Unfair officiating

Watching an athletic team when they’re playing with confidence is an impressive sight. Under those conditions, individual performances step up a notch, and team coordination increases. To watch two teams, especially basketball teams, both play with confidence, is a thing of beauty… so smooth and fluid. There was such a game tonight, between the Lakers and the Wolves. The Lakers, as an elite, powerhouse team, are naturally confident. The Wolves have new-found confidence produced by a lot of hard work.

Most of the game was close, hard-fought, and high-scoring. Despite being out-sized, the Wolves persistently stayed close, down 4 points at halftime. I especially enjoy watching a team playing at a disadvantage make up for it by just working harder. I’m not crushed if they don’t win, but I’m really impressed and thrilled if they can pull off an upset.

Unfortunately, non-elite NBA teams have to overcome another obstacle in order to win… the favoritism shown by officials toward star players.  More fouls are called against players guarding star players, so stars shoot more free throws. Non-star players have to back off on their defense, but the tragic result of such favoritism is that it harms the confidence of the non-elite team.

I’ve watched it happen so many times, and I suspect that you have too. Bad or unnecessary foul calls naturally upset players, especially young players. It’s not difficult to notice that star players come to expect that they will get favoritism… when they don’t get a call they seem shocked, even outraged. As stars, they seem to have a special relationship with officials, chatting with them between plays.

Such favoritism has been around for as long as I can remember. The NBA has some ways to try to achieve parity among teams, but the effect of calls in favor of stars compounds the advantage that well-funded teams have. Stars become superstars, not only because of their athletic ability, but because they get favored officiating. When Kevin Garnett was still with the Timberwolves, the better he became, the more favoritism he received, even though he was playing for a non-elite team; it is the star that gets the favoritism, not the team.

I’m sure that the NBA enjoys such officiating, because it helps to create star players, who draw more people to games. It’s another of the ugly parts of professional sports.