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  • Superjudge wrote: View Post
    Through 3 games Orlando has 67 free throw attempts, vs 41 for the Raptors. Orlando was 30th in the league in fta in the regular season. Toronto has more paint points and is one of the top teams in drives in the playoffs. In the first 2 games Kawhi has gotten 1 foul called on 41 drives. For comparison, DJ Augustine had more fouls called on drives than the ENTIRE Raptors squad. 5 vs 8 is real.
    Knew it was bad, but this is otherworldly. Wonder what the NBA fan with no rooting interest in the game thinks about this. Are they upset with what appears to be obvious bias? Or do the US ones automatically root against the Raptors? The NBA front office is constantly going on about their desire to grow the game beyond the US borders. But if this kind of lopsided officiating continues, Non-US fans are going to turn away.

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    • Puffer wrote: View Post

      Knew it was bad, but this is otherworldly. Wonder what the NBA fan with no rooting interest in the game thinks about this. Are they upset with what appears to be obvious bias? Or do the US ones automatically root against the Raptors? The NBA front office is constantly going on about their desire to grow the game beyond the US borders. But if this kind of lopsided officiating continues, Non-US fans are going to turn away.
      on reddit even non-Raptors fans are seeing the bullshit
      Only one thing matters: We The Champs.

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      • I'm trying to figure out the underlying motive for such a foul discrepancy. It can't simply be about TV ratings, can it? I mean, there are MUCH smaller market teams in the playoffs than Toronto.

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        • Nilanka wrote: View Post
          I'm trying to figure out the underlying motive for such a foul discrepancy. It can't simply be about TV ratings, can it? I mean, there are MUCH smaller market teams in the playoffs than Toronto.
          If you think it's a NBA-wide conspiracy, as some do, then it's hard to figure out how to make the "why?" match the "how?"

          I don't think it's a conspiracy. I *do* think there are multiple reasons why refereeing is uneven between crews and between players and teams, and that there are even some of them that would be difficult for the league to deal with even if they were determined to do so.

          A number of those reasons come stem from the fact that it is nearly impossible for the league to completely insulate their refereeing crews from sports media. I do think that the number one factor in star calls and favorable whistles towards specific teams is how the media presents teams and their players. I think that conscious and/or unconscious biases take root when the media, for example, anoints players as being incredibly talented or superstar players, or describes them in very specific ways, and that affects how players are officiated. (This goes a long, long way to explaining how Harden is currently officiated, for instance.)

          When you compare how Kawhi and Derozan have been officiated in Toronto, or even how pre-injury and post-injury Kawhi gets officiated, you can see how this works. Derozan has been consistently portrayed as athletic and talented, and tends to get the calls, especially against lesser opponents and teams. Kawhi in San Antonio consistently received more favorable officiating in part because he emerged as a talent from a young age, and in part from the Popovich effect where San Antonio is perceived as a championship caliber team (even aside from Pops working the refs) that drafts high-caliber players and maximizes their talents. Kawhi in Toronto is a question mark because of the injury, still has some lingering character issues in the minds of many because of the prolonged spat between Kawhi's camp and Popovich/the Spurs, and is currently seen as the product of hard work more than talent. I think all of these factors work into how at least some of the refs see Kawhi, and if this is the case, it's going to take at least another six months to a year for how Kawhi is officiated to consistently approach how he was being officiated in San Antonio.

          On a related topic, I do *not* think there is a consistent conscious anti-Canadian bias in NBA officiating, but I *do* think the fact the US media (which will be the primary NBA media most referees watch) pretty consistently covers US teams with more interest and more positivity than the Raptors does result in something of an unconscious bias against the Raptors much of the time.

          The good news for us is that Milwaukee, who is likely a more difficult matchup for us than Philly is likely to be, also has some of the same media and respect issues that we do with the officials, being in the shadow of the Jordan Bulls and in the shadow of the larger Chicago media market in general. It's worth noting that talented players in Chicago tend to get their tires pumped in the national media more so than equally talented players in Milwaukee do; I expect that if one did a deep data dive, you would find that officiating would track in Chicago's favor (relatively speaking) for an long time. It would be a good test case for this.

