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| Brad Miller was clearly fouled flagrantly at the end of a 2009 Eastern Conference Semifinal game by Rajon Rondo. The officials instead only assessed a shooting foul as opposed to a flagrant foul, just one of the many examples of poor officiating in recent league history. |
Watching Friday night's game three of the Bulls-Heat series was one of the most frustrating things I have ever watched. As you all know, I love the Chicago Bulls. I'm a huge Bulls fan. Very often we hear people upset about the referees and the officiating of games. It's like a defense mechanism. We don't want to admit that our team lost to the better team, so we blame it on something such as officiating. There are games that happen where the officiating is not good and it is favoring a side. I've played in games. When I played baseball, I would often be playing catcher for a couple innings each day out there. I witnessed the inconsistencies of an umpire's strike zone. When I played basketball, in my junior high league I remember officials having their favorites and the kids they didn't like. There was one guy on my team that no matter what he did, would never get any love from any officials. But that's junior high basketball.
Again, there are games where the officials screw up. Which is why I think we could use more replay in sports. Even if it takes more time, I'd rather have a game slowed down by replay and make sure they have the right call, than a game moving quickly that doesn't. In the summer of 2010, umpire Jim Joyce blew a call at first base that cost Armando Galarraga a perfect game. He felt horrible about it all. Bad calls happen, and sadly it is a part of the game, which is why I think we can take measures to get a more fair game.
But this isn't just me talking about one game. This is me talking about a cycle of shady behavior and officiating in the David Stern era. It goes beyond officiating. The NBA Draft Lottery. Blocking an attempted trade by a league-owned team. It all just smells funny.
That's not to say that everything that has happened since David Stern took over as commissioner has been corrupt. I don't want to outright say it is all fixing. I just want to point to some shady moments in the recent history of the league.
Where to begin? Why not the 1985 Draft Lottery? One year after taking over as the new commissioner of the association, Stern decides to change things up and hold the first ever Draft Lottery, where the seven teams with the worst records would all get an equal shot for the first pick of the draft. The winning team would get the prize that was the future Hall of Fame big man out of Georgetown, Patrick Ewing. Everyone wanted him.
Bill Simmons wrote about this. He pointed out the different things that happened in this draft lottery. All of the envelopes go in to the drum cleanly. Except for one of them. One of them is kind of banged up against the side. This makes it have a crease or a mark on it. Then when Stern goes to pick out the envelope, he doesn't pick the one on top. No, he reaches down, flips over a couple ones that are on top of this random one, and then takes that one. He then reveals that the New York Knicks have the first pick of the NBA Draft. The Pacers fans (Pacers got the second pick) react in the disgust and Stern stands there looking guilty. And the Knicks win. The team that needed it most. The biggest market, and one of the league's marquee teams. I have a tough time believing that all of that happened by chance.
You can see that video here.
The whole idea of the draft lottery allows for people to be concerned with what's going on. I'm not sure when they decided to start having it behind closed doors, but that's the way they do it now. So anyone that questions the legitimacy of it all, has no reason not to.
In 2003, the consensus #1 overall pick was LeBron James. Carmelo Anthony was an attractive option, but LeBron was going first no matter who was picking. The Cleveland Cavaliers and Denver Nuggets had the two worst records in the regular season, so they each had the highest chance of getting the top pick. The pick went to Cleveland, which made some people wonder if the draft lottery was fixed. LeBron is from Akron, Ohio, about 40-45 minutes from Cleveland. They wondered if the league wanted to have the nice story of LeBron growing up and playing for his hometown team.
Could that have been fixed? Perhaps, but there was a really good chance that Cleveland would get the top pick anyways. I think there are better examples of draft lotteries that smell funny. And that example comes from 2008.
