A few interesting paragraphs from an article Haberstroh wrote a few weeks ago:
https://www.tomthefinder.com/p/the-nba-is-saying-trust-us-should
> A while back, I decided to map every NBA referee and track where they went to college. Did any of them overlap with NBA stars? I thought that might be an interesting thread to pull on. I wondered if the NBA would ever let those officials work those games when they share an alma mater with a star player.
> Turns out there were. Two overlaps in particular caught my eye back in the 2016-17 season: James Harden’s Arizona State and Kawhi Leonard’s San Diego State. Longtime official Billy Kennedy went to ASU while two officials Bill Spooner and Rodney Mott attended Leonard’s San Diego State.
> I was curious: Did the San Diego State refs, Mott or Spooner, ever work a Leonard game? I pulled up the game logs and scanned for the referees in the box scores.
> You know that scene at the end of Usual Suspects, the one when Detective Palminteri drops his coffee mug once he realizes the true identity of Keyzer Soze? That was me when I saw that the officials on an April 17, 2017 playoff game between the San Antonio Spurs and Memphis Grizzlies: Bill Spooner, Dan Crawford and Rodney Mott.
> That’s right: the NBA put not one, but two San Diego State alums on a Kawhi game. That wasn’t just any old basketball exhibition. That was the infamous “Take That For Data” game, the one in which Memphis Grizzlies coach David Fizdale famously unleashed an explosive postgame rant blasting officials.
> Fizdale’s chief complaint? Leonard, who scored a playoff-career-high 37 points, tallied more free throws than the entire Memphis Grizzlies team.
> This seems like a pretty easy landmine for the NBA referee ops to navigate around. In fact, Referee Magazine once listed its conflicts of interests to avoid for officials.
> The No. 1 on the list?
> Alma mater.
by mayateg
9 Comments
It makes for a good conspiracy theory but it’s also fairly ridiculous to think professional officials would risk their careers and fix a game because of college loyalty.
Kawhi was getting to the line a lot back then and he was the biggest star. If refs have any bias, it may have been for that reason.
all-time post game press conference
Haberstroh finds some interesting nuggets, but he sometimes crosses fully into tinfoil hat territory.
The fact that a player got a lot of FTs in a single game 7 years ago–and that the other team complained–doesn’t mean there was bias. He doesn’t even pretend to review the actual calls to see if they were legit, nor does he look to see who called the fouls (7 of Kawhi’s FTs came from fouls called by the non-SDSU ref).
>This seems like a pretty easy landmine for the NBA referee ops to navigate around. In fact, Referee Magazine once listed its conflicts of interests to avoid for officials.
> The No. 1 on the list?
>
> Alma mater.
He links to an [article](https://www.referee.com/recognize-and-reject-conflicts-of-interest/) about refs working high school games where their own alma mater is playing. High school is nothing like the NBA, and reffing your actual alma mater is nothing like reffing a game that includes an alum from your alma mater.
Even then, the article only says that:
> Some years should pass before working games at a high school or college where you graduated; in some cases — particularly for high-profile athletes — it may never be appropriate to return, except to watch from the stands.
Spooner and Mott graduated from SDSU ~40 years before that game, and neither were “high-profile athletes” at the school.
take that for data clip
https://youtu.be/LGN5S-X9wIw?si=PlNOLkbnzzQk9Cs4
did anyone bother to go back and watch the game/foul calls or just look at the box score?
Nl.g nmmmmmmmmmm
Yes refs do influence games was it because of their alma mater or because Kawhi was biggest star in that game does not really matter, its always hilarious to see how many nephews will argue against the fact that refs blatantly favor one team over another on regular basis.
I’d love to bash refs as much as the next guy, but this feels odd.
As others pointed out there’s no tend, no review if the calls were legit, talking about a single game, etc. I wouldn’t be surprised if a negative bias may be found, but this is talking about an even further point – folks who graduated from the same places, sometimes thirty years apart. Also, why would a ref risk his livelihood for something silly like that? Would also mention a superstar getting superstar calls isn’t the evidence it’s made to be.
Thanks for the attempt to liven up the dead part of the season, but if you’re going to throw shade go get some receipts.
So, if a ref went to Duke, could they ref a Dallas game? A Boston Game? New Orleans? Does RJ Barrett count as a star? If Gary Trent is on a hot streak, should the referee recuse himself because Gary Trent is playing like a star? Has Paolo Banchero put enough time in to be a big enough star to benefit?Maybe the ref would be sympathetic to Marvin Bagley because he’s been kinda a bust, maybe he’ll get extra calls too
How far does one take this?