Nah, but I can think of three games this season where the officiating may have influenced the outcome: 1) Hawks, 2) Bulls, and 3) Lakers. Go re-watch the last 5 minutes of each of those games and tell me I am wrong. I know that Game 5 of that Rockets-Mavs series was poorly officiated, as well as that Rockets Jazz game 6 was it where AK flopped while BJ hit that three. #team crazy
Can't forget game 1 of the Portland series. 17-0 FT in the first half followed up by some very bad calls in OT that he league ended up apologizing for. You can look that up. I mean the league apologized for the officiating. Can't dispute the fact that they called a tech on Dwight for no reason either.
So, you are saying that a cabal of NBA executives sit around in a back office and decide who is going to win specific playoff series or a specific game in order to drag the series out as long a possible? Since this is definitely happening in the playoffs, then the owners must be involved as well? Or, are fans like you aware this is definitely happening, yet the owners are oblivious?
This thread has turned into a circus lol. Some of you refuse to believe anything that's not sitting right in front of you. Proving a conspiracy to you is impossible because you'll just take the evidence and laugh it anyways. What you fail to realize is the ppl you trust that are telling the truth (the NBA, NFL etc) have no better moral values than the average crook. An official was sent to jail for betting on games. If you think it's a crazy conspiracy to assume he wasn't working alone, you're simply a fool. ESPECIALLY knowing how crazy the NBA playoffs have been officiated since. Us as Rockets fans saw FIRST HAND of what a rigged series looks like against Dallas when Yao was here Please know that we are not saying officials are making other teams win or lose. What we're saying is they are putting teams IN POSITIONS to win, lose or make games closer for point spread purposes.
This definition of "rigged" has not been establish by consensus in this thread, if you have noticed about this discussion so far. People are talking over each other's head because everybody assumes some different meaning when saying "the NBA is rigged."
What I see is people being proven wrong and then narrowing their position by saying "all nba" in order to save face.
What evidence has been provided, though? The Rockets/Mavs series could be the result of the league rigging a series, but it could also be the result of some really poor officiating (unintentionally due to incompetence), it could be the result of really bad luck, or it could be the result of humans being inherently flawed. Absent of any proof that it was any one or the other, they are all plausible and most of those scenarios don't point to a rigged league. There is a difference between correlation and causation. Take that 1985 draft for instance. The league probably did want Ewing in New York. New York also won the draft lottery. Just because both things are true doesn't mean that one caused the other. And that bent card theory is a reeeaaaalllll stretch. Prove that the card was bent prior to going in the tumbler (which isn't supported by the video) and you may start to get somewhere. But that video really proves nothing.
Most NBA fans will agree that the NBA is rigged to some degree, as in the rules aren't fairly enforced by the referees. But fans never seem to think their own team has games rigged for them - even Lakers fans will claim their 2002 Championship as their own. That's the beauty of NBA marketing, or of any pro-sports league. They hook people on the belief that their team represents them, the fans, and twist the product whichever way they like to squeeze more dollars out of pockets.
Remember how long the NBA wanted a LeBron-Kobe NBA Finals? The year LeBron teamed up in Miami, LA finally lost in the playoffs to Dallas. Seems like the NBA would rather have that Lakers-Heat team than Dallas-Heat
I agree. How does unlikeable Detroit and SA have 8 championships in nearly 25 seasons? Yes, somehow the teams with the best players or highest payroll win championships.
If the league isn't rigged in terms of pushing certain teams to victory, can we at least agree that the officiating is relative to the league's whims of the moment? That the league targets certain players, and different "emphases" at different times, and the NBA game isn't officiated by black and white standards? The NFL gives penalty yards - but the entire team is still on the field. The NHL gives penalty minutes - but 4 skaters and goaltender are still on the ice. The MLB walks players - but the full team remains on the field. The NBA puts one single player at a line to shoot free shots - and it does this dozens of times per game. In a league where points are literally given away at the referees (or league's) whim, any deviation from the letter of the law matters. And it's a tool that can be used subtly when fans can't (or refuse) to see the signs. If the Donaghy scandal never came out, we conspiracy theorists would probably be laughed out of here. Now there's smoke to the fire, and the league never fully swept out the embers.
I should add that because any auditing of league guilt is done behind its own closed doors, I don't think we should expect each other to provide any verifiable evidence. I think it's interesting to establish reasonable doubt.
I am sure the NBA is officiated by a standard for black players and a standard for white players? :grin:
After games 1 and 2 Cuban sent in a video to the NBA of how he was unhappy with Yao's screens. Then the NBA tells all its refs to watch out for moving screens. Then Yao is called for a bajillion moving screens in the next few games. That's the smoking gun. The NBA argued that they were just enforcing the rules "fairly." But a team has a reasonable expectation that games will be officiated the same from one game to the next. By changing the rules in the middle of the series and not telling the teams they are going to do this, anyone can see the effect would be to hurt one team. If they had announced to the Rockets that screens would be called differently, that would be ok. But they didn't.
Look man, stop watching altogether isn't the only possible way to make a point. Like someone said, if someone ACTUALLY found out proof that the NBA was just a scam then it would be the immediate end of the NBA as we know it and if a massive drop in their fan base/viewership happened then there definitely be a reconstruction of the league. This is a pretty extreme theory like an asteroid the size of Texaa heading straight for Earth. Secondly, more reasonable option of complaining is doing something that inconveniences the appropriate party by picketing or collectively sending a mass amount of letters or emails so the person in charge would want it resolved just as much as the disgruntled fan
The NBA is a multi-million dollar business. The hardcore evidence you're looking for will most likely NEVER be allowed open to the public. Meaning there are ppl in high places that make sure any evidence of NBA riggings never come to light. What you have to do is watch the games for yourself, and see firsthand how bad the calls are. BTW they are horrendus. ESPECIALLY in the postseason. You can chalk it up to incompetence, but year after year we watch playoff games get decided on bad calls. I watched Lebron in his early years win a crucial playoff game against the Pistons on a TRAVEL. He went to the finals that year Do I believe the NBA riggs games? Yes. Can they determine the outcome of every game? Probably not. But I do think they HIGHLY influence certain games and would like to make certain teams & players look good (Steph Curry) for the media. The day I believe the NBA's not rigged is when they have a point system for the refs that make bad calls. Aslong as the ref's aren't held accountable, the NBA will always be somewhat rigged imo
