I think Zarba is pro-ish Rockets or calls a majority of what he sees fairly. Remember Zarba is the ref that came out defending(explaining) Harden and his step backs. Zarba also calls a bunch of Harden's fouls.
If you’re a ref and someone says your name and I immediately know exactly who you are and have some clear reaction.... you’re a bad ref. Do your job. Be invisible otherwise.
I think there's multiple factions of fans. Those who think refs have no impact, those who think refs are bad but it doesn't matter, those who just want to argue that only players can be responsible for the outcome of games, those who think certain refs hate the Rockets, and those who think refs are used to influence games depending on the league's interests. I'm in the last camp. There are no anti/pro Houston refs. There are refs that do what they're asked to do by their boss. They're asked to 'enforce certain rules more than others at a specific time', let's say. I bet back in the Donaghy days when series like SAC-LAL were being rigged, people here would've said "conspiracy theorists! refs have no impact!". We have video documentation of a series of bad calls in key games. It shouldn't be a question of whether bad calls are occurring, it should be a question of why so often. I personally don't find the "game is too fast" to be a compelling excuse. People here complain about the refs constantly so it's hard to separate the signal from the noise. Therefore many people assume there's no signal at all. If people who complain after egregiously called games are conspiracy theorists, I'd equate the flipside with climate change deniers. Perhaps the truth is somewhere in the middle.....
A lot of these guys I've never seen or paid attention to. That is the sign of a good ref. They aren't making the game about themselves and their weird punitive tendencies that aren't consistent with other refs. In hockey, we say that when you don't notice a defenseman in a game, that can mean he played a great game. That's the same for refs.
The refs having no impact on games is clearly not an argument that can be made at this point. The league having a report for ref mistakes clearly admits that the refs do indeed screw up from time to time. The only debate left is why the refs are overly influential in the outcome of games, and for what reasons. If the reasons were technical, I doubt they’d still exist with all of the new technology coming out. That leaves only one set of reasons: nefarious ones. Extending a series, point spread fixing, or maybe even favoring a specific team to win. It’s like MK ultra or any declassified secret mission: it’s a conspiracy theory until there’s overwhelming proof for most people. The only people that will know before that aren’t crazy are people that understand economic incentives and game theory, and even those people could be wrong.
I'm not a laker fan or a king fan, but I obviously wanted the kings to win. That **** was so rigged, it was obvious at the time, the same can be said about the Rockets/Mavs series those are the 2 that really stood out (especially with jvg backing down from comments regarding the league's refs, and even paying a 100k fine, his hands were tied). I the think the 06 Heat/Mavs finals were also bad but Dallas didn't do any favors with their play. The only one I really cared about was the Rockets one but the kings/lakers series seemed to be the most obvious to me. I mean I seriously wonder... Like in 94 the Knicks were supposed to win (media wise), and while I probably need to go back and watch the series (itsseemed to be called decently). I think if that was called in the 2000s (Donaghy Era), the Rockets would have lost.
