NBA officiating conspiracy

[banpeikun]

I believe that there is no conspiracy, and there is no attempt to get larger market teams into the NBA finals etc.

Having said that, I do think that the league is still interested in ratings and providing an exciting game for people watching. To that end, officials tend to call games in favor of the losing team to "keep it close." I'll point this out in the last 3 games I watched.

First, in Game 7 of Mavs-Spurs, pretty much every call went against the Mavs, who were up by double digits, especially in the third quarter. Charges on one end were called as fouls on the other end, etc.

Second, in Game 1 of Mavs-Suns, Dirk was getting the benefit of the calls under the basket from O rebs etc. Then at the end of the game when the Mavs were up by ~9, the calls went the Suns' way. The offensive foul by Devin Harris, the lack of call on Stackhouse's drive (he lost the ball, but I thought the defender was riding his hip the entire way).

Third, in Game 2 of Heat-Pistons, Pistons were up by 10 or so at the very end of the game. The Heat got away with a lot of contact when trying to deny Billups the ball, even letting him get shoved out of bounds with no call. Wallace's block/foul on Walker driving baseline was called. Additionally Prince's call for time-out was unacknowledged.

So I won't go so far to say (as others might) that the NBA has an agenda to try to get one team or another to advance to the finals, but certainly games are called with consistency to benefit a team that's significantly down. Your thoughts?