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          • Get Up guys talking about how Kawhi reminds them of MJ. Ive been sayin it here a while too. Kawhi's game is very MJ like. He shoots the fadeaway as well as Jordan, he's money from the midrange, and obviously he's a generational defender. The only difference between the two is, Kawhi is not flashy and not a high flyer like MJ was.
            Mamba Mentality

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            • 9 time first team all-RR, First Ballot Hall of Forum

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              • Nilanka wrote: View Post
                I'm trying to figure out the underlying motive for such a foul discrepancy. It can't simply be about TV ratings, can it? I mean, there are MUCH smaller market teams in the playoffs than Toronto.
                This reason has been thrown out there a few time, i.e. that there is no smaller market than Toronto because Canadian TV ratings don't count in the Nielsen ratings used by advertisers to decide where to spend their money. Money is definitely an underlying motive for just about everything in life, so if you put yourself in the shoes of an Ad buyer who has to justify the spend to their bosses, they're going to need some other, indirect ways to calculate the ROI. At the end of the day, these are just regular people/employees making decisions for their company and people don't like to take risks with their jobs.

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                • Nilanka wrote: View Post
                  I'm trying to figure out the underlying motive for such a foul discrepancy. It can't simply be about TV ratings, can it? I mean, there are MUCH smaller market teams in the playoffs than Toronto.
                  It's not motive. It's bad reffing, combined with random chance. The reffing has definitely been in Orlando's favour thus far, but not intentionally. NBA refs are just not very good at reffing (to be clear, it's an impossible game to ref and NBA refs are probably the best in the world at it - they just still aren't very good at it).

                  Frankly, I'd rather the flawed reffing of the NBA which sometimes results in a discrepancy like this, than the balancing-calls-out reffing of the NHL where both teams are called for the same number of penalties, give or take, no matter the relative play in the game.

                  Luckily, the talent discrepancy is just too great this series for it to matter. Hopefully against Philly the reffing is more balanced - the Raptors are wonderfully set up to match up to Philly and advance to the ECF, but one thing that could muddy that plan up would be foul trouble for any of the Raps' starters.
                  twitter.com/dhackett1565

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                  • Anybody out there still hating on Load Management? Alex McKechnie is da real MVP.

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                    • golden wrote: View Post
                      Anybody out there still hating on Load Management? Alex McKechnie is da real MVP.
                      Yeah, I don't like it. It's bad for the game and the league is going to put a stop to it soon. But it has worked to Toronto's benefit so far....

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                      • slaw wrote: View Post

                        Yeah, I don't like it. It's bad for the game and the league is going to put a stop to it soon. But it has worked to Toronto's benefit so far....
                        I dont like it either, but just like analytics and scouting and so much else, sports medicine has come a long long way, and it has found 82 games in under 6 months is just too many. Teams are weighing cost/benefit (rings and deep playoff runs vs regular season wins and some grumbling from fans) and choosing what is best for them.

                        if anything, hate on the money driven businesses that ride the athletes into the ground. NHL does too, and playoffs frankly become a sad war of attrition by the 3rd round, a bunch of players limping around trying to hide broken and sprained limbs and cant take a real wrist shot.

                        But we know that will never change. Forcing the employees back to work is the most likely outcome.
                        9 time first team all-RR, First Ballot Hall of Forum

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                        • Nilanka wrote: View Post
                          I'm trying to figure out the underlying motive for such a foul discrepancy. It can't simply be about TV ratings, can it? I mean, there are MUCH smaller market teams in the playoffs than Toronto.
                          I don't think its the NBA vs Toronto. I think its Tony Brothers and Marc Davis vs Toronto. Those two refs are the worst in the NBA. No joke. We had both reffing in games 2 and 3. The games where the foul discrepancy really stood out.

                          I'm all for conspiracies.. but we got hosed by two of the worst refs in the game. The game last night was the opposite. Most calls were in our favour. Zarba made more calls right than wrong. He's a good one (even though he was there for the Sacramento screw job).

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                          • Out of curiosity anyone know how the calls are going for the Bucks?

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                            • My theory is they just wanna try and keep the games somewhat competitive...which they have not been. But would be far worse if Tor was getting an equal share of the foul calls.

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                              • slaw wrote: View Post

                                Yeah, I don't like it. It's bad for the game and the league is going to put a stop to it soon. But it has worked to Toronto's benefit so far....
                                Having stars like Oladipo out and Embiid hobbling through the playoffs is arguably worse for the league than sitting them out a few meaningless regular season games. It's pretty clear from Kawhi's comments that he was still trying to overcome his injury even half-way through the season. If he has a medical reason to rest, then there's nothing the league can (and should) do about it. My guess is that Kawhi may have some type of chronic condition that will continue for the rest of his career.

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