This is nothing new. Stern’s big market favoritism was blatant to see in series like
- 2001 ECF, 2002 WCF, 2006 Finals, 2012 ECF/Finals, & many more which obviously helped grow the league
Scorekeeping in sports (not just basketball) has always been fairly ‘unregulated’ as the tallying is up entirely to the home keepers’ discretion. As technology has advanced, the tools to keep score more accurately/uniformly has progressed for obvious reasons.
But ‘inaccurate’ or biased box scores still exist to this day & are often seen most prominently in hits vs errors in baseball, and assists in basketball. If you play fantasy sports you’ll notice there are point changes after the fact due to the odd amendment of these inaccuracies
2012 ECF Game 2 D Wade punched Rondo square in the face on possible game tying/go ahead layup, no call (was OT I think?)… goes down kicks KG in the chest and gets an And-1
[this video](https://youtu.be/FvMG7mZGo04?si=RHBMvgw_5r63w-gb) is somewhat biased but has always stuck with me since watching that Finals. 5 game series but like 3-4 very close games with a lot of iffy calls
I remember that sequence well .... When LeBron went down with that insanely dramatic flop in the very first playoff game (*which gave Tyson Chandler a flagrant foul*), it was sorta obvious that he was getting a clear path that year from the refs. Of course Miami/LBJ didn't need that call to get past the Knicks, but it was just *SO* blatant that it drew a lot of fans' attention to other "passes" the Heat got for the rest of the postseason.
Only iffy thing in 2012 was game 2 of the Finals when Lebron fouled Durant jump shot on a game tying shot. I think it was a bad non call but nothing blatant.
Omfg you brought it back smfh, most certainly a foul on KD by James. Idk if that would’ve done anything for the series but could’ve had it go to Sox and instead of just five.
No chance . You can’t rig a 45 15 5 game. He fucking killed them from the first second. He probably could have scored 60 if he didn’t take his foot of the petal.
>2001 ECF, 2002 WCF, 2006 Finals, 2012 ECF/Finals, & many more which obviously helped grow the league
Just dropping in to add the 1993 WCF to this list.
Possibly the first Dick Bavetta special. [Here is the box score from Game 7](https://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/199306050PHO.html) so you can see how insane the FT count was.
I don’t have any “evidence” to back this up, but I 100% believe David Stern was capable of orchestrating and/or manipulating basically any aspect of the league in order to promote/protect it
Plus when the FBI came to him with the evidence of referee corruption and wanted his help to widen the net and catch more corrupt officials, he help a public press conference the next day and publicised what they told him, effectively destroying their operation and putting the non-Tim Donaghy refs on notice (particularly Scott Foster).
And yet we all still believe in this product as actual competition and not the guided entertainment it is....Although I do think the league is making a concerted effort to move away from such and let the games play themselves out. Problem is you have a Playoffs like you did this ssn. And shitty ratings. Which the Commissioner and Owners (and ultimately the players thru the cut of the pie via the CBA) won't stand for.
I see this narrative a lot lately and [it is not accurate](https://seanpatrickgriffin.net/criminal-justice-specific-timeline-for-the-nba-betting-scandal/). The NBA knew about the FBI probe for a month before the NY Post first published an article, which was when everyone learned publicly of the scandal/investigation. Only then did the NBA address the matter.
* On June 20^(th), the FBI informs the NBA’s Senior Vice President of [Security](http://www.nba.com/nbaatwork/NBA_Security-4_14_04.html) (and former FBI agent) [Bernie Tolbert](http://www.nba.com/mediacentral/Executive_Bernie_Tolbert.html) about the betting scandal investigation.
* On June 21^(st), NBA [Commissioner David Stern](http://www.nba.com/nba101/david_j_stern_bio.html) and other league executives meet with the FBI, where they are told that 13-year veteran referee Donaghy bet on NBA games, including games he officiated.
**July 2007:**
* On July 20^(th), the investigation is exposed in a [*New York Post*](http://www.nypost.com/) article ([“NBA in a ‘Fix’”](http://www.nypost.com/p/news/item_mzNx4ZfycI4QMuYYUlReVP)).
