The Yao Ming ref conspiracy?

ROXTXIA · Oct 31, 2009

rockets2 said:

Well atleast were not calling them racist anymore...
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I don't even want to go back and see if there were any "oh come on!" responses to my original post in this thread. I did bring up Yao being from a different culture and etc etc.

I will say, if Yao were American, black or white or whatever, he'd get more calls. Period. Shooting that high percentage of free throws, he'd lead the league in scoring.

But do you really think the league wants a non-American to lead the league in scoring? I'm not saying that what happens is overt, some sort of ref-huddle ("let's keep Yao down"). No. But it happens.

albuster · Oct 31, 2009

bloop said:

The question of a personal vendetta/liking/disliking Yao is irrelevant, assuming the refs would be professional doing their job. There are umps who hated Barry Bonds but would do their jobs at the plate. Officials at Wimbledon hated John McEnroe but does anyone actually think that linesmen adjusted line calls because he was a dick? Why is that any more acceptable in the NBA? Ignoring blatant corruption for the moment, being professional means that regardless of personal relationship or potential backlash you make the call by the rules as it happened on the court... because you are a professional and anything less would be taking salary for a job you're not prepared to do.

The larger issue isn't with Yao specifically, it's that regardless of whether they love or hate Yao they should simply be consistent making calls by the book. That includes not making up their own "unwritten" rules to influence how they make calls for specific players. Yao isn't the first big man in the league. Nor is he the first one who towered over competitors. Kareem was variously listed 7'2"-7'4" playing against 6'10" guys like Moses, Ewing and Hakeem yet I dont remember him sitting every other game on the bench in foul trouble by the 2nd quarter. It's the definition of an excuse when you make exceptions and penalize one guy (Yao) and then attribute it to some some of larger trend that somehow only exists for that one person. The only other person who ever even gets mentioned in the same breath is Shaq and the way the refs officiate him isn't even remotely the same as they ref Yao. The fact that Yao shows up then all of the sudden the league office and officials start chanting about "big men being hard to officiate" is as close to official corruption/top down directive targeting Yao as you can get..

Despite his size, it is visually clear when a smaller player jumps into Yao, yet even if Yao is straight up and is not in the restricted area they make that call on Yao. Be clear on this point, it's not because it's somehow "impossible" to see who initiates the contact it's an arbitrary call to give the advantage to the offensive player outside the written rules. It would be one thing if there was literally a big dust cloud around Yao and all you could see was the collateral damage of someone bouncing off Yao and like anthropologists refs had to make some kind of assumption or inference about the contact. But the refs can actually see the play develop and see where Yao and the opposing player starts off making contact, there's no need to start generalizing about big players and small players if the refs are interested in actually making the right call. Just make the call as you saw the play, it's just an excuse to talk about Yao being too big to officiate.
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Very well written and excellent points. Stern and his gang should read more of articles and postings like this.

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The Yao Ming ref conspiracy?

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