Ref Blown Calls (538 article)

[Fan from VT]

Fun article, something for everyone here.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/which-nba-team-is-wronged-by-the-refs-the-most/

They look at the number of bad calls and bad no calls that went against each team in the last 2 minutes of close games.



So for the Boston homers here (like me) it's nice to see that we are in fact above average (#8) at getting screwed by the refs in those situations. Nowhere near Brooklyn, but still.

Interestingly, the best team with the worst "ref respect" is probably OKC, which has had the 3rd most calls go against them.


A certain demographic, however, will be frustrated to see that Lebron James is actually 3rd in the league in bad calls going AGAINST him in crunch time, meaning there were 6 times he was fouled and it should have been called, but the refs let it go.

[fairweatherfan]

Interesting stuff, but the muddling factor here, which 538 mentioned but didn't seem to fully account for, is that the game had to be both late and close.  So having more calls go against us could be partly or entirely a function of being in those clutch situations more often than most teams.

Might be better to measure as number of blown calls per minute in those situations. That's still influenced by pace, intentional fouling situations, etc, but seems like a cleaner measure. It'd also be nice to see our bad calls compared to how many bad calls we benefited from, in case our close games just had refs prone to swallow the whistle more.

[GreenEnvy]

Yeah this is fun to look at but doesn’t really mean much. 538 is a large number, but what’s that out of? 1,000 or 10,000?

If they are going to scrutinize refs, take a look at the whole game, not just the last two minutes.

[Erik]

538 is a large number, but what’s that out of? 1,000 or 10,000?

538 is the name of the blog.

[kozlodoev]

If they are going to scrutinize refs, take a look at the whole game, not just the last two minutes.

The NBA publishes a breakdown of the last two minutes of every game, where they evaluate every play/officiating decision. That's what this analysis is based on, it isn't randomly "scrutinizing refs".

[kozlodoev]

A certain demographic, however, will be frustrated to see that Lebron James is actually 3rd in the league in bad calls going AGAINST him in crunch time, meaning there were 6 times he was fouled and it should have been called, but the refs let it go.

A funny aside: that's probably the one and only ranking in which Marcus Smart will ever tie LeBron

[bdm860]

I feel like this is only half the analysis.

So they looked at which teams are victim to the most blown calls, how about which refs are responsible for the most blown calls (or at least as part of a crew)?

[Roy H.]

Interesting stuff, but the muddling factor here, which 538 mentioned but didn't seem to fully account for, is that the game had to be both late and close.  So having more calls go against us could be partly or entirely a function of being in those clutch situations more often than most teams.

Might be better to measure as number of blown calls per minute in those situations. That's still influenced by pace, intentional fouling situations, etc, but seems like a cleaner measure. It'd also be nice to see our bad calls compared to how many bad calls we benefited from, in case our close games just had refs prone to swallow the whistle more.

Yeah, that was my thought. Orlando is at the bottom not because of better officiated games, but because they’re in fewer games matching the criteria.

[fairweatherfan]

Interesting stuff, but the muddling factor here, which 538 mentioned but didn't seem to fully account for, is that the game had to be both late and close.  So having more calls go against us could be partly or entirely a function of being in those clutch situations more often than most teams.

Might be better to measure as number of blown calls per minute in those situations. That's still influenced by pace, intentional fouling situations, etc, but seems like a cleaner measure. It'd also be nice to see our bad calls compared to how many bad calls we benefited from, in case our close games just had refs prone to swallow the whistle more.

Yeah, that was my thought. Orlando is at the bottom not because of better officiated games, but because they’re in fewer games matching the criteria.

They do refer to percentages of blown calls at the end and note that Orlando is the lowest there too (3.6% compared to league avg of 6.9%).  Though that could be a function of a team that doesn't play as hard late.

They don't give those percentages for anyone else but Brooklyn (10%, 3rd highest in league), though. 

Ultimately it's a neat set of info but much too messy to say anything meaningful about bias.

[adam8]

Seems like it would be more useful if they showed both sides of the stat, so also how many times did we benefit from calls or non calls that way you would get a ratio which would show who is getting the short stick. They already accumulated all that data might as well take it that one more step further to make it more comparable.