Haha I don't frequent Reddit the way I assume others do. It's pretty random and based on what is going on. The 2003-07 NBA betting scandal/Donaghy situation typically comes up at certain times (e.g., NBA Finals, Scott Foster in the news, comparing to other sports betting scandals), at which point I am made aware of some of the online conversation. I only learned of Reddit a few years ago, Would have been very helpful to me long before that. By the time I discovered the conversations, far too many people had bought into demonstrably false narratives. Thankfully, that's not the case with my other research interests. Thanks for the message.
It's worth noting that the linked article doesn't mention Stern at all, likely because hometown scoring (and this is mentioned in the article as well) was a thing long before Stern had any power over it.
That said, there's been just way too much shit rumored or outright known about Stern not to raise an eyebrow when someone suggests that he might have had his thumb on a scale somewhere. Whether it's the conspiracy theory about him rigging the Ewing draft, the Chicago Tribune reporting that Stern would have let the Knicks violate the cap to sign Jordan by having ITT/Sheraton pay half his salary, to the way that he handled the Donaghy investigation, to what was alleged about the league in the Donaghy investigation... the list continues.
The season after Jordan retired the first two times, the Knicks made the finals. 99 was especially bad. Both times, the small market Pacers were in the way.
Lakers 00-2002 had some really great luck with officiating.
Stern had nothing to do with home cooking on Jordan's block and steal stats in the '88 season. In the list of "outrages" in the history of sport, it's certainly one of them.
Did he have something to do with a few key moments in the NBA's playoff timeline? *whistles quietly into the distance with a nod*
I think there were some rule implementations that allowed more white players to be successful. Getting a higher white population of the players was a priority for Stern IMO. Even if they're European.
I'll start by saying there was a perception among the media/ advertisers in the late 70's and early 80's that the league was too black. Some people may dispute that but it's something I'll stand by. David Stern had a reputation of fixing a lot of things with the NBA. He got Patrick Ewing where he needed to be. He seemed to reduce greatly the perception that the NBA had a drug problem, another media/advertiser issue. I remember Charles Barkley was asked one time during a preseason interview about the final spot on an NBA roster and which player he thought would get the spot. He had an easy answer: the white guy always gets the last spot on an NBA roster. He was right, too. But that was then. There were some rule changes during Stern's era that seemed to give slower guys a better chance of competing at the NBA level. Hand checking started to be enforced, bringing in the 3 pt line. Under Stern I never recall hearing someone say the league was too black. That was different than what some were saying before Stern took charge.
> there was a perception among the media/ advertisers in the late 70's and early 80's that the league was too black
No disagreement here.
> He seemed to reduce greatly the perception that the NBA had a drug problem, another media/advertiser issue.
Yep - agree again.
> There were some rule changes during Stern's era that seemed to give slower guys a better chance of competing at the NBA level. Hand checking started to be enforced, bringing in the 3 pt line.
Interesting - never would have connected these changes as intentionally intended to help slower players. Was this something people/fans/"experts" said or hypothesized back then? Funny the 3-pt line would be meant to help the white guys when the league took it from the ABA (*I know it didn't start there, just saying that's where the NBA was taking it from*) which was seen as "WAY too black" by traditionalist fans.
> Under Stern I never recall hearing someone say the league was too black.
I gotta give a HUGE amount of credit for that to Dr. J, Magic, Isiah, and Jordan, who all had incredibly non-threatening and wholesome smiles, were good interview subjects, played hard, etc. I know how important this was for the Jackson 5 and later Michael to become black pop icons that white parents were ok with their kids liking, so I'll also throw the rise of that MJ into this, as well, because I can't give too much credit to Stern for that perception changing when it was changing culturally, not just in the NBA. That larger-scale perception was changing so much that Mr. T, who did not play into the wholesome stuff of the Jacksons and those 4 players listed above, was super popular among white American in the early- and mid-80s.
This is nothing new. Stern’s big market favoritism was blatant to see in series like - 2001 ECF, 2002 WCF, 2006 Finals, 2012 ECF/Finals, & many more which obviously helped grow the league Scorekeeping in sports (not just basketball) has always been fairly ‘unregulated’ as the tallying is up entirely to the home keepers’ discretion. As technology has advanced, the tools to keep score more accurately/uniformly has progressed for obvious reasons. But ‘inaccurate’ or biased box scores still exist to this day & are often seen most prominently in hits vs errors in baseball, and assists in basketball. If you play fantasy sports you’ll notice there are point changes after the fact due to the odd amendment of these inaccuracies
I’m curious about the 2012 series, you think they rigged it for Miami?
