What if we looked at all the games for this regular season?
That's 3,208 calls, with the majority of them — 2,218 — being correct non-calls. Over a decade ago, the NBA was dealing with Tim Donaghy, a referee allegedly bet on games he officiated and made calls that affected the point spread. Among If Robin Lopez never gets to the line due to that blown call, never hits that one free throw, and all other points remain constant, the game goes into overtime and the Bulls may not have won. That one game was also a Bulls contest; specifically, it was the Bulls against the Atlanta Hawks in a quadruple overtime slugfest.
And yet, we have Cleveland and Golden State in the Finals this year, with the Lakers and the Knicks missing the playoffs. That superstar usually has to go to the foul line often, as the opposing team wants that player to take free throws, an This is called "Hack-a-Shaq", named after star center and notoriously bad free throw shooter Shaquille O'Neil. "Call the game the way it's supposed to be called and that's it; and I'll live with the results. data. This means that, when he oversaw games as part of a team of referees, there was at least one bad non-foul call in every game, with a second one in every fourth game.Ed Malloy, who is one of the refs that will work the NBA Finals this year, is notably at the top of the list for incorrect non-calls per game, averaging 2.5 INCs during the regular season.While Kirkland ranks comfortably among the extensive list of Kirkland also holds the (dis) honor of being a part of officiating teams that had at least one incorrect call post All-Star break. And, in the last two minutes of a game, personal contact needs to be made intentionally to prolong the game.While personal fouls are the most common foul type looked at in these last Two Minute Reports, the most common incorrect call is for offensive fouls.
The NBA Draft Lottery is the easiest to rig, and rigging the lottery can be done out of the public view. But mainly because it's baseless.Sometimes, emotions get in the way, and people want to blame something for their failures. ESPN wrote one feature on how he could draw fouls like an Oscar nominee, As Harden continues to be king of the drawn fouls, a player actually in the NBA Finals — Kahwi Leonard — is among those who gets an NBA Razzie Award for Flopping... Kind of.In the eight Raptors games listed in the Last Two Minute Reports, Kahwi was the disadvantaged player for 24 total non-calls. That means the 76ers could have ended the season with 53 wins instead of 52...So, what does this data tell us? Good thing the league stepped in to save them some money.It’s pretty rich when people cite Tim Donaghy as some shining example of NBA illegitimacy.
Would we be talking about Harden vs. Kahwi or Lillard vs. Kahwi in the Finals, rather than another year of the Golden State Warriors running wild?With this data publicly available, we can not only see what calls were blown in crucial games, but also quantify the referees and players that play a huge role, for better or for worse, when it matters most. However, conspiracy theories are just theories and you can’t depend on the word of a jilted ex-employee for credible information.
And, in considering how he left for the locker room before the final buzzer in Game 4, a critic might just draw this conclusion outright.The Playoffs are, of course, the Playoffs. Why? What matters are those Playoff calls and non-calls, right?
The lottery directly effects what happens in an NBA …
In the Last Two Minute Reports we studied, there were 7 correct calls, 14 incorrect calls, 31 correct non-calls, and 13 incorrect non-calls.In other words, travelling has become the "is it a catch?" The world is flat. In recent history, Nearly three years after that infamous tweet, James Harden and the Houston Rockets were critical of NBA officials, calling them out for supposed bad calls in the Playoffs against the Golden State Warriors last year and this year.Which brings us to a huge question: if the referees were perfect, would those close games be turned into the Rockets' favor?
Teams can get lucky in the draft without the league being rigged.
And for good reason: he made 85.4% of free throws in the regular season, and made 133 out of 152 free throws in the Playoffs up until the NBA Finals.And still, his correct non-call rate is not as bad as eventual free agent Kyrie Irving, who had 26 correct non-calls in seven close games during the end of the regular season.Combined with two abysmal shooting performances in Games 3 and 4 of the Easter Conference semifinals, one could argue that something is up with 2016 NBA Champion Uncle Drew's ability to draw fouls and make shots. If Robin Lopez never gets to the line due to that blown call, never hits that one free throw, and all other points remain constant, the game goes into overtime and the Bulls may not have won. Among the outliers we reported in a preview to this feature, there is also Zach Zarba, Courtney Kirkland, and Josh Tiven, the three referees who were assigned to Game 1 of this year's Warriors and Rockets series. The Playoffs themselves?
The most memorable was during the 1985 NBA Draft with the first draft lottery.
The NBA holds itself accountable through its Last Two Minute Reports, but we aggregated this data to generate public insights about foul calls, referees and players. That means the 76ers could have ended the season with 53 wins instead of 52... And may have gone into their game against the Rockets two nights later with more momentum.This is why these Last Two Minute Reports are important; one wrong call can cause a butterfly effect that changes the course of NBA history.