Entering the 2007-08 season, the Boston Celtics were pretty much everyone's favorites to win the East. But experts and fans looked at the Bulls to be the toughest challenge to them. Some were even declaring the Bulls as the new "Beast of the East". The Bulls were coming off their first playoff series win since the Jordan era. They gave the Pistons a solid challenge in the second round of the playoffs and the future was looking bright. The team didn't have a superstar though. Actually, they still hadn't had an all-star since MJ. 10 YEARS without an all-star. But anyway, people thought this Bulls team could compete.
What came was next was a season that Bulls' GM John Paxson called "disappointing" and "disturbing". The Bulls won only 33 games, and the team missed the playoffs for the first time since the 2003-04 season. The season pretty much showed that the Bulls were still a star away. The young core they had that looked good (Kirk Hinrich, Ben Gordon, Luol Deng, Andres Nocioni, Chris Duhon) ended up not being the core they would need to build around. We weren't sure of this at the time and we weren't exactly sure what the future would hold. But it looked like we could be in for another season like that one.
It looked like we could be mediocre, and if were a playoff team, it didn't look like we could be actual championship contenders. But one sudden twist of fate changed everything. The NBA Draft Lottery came around, and people looked at this as a rather solid draft. The top two talents were Memphis point guard Derrick Rose, who was born and raised in Chicago, and Kansas State forward Michael Beasley. While both looked like they could be all-stars, I think most teams coveted Derrick Rose with the top pick. His career has turned out well for him. In just his third year in the league he won the MVP award, being the youngest player to do that at the age of 22 years-old.
Anyway, as I was saying, things didn't look too great for us Bulls fans. We hoped we could maybe grab someone at the back end of the lottery section of the draft. Instead, with a 1.7% chance of winning the lottery, we did just that and were granted the first pick in the draft. While I was extremely happy and I still am happy we have Derrick Rose, I can't help but think there's something weird about this. How does team win with that slim of a chance? It looked like the league helped out a big market team and one of the best basketball franchises ever by giving them the best player in the draft, who happened to grow up in the city. It was the best thing to happen to us since Jordan. It was the superstar we needed.
That was also shady. And I will admit to that. I won't lie and say I was upset with the result. I was happy about it and I still am happy we have Derrick. But I still wonder about it all.
An ongoing story line from last season was how the New Orleans Hornets were owned by the league and how that might have had an impact on things going on. This will transition in to my next point of power corruption. But for now I'll focus on the Hornets and the draft lottery. The league sold the team a few weeks before the lottery. The Hornets won the lottery. It made you wonder, could the league have given the top pick to the new owners to sweeten the deal? Jim Rome couldn't help but ask. That's right. Perhaps the ballsiest man in the business, Jim Rome. The guy who wouldn't back down to Jim Everett which resulted in Everett attacking him on his show.
Jim Rome had David Stern on his radio show and after a pretty normal, nice conversation, the conversation drastically shifted. Rome asked Stern in a respectful way if the lottery was fixed. Stern then reacts like a little kid. He flips out and asks if Rome if he still beats his wife. Rome has no history of being abusive or anything like that, but Stern wanted to ask an outrageous question back. Stern acted in a very unprofessional manor, and it made people wonder if it could have been fixed. It could have. Stern didn't react to it well at all.
Skip to around 7:35 in the video to get to the question.
The next order of business I wanted to get to also involves the Hornets. The team was looking to shop star point guard Chris Paul. Early in the season, the Hornets agreed to trade Paul to the Lakers in a deal that also involved the Houston Rockets. Here's how the trade would look:
Lakers get: Chris Paul
Rockets get: Pau Gasol
Hornets: Lamar Odom, Kevin Martin, Luis Scola, Goran Dragic, Rockets' first round pick.
