Locker room talk: rolling basketball thread

[IdleRich]

I would say that in football the ref has discretion to allow the final play to finish before he blows the whistle to end the game and to me this makes sense cos the timekeeping through the game was probably not accurate to the second anyhow, plus normally this makes no difference to the score or result.

However if you have the ref arbitrarily deciding whether or not to penalize what was technically a foul when a player carries on his way to a basket, then you have the ref deciding almost on a whim whether or not to allow points to stand which to me is much more dubious.

 

[Leo]

However if you have the ref arbitrarily deciding whether or not to penalize what was technically a foul when a player carries on his way to a basket, then you have the ref deciding almost on a whim whether or not to allow points to stand which to me is much more dubious.

how is that different from the decision a football ref makes whether or not to call a foul, off sides, etc.?

 

[IdleRich]

In football a ref looks at what happens and if he thinks it was a foul he gives it, if not he doesn't. I think that's totally different from the referee seeing a travel and knowing that the rules have been broken, but deciding not to call it cos he knows the resulting score will look good on the NBA highlights reel. Or maybe sometimes calling it if he feels like it.

They may get it wrong in footie but by mistake, not cos they choose not to apply the rules.

The ref can play on (advantage) if the side that is transgressed against is going forward and it seems that they are better off not getting the freekick, but the referee has no discretion to ignore fouls as described above in basketball. I'd be fucking pissed off if I thought a ref had decided to allow a goal against my team cos the attacker only cheated a bit and apart from that it was a good goal.

 

[Leo]

I think that's totally different from the referee seeing a travel and knowing that the rules have been broken, but deciding not to call it cos he knows the resulting score will look good on the NBA highlights reel. Or maybe sometimes calling it if he feels like it.

this is actually Gus' fantasy, it doesn't happen anywhere near as often as he makes out.

 

[sus]

this is actually Gus' fantasy, it doesn't happen anywhere near as often as he makes out.

Omg lol do you know ANYTHING about basketball Leo

 

[sus]

What counts as a gather step, and what counts as a carry, is one of the biggest officiating ambiguities in the sport, and one of the biggest evolutions in play styles. This is common knowledge even among casual fans.

 

[sus]

Don't take it from me lol take it from Dwyane fucking Wade:


Almost every flashy ballhandler in recent NBA history has carried constantly. From Ja to Poole to Isaiah Thomas to Curry to Kyrie.

Again, this is common knowledge. What planet do you live on Leo?

 

[sus]

I should also mention ambiguities around rip-through fouls and what counts as "natural shooting motion"

The rules are absolutely riddled with ambiguities, this is basically inherent and inevitable to trying to regulate any messy system

And these ambiguities are constantly being exploited. This is basically inherent in what it means to play a game competitively

There is a constant push'n'pull of keeping a game "balanced" in the face of these rule exploits by updating how rules are written and called. This is basically inherent in what it means to host/facilitate/officiate a game, from a nation's legal system to developing board games. That's why we have a living Constitution and aren't all originalists.

I think that's totally different from the referee seeing a travel and knowing that the rules have been broken, but deciding not to call it cos he knows the resulting score will look good on the NBA highlights reel. Or maybe sometimes calling it if he feels like it.

This is NOT how it works and y'all know that, quit strawmanning. It's about cultures and norms that the NBA as a money-making organization sets top-down in deciding how rules are written and enforced. Not about individual refs making decisions for the highlight reel.

If people on this board spent as much time & energy trying to charitably imagine how a point I might be making is true, instead of figuring out all the ways to mock it and tear it apart, we might actually get somewhere.

 

[version]

Omg lol do you know ANYTHING about basketball Leo

Leo used to play for the Knicks.

 

[IdleRich]

this is actually Gus' fantasy, it doesn't happen anywhere near as often as he makes out.

Maybe a fantasy but not just his cos I read a version of it every time I see a basketball highlight on fb or insta. And I've seen videos where someone has loads of slomo clips and they count the steps to show that it's objectively and undeniably a clear foul (though to me they look like any other clip I should say) with loads of outraged people chipping in below to say that the NBA no longer calls fouls on its stars.

I can't really express an opinion on this cos I don't watch the games and I can't tell what's a foul anyway. But it definitely seems to be a belief/opinion held by a not insignificant number of people.

 

[IdleRich]

I should also mention ambiguities around rip-through fouls and what counts as "natural shooting motion"

The rules are absolutely riddled with ambiguities, this is basically inherent and inevitable to trying to regulate any messy system

And these ambiguities are constantly being exploited. This is basically inherent in what it means to play a game competitively

There is a constant push'n'pull of keeping a game "balanced" in the face of these rule exploits by updating how rules are written and called. This is basically inherent in what it means to host/facilitate/officiate a game, from a nation's legal system to developing board games. That's why we have a living Constitution and aren't all originalists.


This is NOT how it works and y'all know that, quit strawmanning. It's about cultures and norms that the NBA as a money-making organization sets top-down in deciding how rules are written and enforced. Not about individual refs making decisions for the highlight reel.

If people on this board spent as much time & energy trying to charitably imagine how a point I might be making is true, instead of figuring out all the ways to mock it and tear it apart, we might actually get somewhere.

I'm not strawmanning what you say, I'm certainly not trying to tear it down, I thought I was agreeing with you.

What I'm saying is I get that there are ambiguities - which are inevitable of course - but from the complaints I've read (and I thought you were backing them up) I'm getting the impression that refs sometimes choose not to make the call which is strictly correct in the aim of making the game more exciting, and that they do this inconsistently.

And I'm saying I do have a problem with this kind or reffing. For me that's when it crosses the line from unavoidable grey areas and the human errors around them, to just... doing it wrong.

