Did anyone stop to consider that maybe (just maybe) maverick Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has a point?
This year, Cuban racked up a small nation's GDP-worth of fines from David Stern as the result of an aggressive and non-stop campaign to reform the way NBA refs administer the league's games. Oh, he's got ideas. And theories, and complaints. But is anybody in the league office listening? Or do they wish he would just go away?
Even if Cuban did take a vow of silence on the refs (a vow of poverty would be impossible), the problem of league credibility remains for Stern's travelling hardwood circus. More and more people think the basketball we see in May and June is a perverted hybrid of a game that was once fluid. A game that once relied on speed and finesse. Skill and strategy. Not brute force, and trench warfare defensive tactics.
And that's the optimistic view! The rest of the disenchanted NBA fans see the league as pre-determined as WWF wrestling. They believe that NBA refs take their cues from Stern's high command in downtown Manhattan, and they know just how to please his highness. Don't foul out superstars. Don't call too many boring violations like travelling. If needed, help the higher seeds and bigger markets get through to the next round.
Of course, the conspiracy view of NBA refereeing is one that I never subscribed to. I concur with Cuban when he said the league isn't involved in any conspiracy because they are too stupid to pull it off. But on the incompetence jibe, I think he's dead on. The system is broken. The application of the rules are a joke. And who's doing anything to make it any better?
Cuban began the season by bragging about his computer geeks tracking in detail every call in every Mavs game, by every ref in the NBA. Critics scoffed. What good would that do? Perhaps not much, but no team had ever done it themselves. Why not? Who knows what you might find?
I don't know if Cuban unearthed any great statistical trend lines involving games officiated by Joey Crawford (widely regarded as the league's best) vs. games done by Steve Javie (overwhelmingly pegged as the league's worst). But I bet he did find some things that would make you go hmm.
It all came to a head this year in the Conference Finals between Philly and Milwaukee. Upset that the Bucks weren't getting to the line very often against the physical Sixers, George Karl went into full-throated whine after two games of the series. Conspiracy theorists jumped on the fact that a Sixers-Lakers final would produce the best TV ratings, and went about putting two and two together. Before you could say "rigged NBA draft lottery" the NBA had a lingering stink of illegitimacy that it struggled to shake.
Then in the Finals, the zebra issue came up once again, as Shaq showed the world what a size 48WW rump and 340 pounds could do for you when it comes to getting good post position. You know that it's bad when Larry King writes in his mindless USA Today column that "there's a foul on every play." When Larry can see that through his bug-eyed specs, it's time to rethink what's going on out there.
What we see is a league that has for almost 20 years now, fostered a policy of stars over the rulebook and "entertainment" over correct officiating. Star players get more breaks, and that's just the way it is. Deal. Nobody wants to see big name players foul out, so let's not let them. Itsy bitsy little rules like three seconds and travelling don't put fans in the seats, so to hell with them!
This policy of intentional neglect has turned the NBA into a lawn that has become choked with weeds. The fouling and rule breaking has overtaken the game. Oh sure, it still "looks" like basketball, much like a yard full of weeds "looks" like grass if you squint hard enough. Unfortunately, the yard didn't get this way overnight, and fixing it will take patience and work.
All you need to know about the NBA Finals came down to the last two minutes of Game 3 and the first two minutes of Game 4 in Philadelphia. Shaquille O'Neal fouls out late in Game 3 on an elbow-chop to Dikembe Mutumbo's face, followed by a charge. Even though the Sixers lose the game, the buzz around the league is that perhaps Shaq won't be permitted to rough-house Dikembe in the post.
So much for that theory. The first touch for Shaq in Game 4 results in the exact same move (elbow, spin, charge, dunk) and there's no whistle. You don't have to be Mark Cuban to be perplexed and perhaps quite annoyed that the exact same play from the night before gets called exactly the opposite two days later. Minutes later Shaq slams home a rebound, where the ball was still so far in the cylinder that you would have to be blind not to call offensive interference. Again no call. Maybe the thinking was that had Shaq waited just another second for the ball to clear, he would have slammed it anyway, so why get picky? If so, it would be the perfect example of NBA ref "logic" that tries to weave moral relevance into every whistle.
What happened to "rules are rules?" Instead, the league should just issue a book of "guidelines" that are intended to serve as suggestions on how to run the game. And don't take this as anti-Laker whining. It's not. Kobe Bryant took 22 shots in Game 1 and got just a single free throw out of his effort. And that was on a technical! Go ahead, show me the equivalent Michael Jordan playoff line where he took that many shots and got zippy from the zebras. Say what you want about Kobe, but he's not a stand alone jump shooter. Zero free throws? Hello?