At the time looking at this was a GOOD TRADE for the Hornets. All sides were happy with what they were receiving. We've all been in that fantasy football league with that one guy who craves power. The league GM. The guy that won't let the trades you make with your buddies go through, even though both of you really want to make the deal. We know how irritating that can be. Well that's exactly what happened here. Stern vetoed the trade, preventing Chris Paul from going to the Lakers. I'm not a Lakers fan and I didn't want to see Chris Paul playing with that team. I knew they could be scary good. But I also didn't want a trade that three teams agreed upon not going through. That's an abuse of power. It is just so wrong on so many levels. And yet the league still continues to do this kind of stuff.
What I was talking about earlier about the game three of the Bulls-Heat series, let's go back to that. That's what really pushed me over to the edge to write this article. The officiating was poor the entire night. Not every call favored the Heat. Shane Battier had some plays that were called blocking fouls that might have been charges. There were some bad calls on both sides. But overall, the calls were favoring the Heat. And that's something that has been going on for too long.
We all know LeBron is the best player playing right now. I would say Kobe's had a better career than he has, but in terms of skills right now, LeBron is the best player in the association. We all know that. He's also on the best team in the league. I've often complained about how ridiculous it is because the Heat are on a whole 'nother level in comparison to everybody else. They're going to win it all again this year. They're the best team and we know that. Which is why it angers me by the amount of calls they get in their favor.
In a very physical game, how does LeBron walk away with no fouls called on him? LeBron was involved in an altercation. As veteran Nazr Mohammed wraps up LeBron on a fast break to keep him from scoring and allowing the Bulls to reset their defense, LeBron grabs Mohammed and throws him down to the ground. This results in a technical foul. What is LeBron doing throwing down a guy that might be playing his last year in the league? Why is he throwing down a 35 year-old? Seconds later, Mohammed gets back on his feet and pushes LeBron over. Initially, this made me so happy. LeBron has reached a point where so many guys in the league follow him around and let him do whatever he wants. LeBron has gotten so many calls and no-calls in his favor. He thinks he can do whatever he wants. I was happy that someone finally stood up to the self-proclaimed "King James". But then Mohammed got ejected, a significant loss to a Bulls team that has been banged-up and missing guys due to sickness and injuries. So was this smart? I don't know. While it did put the Bulls down another member, it did stand up to "The King". Put in that situation, it's awfully hard not to react.
As I watched it, I wanted to believe that Mohammed actually did knock him to the ground, but it looked like LeBron flopped. You be the judge.
I'm not completely sure if an ejection was fair. LeBron threw him down and if he didn't flop, maybe Mohammed doesn't get ejected. Someone made a good point reminding us all of the Bulls game about a month ago, where Dwyane Wade blatantly shoved Richard Hamilton over and only got a flagrant foul for it.
I would like it if the officials and the league could show a little consistency for once. This was a different game, but still. I'm sick of the league backing the Heat and helping them in whatever way they can. Look at the calls they got throughout the playoffs last year. That Celtics series last year was absurd. As was last year's NBA Finals. I'm not saying they won everything because of that. But it frustrates me how much help they get! Check out this video. Some of it might be stretching it a little bit. The NBA has given up on calling traveling at this point. That's not something that I'm happy about, but it is the truth. Nevertheless, the following video is worth a view.
This isn't to say that this isn't the first time teams and players have gotten help. Players have been getting star treatment for years. Michael Jordan got the benefit of the doubt from officials. But I don't know if it has gotten this blatantly obvious before.
Going back a little bit to the Bulls game, guys were getting technicals left and right in the game before. Some weren't worth of T's. Some were. I'm glad that Taj Gibson didn't get a suspension after getting ejected. That would be ridiculous. But every time the Bulls started to get just a little bit of momentum, the refs would give a call over to the Heat that would kill all momentum. Gibson and Joakim Noah got themselves ejected in that game because they felt so insulted by the officials. It's not just the fact that we're going up against the best team in the league and they're getting all the help they can, but we're also ailing from injuries and illness. We're doing as much as we can, and to keep getting calls against us, and in a blowout of a game, it's insulting.
