The NBA is for Simpletons

I was out of town. But prior to that, the NBA referee who was busted for betting on his own games copped to the feds that games were sometimes steered in the direction the league wanted them to go, through the calling of fouls, non-calls, and other referee manipulation. Naturally, I think this is genius: after all, officials in all sports have wide latitude when it comes to judgment calls (which are usually the most important calls, like "outs," "fouls," and "penalties"). So, it isn't too difficult to see how the gray area of "this is a foul and no one can question me because I'm the ref" could turn into "this is a foul because I say it is and I work for the NBA, which wants this to be a foul." Anyone who has ever seen an NBA game (and pity them) has seen some horrendous calls and said, "what the fuck? How did that referee get this job?! That was awful!" Well, now you know.

But sportwriters still don't get it (and neither do the overwhelming number of black Americans who comprise the majority of the NBAs audience, apparently). This is a conspiracy at the top level of the league to fix games--and why? Not for entertainment purposes (because how entertaining is it to watch your team get robbed so the other team's fans can see one more game?). Not for competition purposes (because fixing games is by definition the antithesis of competition). No, it would seem that the NBAs plan to tell referees what calls to make and in what situations was a pretty lame attempt simply to prolong series in order to make a little more money from TV, and to placate TV partners who wanted 6-game series', not sweeps. In other words, this was over a little bit of money. (And, to beat this horse a little more, why the hell aren't the NBAs black fans, who of all Americans have been the victims of conspiracies the most often, upset about this? The NBA is the only major sports league to explicitly tailor its product to black fans, and yet in return for their viewership it gives them rigged games.)

The writing to date on this allegation--which has been furiously denied by David Stern, surprise! but has been backed up in a general sense by some retired refs and has received some weak non-denial denials from others--has been shitty across-the-board. Everybody seems to want to pick the one moment they can remember that there was a bad call, and go, "that was a fix!" Case in point: 1998, game 6, Michael Jordan pushes off and hits the title-winning shot. Wow. What a no-call sham that was.

Really, think bigger guys. That was the sixth game of a series the Bulls had led 3-1. In fact, the Bulls led all their finals series 3-1, and yet except for the first one, in 1991 (a series the Lakers were expected to win), every single series went 6 games. That's 6 series where 5 went to 6 out of a possible 7 games. This was the Bulls, again, which had probably the best 7-man lineup ever, matched against one good but in decline Lakers team, and thereafter a string of really mediocre teams: Portland (best player: an old Clyde Drexler), Phoenix (best player: a one-dimensional Charles Barkley), Seattle (best player: choke-artist Shawn Kemp), and Utah, twice (best player: Karl Malone, who I really have no problem with, aside from his obvious confusion about the color of his skin). These were very, very average opponents for one of the great teams across an entire decade, and every series save one went almost the distance. Once Chicago went up 2-0 or 3-1, you could skip the next game, because it was definitely going to be a Bulls loss (refs!). This wasn't about Michael Jordan getting a free push-off one time; it was about controlling the flow of games and the outcomes such that the NBA and its sponsors and television partners made the most possible money while preserving the storyline.

Oh, the storyline. Jordan's ascent happened simultaneously with the Detroit Pistons' fall. The Pistons know this; that is why Isaiahaiah Thomas is so pissed off. But the narrative was that young Jordan finally came into his own, the Bulls finally triumphed over the Pistons in 1991, and then went to face the Lakers in an NBA wet dream Finals. Each year thereafter, the Bulls had to scrap with the Knicks in the Eastern finals, in series that were notable mostly for the sheer number of outrageous calls by referees, prolonging the series to 7 games despite the clear superiority of the Bulls. But, hey, it made great television. And, nobody seemed to notice. Just think: Knicks fans actually thought their lineup of Charles Oakley, Patrick Ewing, John Starks, and two bums was going to win!

Then, Jordan retired. The NBA hit the skids. Penny Hardaway just wasn't cutting it, Shaq was sort of dull to watch. There was no Kobe (he was still raping high school girls). Then Jordan came back! The regular season was just a time-filler until the Bulls won the championship--which they did, but only after being forced, by the refs (which is to say, the NBA) to play an extended series against Seattle. The next two championships came only after protracted battles with a joke of a Pacers team in the Eastern finals and too-long series against a thoroughly inferior Jazz squad.

Tim Donaghy (sp?) is little fish. Some NBA clown told him and his buddies to call certain fouls in certain situations on certain players. It's the scripting of entire seasons, and the scripting of the playoffs that I object to. You may have noticed that there are very few upsets in the NBA--really over the last decade, there have been next to none. Nobody finds that interesting? You have announcers telling viewers before the game which team will win--nobody notices? The NBA runs commercials all season that proclaim the season's storyline, involving one player, one team, that will win the title in June, and no one is outraged when it happens, against all logic, feasibility, and right there in front of the fans' faces?

I'm not taking one dirty ref's word for it. I'm finally able, though, because of what he admitted, to believe my own eyes and what they've been telling me all these years.