Lakers and the Refs against the Jazz

Watching the Lakers/Bucks game while listening to the Lakers' radio announcers. The Lakers' announcers, who are usually one-sided for the Lakers, can't help themselves from commenting on the questionable calls in the Lakers' favor! Kobe and Howard, according to what the Lakers' announcers have said, should be in deep foul trouble (they didn't say that, but on their play by play analysis they've mentioned at least 4 fouls by both Kobe and Howard that weren't called-- and EVERY foul called on Marquis Daniels (against Kobe), they've said should not have been fouls. They said: "They (the refs) aren't letting Daniels near Kobe."

It's still only late in the 3rd quarter, and the Bucks are up by five. We'll see.

Saint Louis wrote:

Watching the Lakers/Bucks game while listening to the Lakers' radio announcers. The Lakers' announcers, who are usually one-sided for the Lakers, can't help themselves from commenting on the questionable calls in the Lakers' favor! Kobe and Howard, according to what the Lakers' announcers have said, should be in deep foul trouble (they didn't say that, but on their play by play analysis they've mentioned at least 4 fouls by both Kobe and Howard that weren't called-- and EVERY foul called on Marquis Daniels (against Kobe), they've said should not have been fouls. They said: "They (the refs) aren't letting Daniels near Kobe."

It's still only late in the 3rd quarter, and the Bucks are up by five. We'll see.

After the game vs. MN, the league even released a statement saying Kobe fouled Rubio on the last shot of the game. So I guess if the refs help the Lakers get in the playoffs, but then apologize, everything is fine, right?

A lot of people talking about this in light of last nights 50-16 FT desparity. I'm not sure, Kobe and Dwight are both almost always top 5 in the NBA in FT attempts, so it seems like they are going to have nights like this from time to time, still looks suspicious, conspiracy or not.

I dunno...the Laker fans claim "Oh, we've got two bigs taking shots down low, of course we're going to shoot a lot of free throws." Then I see Al taking 27 shots and getting two and that argument doesn't seem sound.

Also, in the comment thread regarding that game, a LOT of people who watched it called out numerous outrageous foul calls, mentioning the same ones repeatedly. Make no mistake-no amount of "Well, the more aggressive team is bound to get more calls." conventional wisdom explains this game.

Cheating by the league and the refs, does.

TheMagnus wrote:

A lot of people talking about this in light of last nights 50-16 FT desparity. I'm not sure, Kobe and Dwight are both almost always top 5 in the NBA in FT attempts, so it seems like they are going to have nights like this from time to time, still looks suspicious, conspiracy or not.

Cant conspiracy-ate a blown achilles!!!

Here's how a Warriors blogger felt about last night's game...and here's some video on what happened in games against Toronto, Sacto, Portland and Dallas, all Laker wins, all featuring outrageous calls for the Lakers.

Trollificus wrote:

Here's how a Warriors blogger felt about last night's game...and here's some video on what happened in games against Toronto, Sacto, Portland and Dallas, all Laker wins, all featuring outrageous calls for the Lakers.

Jesus that foul were Ron Artest hooked was some stupid shit!

check out this fine peice of investigative reporting...by a Blazers Blog of all places...


http://www.blazersedge.com/2013/4/13/4219640/Los-Angeles-Lakers-playoffs-refs-referee-free-throws-officiating-conspiracy-nba

That's a pretty damning piece of work if you ask me.

TheMagnus wrote:

check out this fine peice of investigative reporting...by a Blazers Blog of all places...


http://www.blazersedge.com/2013/4/13/4219640/Los-Angeles-Lakers-playoffs-refs-referee-free-throws-officiating-conspiracy-nba

That's a pretty damning piece of work if you ask me.

Pretty telling when a writer for a team that is a big rival of ours is pointing this stuff out.

TheMagnus wrote:

check out this fine peice of investigative reporting...by a Blazers Blog of all places...


http://www.blazersedge.com/2013/4/13/4219640/Los-Angeles-Lakers-playoffs-refs-referee-free-throws-officiating-conspiracy-nba

That's a pretty damning piece of work if you ask me.

That's why the NBA, nor their enablers/sponsors get money from me. I'd like to think I'd be as offended by this crap if I were a Lakers' fan...but that's a pretty alien concept. I don't think I've ever rooted for one of the 'favored' teams.

It's blatant, it's obvious, it's sleazy and Stern just says "No. That doesn't happen. These are not the stats you were looking for. You can go on your way."

