Referee conspiracy explained!

OK, I would like to get everyone to discuss how to actually solve the problem with refs in the NBA.

Some groundrules, despite the title, I know that there is no conspiracy in the league. I don't believe in the big market, small market conspiracy. Or the Mark Cuban complains so much so calls go in his favour, against him, conspiracy. etc...

I think fans of EVERY single team in the league at one point or another believes that the league "conspired" against their team through the refs. Go to any message board, and EVERY team's fan believes the league is biased againt their team.

I think this just means that the refs are EQUALLY bad against all teams and fans just are more likely to remember the games that went against them than for them.

Ok, I really believe the ref problem is composed of 2 parts.

1. NBA Basketball is the only game where the rules require a subjective intepretation of the rules to an extent, like determining "whether contact affected the shot" or the 50/50 blocking/charging calls etc... Anytime you have subjective interpretations of the rules then you introduce variables into play.

2. Officials have different yardsticks. Because of this subjective interpretation of the rules, each official will have their own subjective interpretation of the rules, in and of themselves, they might be perfectly objective and make sense. I.e. if only one official refereed each game then i believe you would get more consistency because players and coaches would get used to the calls from that official and behave accordinly. However, each game is reffed by 3 officials, each of whom to a certain extent have their own interpretations of the rules, this makes calls inconsistent amongst themselves.

3. Because of human nature and the fact that refs are so much scrutinised and hated. Referees will have a tendency to stick together and close ranks. This means that within a game, over time, an "Alpha-ref" will get the other two refs to call the game according to his yardstick. The officials do not want to ref the game with different mindsets so usually by the end of the game they are all following one officials "standard". This means that within a game itself, calls might not be consistent from say the 1st quarter to the 4th quarter, as the refs are adjusting to each other in the game.

4. Coaches and players once they get used to the "standard", as in they now know what is acceptable and what is not will tend to start "pushing the boundary". i.e. The will slowly start to play more aggressively and test the boundary in order to get an advantage. Consequently, the officials if they are not 110% focused, can find the game quickly get out of control, within seconds. The only way to re-assert control is to over-compensate by calling the game very aggressively. Because once coaches and players lose confidence in "knowing" what the standard is, they will not "push the boundary" and play more conservatively, thus the officials get control of the game once more.

5. This dynamic works both within games, and also during a series, within a series, it is much more complicated as there are different sets of officials at play here and there is analysis between games. Thus, we get the infamous "make-up" games. "Make-Up" games happen because one set of officials acknowledge that the standard that was set during one game "favoured" one team unfairly, and attempt to "re-establish" a middle ground standard for the rest of the series by "overcompensating" for one game afterwards. classic example would be 2002 WCF, Sacramento won game 5(vlade flopping, shaq offensive foul), and Lakers won game 6(bibby fouling kobe's elbow with face).

I think that this phenomenon is unavoidable given the current ruleset. The only way to fix the problem is to give rules that can be interpreted "objectively". Any rules that can be interpreted "subjectively" will inevitably lead to allegations of cheating.