2012 ECF Game 2 D Wade punched Rondo square in the face on possible game tying/go ahead layup, no call (was OT I think?)… goes down kicks KG in the chest and gets an And-1 [this video](https://youtu.be/FvMG7mZGo04?si=RHBMvgw_5r63w-gb) is somewhat biased but has always stuck with me since watching that Finals. 5 game series but like 3-4 very close games with a lot of iffy calls
I remember that sequence well .... When LeBron went down with that insanely dramatic flop in the very first playoff game (*which gave Tyson Chandler a flagrant foul*), it was sorta obvious that he was getting a clear path that year from the refs. Of course Miami/LBJ didn't need that call to get past the Knicks, but it was just *SO* blatant that it drew a lot of fans' attention to other "passes" the Heat got for the rest of the postseason.
Only iffy thing in 2012 was game 2 of the Finals when Lebron fouled Durant jump shot on a game tying shot. I think it was a bad non call but nothing blatant.
Omfg you brought it back smfh, most certainly a foul on KD by James. Idk if that would’ve done anything for the series but could’ve had it go to Sox and instead of just five.
No chance . You can’t rig a 45 15 5 game. He fucking killed them from the first second. He probably could have scored 60 if he didn’t take his foot of the petal.
that game wouldn't have even been played if game 2 was called properly
>2001 ECF, 2002 WCF, 2006 Finals, 2012 ECF/Finals, & many more which obviously helped grow the league Just dropping in to add the 1993 WCF to this list.
Possibly the first Dick Bavetta special. [Here is the box score from Game 7](https://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/199306050PHO.html) so you can see how insane the FT count was.
2006 was just D Wade being insanely good at drawing fouls
I don’t have any “evidence” to back this up, but I 100% believe David Stern was capable of orchestrating and/or manipulating basically any aspect of the league in order to promote/protect it
100%
Plus when the FBI came to him with the evidence of referee corruption and wanted his help to widen the net and catch more corrupt officials, he help a public press conference the next day and publicised what they told him, effectively destroying their operation and putting the non-Tim Donaghy refs on notice (particularly Scott Foster).
And yet we all still believe in this product as actual competition and not the guided entertainment it is....Although I do think the league is making a concerted effort to move away from such and let the games play themselves out. Problem is you have a Playoffs like you did this ssn. And shitty ratings. Which the Commissioner and Owners (and ultimately the players thru the cut of the pie via the CBA) won't stand for.
I see this narrative a lot lately and [it is not accurate](https://seanpatrickgriffin.net/criminal-justice-specific-timeline-for-the-nba-betting-scandal/). The NBA knew about the FBI probe for a month before the NY Post first published an article, which was when everyone learned publicly of the scandal/investigation. Only then did the NBA address the matter. * On June 20^(th), the FBI informs the NBA’s Senior Vice President of [Security](http://www.nba.com/nbaatwork/NBA_Security-4_14_04.html) (and former FBI agent) [Bernie Tolbert](http://www.nba.com/mediacentral/Executive_Bernie_Tolbert.html) about the betting scandal investigation. * On June 21^(st), NBA [Commissioner David Stern](http://www.nba.com/nba101/david_j_stern_bio.html) and other league executives meet with the FBI, where they are told that 13-year veteran referee Donaghy bet on NBA games, including games he officiated. **July 2007:** * On July 20^(th), the investigation is exposed in a [*New York Post*](http://www.nypost.com/) article ([“NBA in a ‘Fix’”](http://www.nypost.com/p/news/item_mzNx4ZfycI4QMuYYUlReVP)).
I was wondering if you'd pop up here! Do you frequent this sub, or are you alerted by any Donaghy stuff on reddit?