Here's info about Laker ratings that might be interesting: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/los-angeles-lakers-how-losses-424762 . If you take away 2/3rds of the Laker viewers, there would still be more Laker viewers than Jazz viewers. The Jazz actually have a much higher market share in Utah (percentage-wise) than the Lakers have in southern California-- however, the population of southern California compared to the population of Utah makes THAT statistic completely irrelevant in terms of money for the NBA.

If you compare the markets in these Forbes reports, it's easy to see how important is the difference between the Lakers and the Jazz.

http://www.forbes.com/teams/utah-jazz/ for the Jazz. And http://www.forbes.com/teams/los-angeles-lakers/ for the Lakers. And these Forbes reports don't even tap into the money the NBA receives (both nationally and internationally) from the Lakers and the Jazz. I haven't cracked down all the numbers, but, it seems like there is quite a distance. If you ask the head of the NBA whether they would prefer a billion dollars or a hundred thousand dollars, I'm guessing they would opt for the billion.

(BTW, completely off subject, this goes back to last year's lockout: these numbers really make me side with the players over the hard-working businessmen/owners in that debate-- but, that should be a completely different thread!)

Saint Louis wrote:

Here's info about Laker ratings that might be interesting: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/los-angeles-lakers-how-losses-424762 . If you take away 2/3rds of the Laker viewers, there would still be more Laker viewers than Jazz viewers. The Jazz actually have a much higher market share in Utah (percentage-wise) than the Lakers have in southern California-- however, the population of southern California compared to the population of Utah makes THAT statistic completely irrelevant in terms of money for the NBA.

If you compare the markets in these Forbes reports, it's easy to see how important is the difference between the Lakers and the Jazz.

http://www.forbes.com/teams/utah-jazz/ for the Jazz. And http://www.forbes.com/teams/los-angeles-lakers/ for the Lakers. And these Forbes reports don't even tap into the money the NBA receives (both nationally and internationally) from the Lakers and the Jazz. I haven't cracked down all the numbers, but, it seems like there is quite a distance. If you ask the head of the NBA whether they would prefer a billion dollars or a hundred thousand dollars, I'm guessing they would opt for the billion.

(BTW, completely off subject, this goes back to last year's lockout: these numbers really make me side with the players over the hard-working businessmen/owners in that debate-- but, that should be a completely different thread!)

That makes it even more infuriating! I mean really, whats the FN point of having a team in Utah? The NBA is never going to make it a level playing field. So why not just take the top 20 markets in the NBA and retract the rest?

This is why the NFL is so much more popular than the NBA. If the NFL were ran the same way the NBA is you would have the Cowboys, Steelers and a few other teams winning it every year. Yeah it would be nice for me as a Cowboys fan, but how is that fair to the rest of the league? Small market teams like GB would never have a shot at winning. The NBA is a freaking joke of a league!

Here is another video showing the BS going on right now.

Romoholic wrote:

Here is another video showing the BS going on right now.

I hadn't even realized how many of their close games in this stretch (which is almost all of them) turned on blown calls, that video has 5 games were the Lakers blatantly fouled the shooter in the last seconds of a single possession game and the refs swallowed their whistles. That is on top of the fact that the Lakers are shooting free throws at a ridiculous clip.

Just mind blowing. Like watching video evidence of a government agents carrying suspicious packages in and out of the World Trade Center on the 10th of December 2001, you don't want to believe it is what it looks like, but there is clearly something going on here.

Also, did anybody else notice the officials involved in those videos? Go back and look again. Those are some of the most experienced and notorious refs in the NBA, they don't just "miss" those calls.

Quote :

On June 10, 2008, Donaghy's attorney filed a court document alleging, among other things, that Game 6 of the 2002 Western Conference Finals between the Los Angeles Lakers and Sacramento Kings was fixed by two referees. The letter states that Donaghy "learned from Referee A that Referees A and F wanted to extend the series to seven games. Tim knew Referees A and F to be 'company men', always acting in the interest of the NBA, and that night, it was in the NBA's interest to add another game to the series."[39] The Lakers won Game 6, attempting 18 more free throws than the Kings in the fourth quarter, and went on to win the 2002 NBA Finals. The teams were not named, but the Western Conference Finals was the only seven-game series that year.[40] The document claimed that Donaghy told federal agents that to increase television ratings and ticket sales, "top executives of the NBA sought to manipulate games using referees".[39] It also said that NBA officials would tell referees to not call technical fouls on certain players, and states that a referee was privately reprimanded by the league for ejecting a star player in the first quarter of a January 2000 game.[39] Stern denied the accusations, calling Donaghy a "singing, cooperating witness".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Donaghy

Salvatore, Bavetta, Crawford, Delaney..."company men"

I dont even want to comment. It isn't even Jazz fans, it's all those teams fans, and players (Rubio/Cousins/Aldridge) all of the them. Its absurd and blatant.

