
on the track is as obvious to the faraway
spectator as it is to the man crossing
the finish line. Very little
interpretation is required.
Other than looking out for false starts and
interference between runners, the
officials have no say in the outcome of
the event, which is left for the
athletes to decide. Such fairness is a
model to which other sports might
aspire. Rhythmic gymnastics stands as a
model of anti-fairness. The
entire competition is decided by judges who not
only give marks for "artistic interpretation,"
but who have participated in
repeated scoring scandals.
The absurdity of this system reached new (if
unnoticed) heights at the Sydney
Olympics where one of the judges was also
the coach and mother of one of the
competitors!
Basketball falls somewhere between
these two poles. While artistry plays
no part in the outcome of a game,
the officials do play an enormous role.
Basketball refs are something like
lawyers - everyone rightfully disdains
them but it's hard to imagine how
things would work without them. The most
objective official in the NBA is
the official rulebook. Unfortunately, it
has never been known to put on one
of those gray shirts and toss up the
opening tip. NBA refs are
apparently the next best thing. They are at
least extremely familiar with the
official rulebook. As its best
interpreters, like the interpreters
of legal matters, they are given
ultimate authority.
Trouble is, NBA refs are human beings
(the objections of some coaches
aside). They are rumored to
be susceptible to the wishes of home fans, are
definitely capable of errors of
judgement, and are forced to make calls on
plays that are never the same twice.
There can be no written description of
what is a block and what is a charge,
for instance, which will make the call
easy in every case. In short,
the problem is that while NBA rules are
objective, they must be enforced
by subjective officials. Hence the
perpetual chaos in the NBA, with
coaches and players who gripe at officials,
officials who are to quick to give
coaches and players the hook, and legions
of fans dissatisfied with every
call. The NBA's solution has been
intolerance of criticism of the
officials by any of its players and coaches
in the media. Is this fascism
the only answer?
Truth is, players and coaches could
make things easier on the refs with a
little good faith. Over the
years, a number of teams have tried to use the
limitations of referees to their
advantage. The refs decide what's a foul
and what's not, but obviously cannot
and will not call everything. No one,
least of all the NBA and its television
partners, wants a game drug out by
an endless parade to the free throw
line. The Pat Riley-coached Knicks and
Heat and the Detroit Pistons of
Chuck Daly were aware of this. They played
extremely physical styles, knowing
that while they would be called for more
fouls than other teams, they would
not be called for all the fouls they
committed. They would benefit
enormously from these no-calls. After all,
fouls are called because a player
has gained an unfair advantage. So every
time Bill Laimbeer elbowed an opponent
in the back, every time John Starks
put a hand in the chest of a driving
player, an advantage was gained. Fouls
called when Dennis Rodman or Charles
Oakley threw someone into the stands
were a price these teams were willing
to pay in exchange.
These teams forgot that fouls are
supposed to be mistakes, not an integral
part of strategy. They took
advantage of the inherent problem of
officiating - that no game can ever
be called perfectly and absolutely
fairly. They were, ironically,
among the first to complain about
officiating, often suggesting that
they were called for more fouls than
their opponents as a result of an
undeserved stigma. The refs, they
charged, were targeting them based
on their reputation as physical teams.
Other players have found new, innovative
ways of taking advantage of the
officiating problem. They
have learned how to feign fouls. Among the all
time greats in this department are
Derek Fisher, Reggie Miller, Vlade Divac
and several members of the Utah
Jazz. Many other NBAers are less
proficient. Many would never
be caught dead flopping, knowing that such
things are done in bad faith.
When Reggie Miller hoists a three and, as a
defender runs toward him, kicks
out a leg to draw contact, or when he allows
a tap on the finger to send him
to the ground, he puts the referee in a
difficult position. Derek
Fisher does the same when, chasing his man around
screens, he makes contact with an
opponent and falls to the floor. What is
the official to do? He is
left with the responsibility of not only calling
the action, but of determining the
intent of the players involved. There is
no mention of such trickery in the
official rulebook.
Thus with every intentional foul
and every flop does basketball slide
further toward rhythmic gymnastics,
as the onus is ever more on the
officials to decide the game.
With such acts of bad faith, players are
letting the game fall out of their
hands.
____________
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