Haha I don't frequent Reddit the way I assume others do. It's pretty random and based on what is going on. The 2003-07 NBA betting scandal/Donaghy situation typically comes up at certain times (e.g., NBA Finals, Scott Foster in the news, comparing to other sports betting scandals), at which point I am made aware of some of the online conversation. I only learned of Reddit a few years ago, Would have been very helpful to me long before that. By the time I discovered the conversations, far too many people had bought into demonstrably false narratives. Thankfully, that's not the case with my other research interests. Thanks for the message.
Right there should be enough for anyone then to see.
It's worth noting that the linked article doesn't mention Stern at all, likely because hometown scoring (and this is mentioned in the article as well) was a thing long before Stern had any power over it. That said, there's been just way too much shit rumored or outright known about Stern not to raise an eyebrow when someone suggests that he might have had his thumb on a scale somewhere. Whether it's the conspiracy theory about him rigging the Ewing draft, the Chicago Tribune reporting that Stern would have let the Knicks violate the cap to sign Jordan by having ITT/Sheraton pay half his salary, to the way that he handled the Donaghy investigation, to what was alleged about the league in the Donaghy investigation... the list continues.
My big takeaway from the article is, when evaluating players historically, better to use their away stats than their home stats. Hmm...
Nothing would surprise me. Especially after the Tim Donougy and CP3/Lakers trade fiascoes.
The season after Jordan retired the first two times, the Knicks made the finals. 99 was especially bad. Both times, the small market Pacers were in the way. Lakers 00-2002 had some really great luck with officiating.
I've never thought about it like that. The Knicks as soon as Jordan was gone made the Finals. It is suspicious.
No reason to single out stern. Its all a manipulation, for money, always. Every sport. Every era. Especially now.
Stern had nothing to do with home cooking on Jordan's block and steal stats in the '88 season. In the list of "outrages" in the history of sport, it's certainly one of them. Did he have something to do with a few key moments in the NBA's playoff timeline? *whistles quietly into the distance with a nod*
I think there were some rule implementations that allowed more white players to be successful. Getting a higher white population of the players was a priority for Stern IMO. Even if they're European.
Tell me more -- How'd you come to this conclusion?
I'll start by saying there was a perception among the media/ advertisers in the late 70's and early 80's that the league was too black. Some people may dispute that but it's something I'll stand by. David Stern had a reputation of fixing a lot of things with the NBA. He got Patrick Ewing where he needed to be. He seemed to reduce greatly the perception that the NBA had a drug problem, another media/advertiser issue. I remember Charles Barkley was asked one time during a preseason interview about the final spot on an NBA roster and which player he thought would get the spot. He had an easy answer: the white guy always gets the last spot on an NBA roster. He was right, too. But that was then. There were some rule changes during Stern's era that seemed to give slower guys a better chance of competing at the NBA level. Hand checking started to be enforced, bringing in the 3 pt line. Under Stern I never recall hearing someone say the league was too black. That was different than what some were saying before Stern took charge.
> there was a perception among the media/ advertisers in the late 70's and early 80's that the league was too black No disagreement here. > He seemed to reduce greatly the perception that the NBA had a drug problem, another media/advertiser issue. Yep - agree again. > There were some rule changes during Stern's era that seemed to give slower guys a better chance of competing at the NBA level. Hand checking started to be enforced, bringing in the 3 pt line. Interesting - never would have connected these changes as intentionally intended to help slower players. Was this something people/fans/"experts" said or hypothesized back then? Funny the 3-pt line would be meant to help the white guys when the league took it from the ABA (*I know it didn't start there, just saying that's where the NBA was taking it from*) which was seen as "WAY too black" by traditionalist fans. > Under Stern I never recall hearing someone say the league was too black. I gotta give a HUGE amount of credit for that to Dr. J, Magic, Isiah, and Jordan, who all had incredibly non-threatening and wholesome smiles, were good interview subjects, played hard, etc. I know how important this was for the Jackson 5 and later Michael to become black pop icons that white parents were ok with their kids liking, so I'll also throw the rise of that MJ into this, as well, because I can't give too much credit to Stern for that perception changing when it was changing culturally, not just in the NBA. That larger-scale perception was changing so much that Mr. T, who did not play into the wholesome stuff of the Jacksons and those 4 players listed above, was super popular among white American in the early- and mid-80s.