I wish PTI, or that other dude, can't remember his name....goatee....wish they'd bring it up.

Here's another thing to consider, the Lakers as a franchise have a lot to lose if they don't make the playoffs, and they have more money than God, and NBA insiders have repeatedly sounded alarm bells about referees have "inappropriate" relationships with certain teams and coaches...David Stern isn't the only Mafia don in the NBA, that's all I'm saying.

Here is an piece on the Lakers-Kings series.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=3436401

And WTF is this shit about?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHNnv8sVijE

Romoholic wrote:

Here is an piece on the Lakers-Kings series.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=3436401

And WTF is this shit about?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHNnv8sVijE

Here is more

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pikd-9qqQ1c

and this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWNAOYOn3vw

Romoholic wrote:

Saint Louis wrote:

Here's info about Laker ratings that might be interesting: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/los-angeles-lakers-how-losses-424762 . If you take away 2/3rds of the Laker viewers, there would still be more Laker viewers than Jazz viewers. The Jazz actually have a much higher market share in Utah (percentage-wise) than the Lakers have in southern California-- however, the population of southern California compared to the population of Utah makes THAT statistic completely irrelevant in terms of money for the NBA.

If you compare the markets in these Forbes reports, it's easy to see how important is the difference between the Lakers and the Jazz.

http://www.forbes.com/teams/utah-jazz/ for the Jazz. And http://www.forbes.com/teams/los-angeles-lakers/ for the Lakers. And these Forbes reports don't even tap into the money the NBA receives (both nationally and internationally) from the Lakers and the Jazz. I haven't cracked down all the numbers, but, it seems like there is quite a distance. If you ask the head of the NBA whether they would prefer a billion dollars or a hundred thousand dollars, I'm guessing they would opt for the billion.

(BTW, completely off subject, this goes back to last year's lockout: these numbers really make me side with the players over the hard-working businessmen/owners in that debate-- but, that should be a completely different thread!)

That makes it even more infuriating! I mean really, whats the FN point of having a team in Utah? The NBA is never going to make it a level playing field. So why not just take the top 20 markets in the NBA and retract the rest?

This is why the NFL is so much more popular than the NBA. If the NFL were ran the same way the NBA is you would have the Cowboys, Steelers and a few other teams winning it every year. Yeah it would be nice for me as a Cowboys fan, but how is that fair to the rest of the league? Small market teams like GB would never have a shot at winning. The NBA is a freaking joke of a league!

Obviously, I agree with your ire regarding the NBA. I'll throw another log on the fire: San Antonio. They're the most blazing example of how the NBA "may not" be manipulating games. San Antonio is a small market with many championships. However, the NBA has vigorously pursued revenue by creating overseas markets. All three of San Antonio's most prominent players were not born in the US (Duncan, Ginobli, Parker). Even though San Antonio has a small market, their international market is larger than any other team in the NBA. And, the primary beneficiary of overseas revenue through franchise rights and broadcasting goes directly to the NBA (they do distribute a lot of this money to teams, but much of it goes to the NBA industry). I'm all for international players in the NBA, and diversity, but, I think too many very smart people who are more interested in making money than providing a fair basketball league are in charge of the NBA. That really shouldn't be very remarkable, since the industry consistently acts in the same manner. Look back at the fines given to the San Antonio coach when he rested Duncan, Ginobli, Parker, and Green! Pop was completely off message as far as the NBA agenda, and was penalized accordingly. Was the NBA saying, "Hey, we've scratched your back frequently-- why didn't you scratch ours on this one?"

That's a good explanation for why the San Antonio example does NOT count against the "NBA is rigged" theory, Saint.

Or at least, why the NBA tolerated their small-market success as opposed to the obvious tilting of the playing field against others.

Trollificus wrote:

That's a good explanation for why the San Antonio example does NOT count against the "NBA is rigged" theory, Saint.

Or at least, why the NBA tolerated their small-market success as opposed to the obvious tilting of the playing field against others.

It should also be noted that the existence of exceptions does not disprove the theory of NBA manipulation of games in general. Everything I have read about the NBA and game manipulation says that they are mostly looking for targets of opportunity that can't be directly traced to the overall outcomes. Donaghy said Game 6 of the Lakers-Kings was manipulated NOT because the Kings were small market and the NBA wanted the Lakers to advance, rather it was manipulated because they wanted another game of huge ratings and revenues associated with the magical game 7 which would carry over regardless of who won the series. The goal for the NBA here may have been to prolong the drama, in an otherwise embarassing end of the season which saw over half the league phoning in most of their games, as much as it was to get the Lakers in to the playoffs.