Well, Rose traveled.
But that’s nothing new. According to Refcalls.com, a new site dedicated to breaking down video and tracking missed calls in NCAA and NBA games, players get away with traveling up to 40 to 50 times per game on average. Even worse, the site’s research indicates there are up to 80-100 calls that do not follow the letter of the law per game.
That’s some bad officiating or maybe it’s bad rule writing. Either way, Refcalls.com co-founder John Ball and his colleagues, which include a former referee, want to fix it. And their efforts could pay dividends for basketball fans and bettors.
A graduate of the University of Texas in Austin with a Masters from UCLA, Ball is a part of the growing sports analytics industry. He’s a stats guy, who has attended the last two MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conferences.
He started his latest venture with his co-founders over happy hour 1 ½ years ago. He has been logging data on referees ever since, while also becoming well-versed on the NBA rule book. He’ll gladly point you to the page and section for any rule debates.
He launched Refcalls.com April 15 and has been posting daily reports, including video breakdowns of wrong or missed calls during the NBA Playoffs.
Sometime next season, they’re aiming to release statistical analysis from their database to form a quality index of individual referees’ performances. (Somewhere Dick Bavetta is sweating).
Eventually, Ball believes their database will produce valuable information for NBA teams similar to how Major League Baseball has adopted Sabermetrics. But that’s a little bit down the road. In the meantime, he believes fans and, yes, bettors can capitalize from his data.
“Sabermetrics in baseball was the same way. From what someone told me, the teams didn’t jump on board until stat geeks started using it for personal use, things like optimizing their fantasy teams,” Ball explained. “Someone in the industry suggested we launch this to the public and the teams might eventually come.”
Ball visited with Covers.com this week about their venture and just how bad, according to the rule book, NBA officiating really is.
Q: Up to 80 to 100 bad calls on average per game seems enormous. Were you shocked when you first started seeing the numbers that suggested that many erroneous calls and no-calls?
Ball: Travels are a big part of it, almost half of the missed calls were travels. We’ve had some that had only 30 when you took out the travels. It’s typically stuff that not many people pay attention to, like offensive and defensive three seconds. When you see a player with their forearm extended with a bent elbow against a guy who’s posting up outside of the lower defensive box, that’s actually illegal according to the rules. Refs aren’t calling that.
Q: A lot of conspiracy theories came out of the Tim Donaghy scandal. Through your research, do you have any concerns that there might be more NBA refs intentionally influencing games?
Ball: I think the refs’ intentions are all noble and there’s no nefarious activity occurring, especially after the Donaghy thing. I don’t think any ref would have the guts to do that again unless they were mentally unstable or just had a problem.
Q: Would you agree, however, that how a referee perceives the rules can impact the game, specifically the number of points scored? For example, over 60 percent of games officiated by NBA ref Rodney Mott have finished with less points than the Las Vegas over/under totals.
Ball: Absolutely. We all have tendencies in everything we do. And I think those tendencies can be measured in sports and in everything we do.
Q: What’s been the reaction from visitors to your site who comment on your blog posts?
Ball: It’s been mixed, almost like politics. Most people love it and believe the rules should be followed to the letter of the law. Others get on there and say, “We see that all time," or "Let the game evolve naturally. The rules are minutiae.”
They’ve been taught the game through TV announcers. Unfortunately, we don’t think many announcers, even the ones that played the game, know the rules very well or don't want to focus on them. You’d think if a guy played in the NBA, he’d be able to convey the rules accurately or would want to bring them up. Unfortunately, we’re not seeing that. Many announcers we’ve watched have made mistakes or haven’t pointed out violations when it's apparent one occurred.
Q: Who’s the best announcer in terms of knowing the rules?
Ball: We think Jeff Van Gundy is very good.
Q: What about Steve Kerr?
Ball: He’s OK, but there’s been some instances where he didn't point out a violation that most likely happened.
Q: Reggie Miller?
Ball: He’s a pretty good announcer, but like most of them, he’s missed pointing out some things. We don't know if it's the announcers getting caught up in all the action because they are right there at court side, have a lot of things going on in front of them, and feel like they have to entertain the audience rather than bring up rule violations they might think would bore them. But without an emphasis on bringing up the rules, the audience - and the game - suffers in the long run.