Game three had a lot of calls favoring the Heat. Marco Belinelli fouled out, but as I was watching the game it only looked like he committed one or two of those six personal fouls. There's a YouTube video that takes a close look at all the tight calls from the game. For the most part I agree with a lot of what this guy is saying. There are a couple or a few plays that I don't agree with him on, most significantly the play where Joakim Noah had another foul assessed to him where they called him for holding Chris Anderson. But if you look closer, Birdman actually was holding Noah and wouldn't let his arm free, which is why Noah was so frustrated when the call was on him.
Some of those calls are atrocious. Again, how did LeBron not get any fouls called against him in this game? How did LeBron have a streak of ten or so games going on earlier this season without a foul? All of this is getting old. He's getting too much help.
Of course, I'd be in no place to think anything was up unless I had some previous and inside knowledge hinting at it. Former official Tim Donaghy was put in prison for being involved with gambling. I'm not sure what his exact role in the situation was. I don't know if he was betting on games he was officiating, or getting paid off by bookies for calling games the way they wanted, but the fact that there was a corrupt official in the business, makes you wonder if there are others. One game that he officiated that stuck out was game three of the Spurs-Suns playoff series in 2007. At the time, this was becoming a bigger rivalry in the league and would produce very fun games to watch. The series was tied 1-1, playing in San Antonio. The calls in the game were completely egregious, heavily favoring the Spurs. Tim Donaghy was officiating this game.
In 2008, Donaghy filed a court document saying that the NBA has fixed games in the past. Specifically game 6 of the 2002 Western Conference Finals. He said the league wanted a game seven, so that they would benefit from television ratings. I won't even explain that game. It brings up bad memories. Just watch the video.
Yeah. That happened. And a former NBA official said it was fixed. Maybe I wouldn't believe the guy considering he screwed with stuff in the NBA too. But based on all this fishy stuff, I value what he has to say.
The NBA has some serious problems nowadays. I can keep going on about other sketchy situations, but I guess there's no real reason to make this article go any longer than it needs to be. This is way longer than I thought I would be writing. Basketball used to be my favorite sport to follow, but at this point I'm just getting so sick of it all. My dad loves the Bulls so much. There have been games he hasn't watched because he just can't take it. The sad thing is, no matter what goes on, most of us are still going to keep watching. I can say that I'm going to boycott the NBA, but that just won't happen. We're all going to keep watching.
So why should you listen to what I have to say? Yeah, I'm only an 18 year-old kid. I'm just a fan like all of you guys. I've never had a job in journalism, much less the NBA. Am I biased? Maybe. But the thing is, I'm a concerned fan. And I'm saddened by what the league has become. Again, I don't want this to take anything away from anybody who has played and won. How come all the calls are in favor of the teams the media, most notably ESPN, hypes up to us? The only teams ESPN likes to talk about are the Heat and Lakers. The Lakers got a lot of help at the end of the year to get in to the playoffs. It's because that's what they're trying to sell us. They're trying to sell LeBron. They're desperate for that next dynasty. But again, the Heat are the best team in the league and they don't need help. Without help from officials, they'll still win a title this year. But I'm just so frustrated with what the league is becoming. I tried being as respectful as I could to start this blog, but the more I talked about it the more fired up I got. I have no idea what the reaction to this will be. I have no idea if anyone will even read it. But the fact of the matter is that I am concerned for the NBA. Hopefully things will start to look less sketchy once David Stern retires next February. But the guy who's taking over is Adam Silver, who has been under David Stern's wing for years. I have no idea how much hope there is for the future of the NBA. And right now I just have a very hard time taking it all seriously and I don't know how much credibility the NBA has anymore.
So yeah, that's about it. I never thought this blog would be over 3,500 words. That's why I separated it in to two. So I really want to hear your thoughts. What do you think about the NBA and the officiating? And the draft lottery? Whatever you think, comment below, or let me hear your thoughts on the Facebook fan page or on Twitter @vellvita7. Thanks for reading and have a good day!
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