It's these kind of wild swings in rule interpretation, and unfathomable statistical flukes that give legitimacy to Cuban's argument that the bad refs are just that, and good refs are afraid to call the game according to the book. Sometimes, you just scratch your head in amazement. For example, ponder the following list (albeit incomplete) of things this year in the playoffs that defy sane explanation.
Dikembe Mutumbo plays 44 minutes per game against the Bucks, averages 16 points, 15 rebounds, and blocks 19 shots in a seven game series. He is called for a grand total of six fouls. Six! Less than one a game. I know that Ervin Johnson and Scott Williams aren't exactly Wilt and Kareem, but they are still professional basketball players, and each over 6 feet 10 inches tall. NBC's sometimes annoying (but most of the time accurate) Bill Walton correctly lampooned the Dikembe "6 Foul" stat on air by saying that it was all but impossible. Walton, for one, would know the kind of combat that goes on in the paint.
Allen Iverson gets called for an early technical in Game 3 of the Finals. Later in the 4th quarter, after a call he didn't like, Iverson throws himself to the ground in protest, not unlike a child who has been told "no" to the candy at the supermarket checkout. Any NBA fan knows that these displays get automatic T's. Hell, Rasheed Wallace got T's last year for simply staring at the ref for more than was allowed. But a funny thing happened (or didn't happen) with Iverson. Since he already had one T, another meant it was shower time, and you don't really think the league would want it's MVP sent off America's TV screens in prime time do you? Personally, I think the "two T's and you're out" rule is asinine to begin with, but if you have it on the books, you gotta apply it evenly.
Game 5 of the Finals, with the Sixers gamely hanging in during the second half, and the following sequence occurred. Shaq bulls to basket over Mutumbo and dunks. No call. Then the Sixers get three consecutive offensive fouls on them! Rodney Buford gets tagged 25 feet from the hoop when Rick Fox flops like a fish on a boat deck. Allen Iverson gets hit for using his forearm to create space on a drive. And then Mutumbo gets whistled for elbowing while away from the ball. Meanwhile, Shaq has already tenderized Dikembe's beak with two clean ‘bows, and neither one was called. My personal favorite Finals image was the super slow-mo of Dikembe getting lifted in the air by a mere flick of Shaq's tail.
Even stupid little things don't get called right, or at least not consistently. I personally can spot lane violations on virtually every free throw attempt in the NBA. Yet I hadn't seen one called until Matt Geiger got jumpy in the Finals on a Shaq miss from the line. Ok, so I watch even more closely on the extra free throw, and guess what? Dummy Geiger does it again!! Only there was no call! Go figure. What really took the cake was the bizarre rash of 3 second violations pinned on Shaq late in the clinching game. Already, the title was in the bag, the Lakers were leading by double digits. So what happens? Shaq gets called for three of them in the fourth quarter alone. I may be wrong, but if he had one 3 second call the rest of the series, I must have missed it. Now, the refs are calling that violation like they have to make room for the 2002 stock of 3 second calls?
The point of it all (that which Cuban is paying the price for making) is that you just don't know what is a rule anymore in the NBA. Does the post defender have any rights to his space, other than the right to a good attorney in the wake of a Shaq attack? Should we just get rid of the concept of "fouling out" and award everybody unlimited hacks (Greg Oostertag's dream)? Palming, walking, goaltending, lane violations? How strict does the league want them called, and on what players?
If you need any further proof that the NBA has become overrun by rampant hacking, go watch a game from the early to mid 80's on ESPN Classic. Once you get over how tight the shorts were back then (and my what those must have done to sperm counts), take notice of how little contact there was on shooters and how relatively clean the post play was.
I know the NBA could be like that again, but it would take a major commitment from the top. Sadly, it appears David Stern is more interested in defending the league's honor than really listening to what Mark Cuban has to say.
Steve is a native Washingtonian and has worked in sports talk radio for the last 11 years. He worked at WTEM in 1993 anchoring Team Tickers before he took a full time job with national radio network One-on-One Sports.
A graduate of UC Santa Barbara, Steve has worked for WFNZ in Charlotte where his afternoon show was named "Best Radio Show." Steve continues to serve as a sports personality for WLZR in Milwaukee and does fill-in hosting for Fox Sports Radio.