 

[IdleRich]

I do get what you mean about the culture, how without changing the rules the high-ups can alter the overall play just by changing the emphasis of interpretation of certain rules. But I get the impression that it goes further than that in a way that I find problematic.

 

[sus]

I'm not strawmanning what you say, I'm certainly not trying to tear it down, I thought I was agreeing with you.

I typed "Leo" at first but edited it to "y'all" to sound less accusatory 😆

Maybe I just wasn't clear with what I am claiming, so it was easy to read things into it

I don't really know what goes through an official's mind. There seem to be patterns of e.g. calling certain things (like 3-second violations) once, early in a game, in order to discourage it going forward. (But not actually calling it afterward unless it's particularly egregious.) I dunno, how do EU traveling fines/speed limits get handled? Are you dinged every time you drive past a cop car 1km/h faster than the limit?

I think you're right that it's the inconsistency that drives fans and players crazy, because then it feels either arbitrary or malicious/personal. Lots of people think reffing is rigged. There's some evidence of foul play, and some a priori reasons to think that NBA powers at be are OK with e.g. a late-game in a playoff elimination game that leads to the series continuing an extra game. Tens of millions of dollars in revenue at stake in those sorta calls. And there've been some whistle-blower type incidents, a famous FBI investigation that disgraced an official in the early or mid-oughts when I was still a wee lad.

 

[sus]

In football a ref looks at what happens and if he thinks it was a foul he gives it, if not he doesn't. I think that's totally different from the referee seeing a travel and knowing that the rules have been broken, but deciding not to call it cos he knows the resulting score will look good on the NBA highlights reel. Or maybe sometimes calling it if he feels like it.

They may get it wrong in footie but by mistake, not cos they choose not to apply the rules.

If I disagree with you Rich, it's that I don't think you or I can actually know what goes through a ref's head when he or she makes these decisions. You're surmising that in football, they officiate honestly and to the best of their abilities and exactly to the letter of the law in a neutral way. I don't think that sorta neutrality is possible; I think there are lots of ambiguities as to how linguistic rules should translate to actual bodily motion, I think beliefs about players can bias perceptions; and I think that it's possible that straight-up corrupt nonsense occurs covertly.

 

[sus]

These are the same dynamics present in basketball; the official story is always that a referee calls what he sees, and that the rules are objective and impartially applied. I think most or all institutions, in taking on adjudicating/officiating roles, advance this self-definition of their goals and behavior. It's important legally, it's important so that players think the game is fair/isn't rigged, it's very important to everyone's sense of fair.

But under the hood, it's usually not so simple or straight-forward. Judges can be corrupted either quite explicitly (e.g. a bribed judge consciously knowing he's making the wrong call, or very subtly through their personal biases (e.g. an unbribed judge making the wrong call without realizing).

 

[IdleRich]

I do get what you mean about the culture, how without changing the rules the high-ups can alter the overall play just by changing the emphasis of interpretation of certain rules. But I get the impression that it goes further than that in a way that I find problematic.

Or actually I should say that I get the impression that a relatively large number of people truly think that, I myself am not really in a position to say.

 

[IdleRich]

I don't really know what goes through an official's mind. There seem to be patterns of e.g. calling certain things (like 3-second violations) once, early in a game, in order to discourage it going forward. (But not actually calling it afterward unless it's particularly egregious.) I dunno, how do EU traveling fines/speed limits get handled? Are you dinged every time you drive past a cop car 1km/h faster than the limit?

Well, you got a lot of speed cameras that deal with this and I guess they are totally without discretion. But - believe me I know about this - when you get busted, you get 5kph leniency, I guess to recognize that your speedo may be inaccurate, as may the camera etc so, like the one the other day doing 140 in an 80 apparently, you get fined for being 55 above the limit, so they try to take account of ambiguities but to do so consistently.

 

[IdleRich]

If I disagree with you Rich, it's that I don't think you or I can actually know what goes through a ref's head when he or she makes these decisions. You're surmising that in football, they officiate honestly and to the best of their abilities and exactly to the letter of the law in a neutral way. I don't think that sorta neutrality is possible; I think there are lots of ambiguities as to how linguistic rules should translate to actual bodily motion, I think beliefs about players can bias perceptions; and I think that it's possible that straight-up corrupt nonsense occurs covertly.

Of course I'm talking about an ideal platonic ref. Obviously refs are influenced not just by the difficulties of seeing what happened at high speed and reading it correctly, but also by the crowd, personal bias, probably laziness in that it's simply easier to wave play on.

But these are all occurring at a kind of individual level, the expectation is that the ref should never choose to not call a violation of the rules he's spotted. Whereas what people seem to be saying in basketball (maybe no you but the original things I saw and am responding to) is that refs are seeing travelling and choosing not to call it, even though it leads to a score. It just seems really weird to watch the highlights and realize that technically many of the points shouldn't have stood.

 

[Leo]

it happens, but not as often as you claim. you're talking like it happens every other possession.

 

[IdleRich]

These are the same dynamics present in basketball; the official story is always that a referee calls what he sees, and that the rules are objective and impartially applied. I think most or all institutions, in taking on adjudicating/officiating roles, advance this self-definition of their goals and behavior. It's important legally, it's important so that players think the game is fair/isn't rigged, it's very important to everyone's sense of fair.

Yeah this is important I think. No ref can come out and say "I don't call minor travels" or worse "we've been told not to" cos that would mean the rules have changed.

As it is, they can still call it and noone can say they didn't break the rules when they get busted... but they CAN say how come you let the other guy get away with it. And that's very frustrating as player or fan.