The NBA's Problem Is Economics, Not Basketball

Basketball is also the problem, refereeing specifically. Refs are humans and make mistakes but it’s hard to watch and not feel like there’s blatant favoritism to star players or certain teams.

There are the L2M reports that detail all the mistakes they make in the end of the game and way too often they’re game altering.

Then there’s the inconsistent approach to the rules. They’ll suddenly decide they want to push a rule, call every tiny infraction on it, then 10 games later it’s like the refs collectively forgot the rule exists at all.

It all makes for an extremely frustrating experience for the players and the fans.

> there’s blatant favoritism to star players

This has always bugged me across all sports. For instance in baseball, while it's gotten a lot better over the years, the inequality of how strike zones were applied was annoying.

The Lakers have a statistically impossible +/- in free throws shot. There is favoritism and the league isn't even remotely trying to disguise it...is that really different than any other arena though?

Statistically impossible is wild hyperbole. No two teams have the same players and many have drastically different strategies.

Wild hyperbole? https://x.com/AndrewDBailey/status/1772275077280858370

Being +1017 in FTA differential when the next closest is +358 isn't explained by whatever crap you're selling

I don’t see any probability analysis in that at all. If there is something about a team composition and strategy that leads to a large free throw differential you’d expect that to persist across consecutive seasons. Going back further you see other teams with similar strategies and free throw differentials.

https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/s/yNKebuc8V7

What the fuck are you saying that’s such a huge disparity nothing can explain it.

Your link doesn't have any probability analysis either. Just supposition that the raw data isn't valid because it looks similar to a 2 year run the Hornets had.

Is it wildly inconceivable that the refs propped up the Hornets for a couple of years? No. Does the only quantitative evidence presented in this thread suggest the refs are propping up a below average Lakers team? Yeah.

Do you think the refs are nearly as biased against the Warriors as they are for the lakers? Or is it more likely that the warriors shoot from outside a lot and play fairly aggressive defense?

https://www.reddit.com/r/bostonceltics/s/XYebFfWAMd