June 11, 2008

How much trouble is the NBA in?

By: Sonny Bunch

On the last day of May in 2002, the Los Angeles Lakers defeated the Sacramento Kings in the sixth game of the Western Conference Finals in one of the worst officiated games in recent memory (the Lakers shot a whopping twenty-seven free throws in the fourth quarter alone, and Kings guard Mike Bibby was whistled for a critical phantom foul after Kobe Bryant elbowed him in the head). … Were the Kings jammed by the referees? Yes. Was Game Six an egregious example of state-sponsored cheating? Probably. But this is what sets the NBA apart from every other team sport in North America: Everyone who loves pro basketball assumes it’s a little fixed. … It’s not necessarily a full-on conspiracy, but it’s certainly not fair. And that’s why the NBA remains the only game that matters: Pro basketball is exactly like life.
–Chuck Klosterman, Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, page 96

I read that paragraph last week when I was working on a piece about the Lakers and Celtics* and I’m glad that I did. Because now it turns out that game six was fixed. Or maybe Tim Donaghy was just getting even with the NBA for demanding restitution for his crimes against the league. Probably it’s a little of both.

But really, how does this revelation change anything for the average fan of the NBA? They’ll be annoyed at first, but I dare you to find a regular watcher of the NBA who doesn’t think that a.) the officiating is terrible and b.) officials have way too much power over the game. Even if the vast, vast majority of them never even consider gambling on a game, NBA refs have altogether too much to do with the outcome of the game.

And this is the deeper point that Klosterman is getting at, I think: sometimes life just isn’t fair. Sometimes you’re stacked up against things that you can neither control nor deter nor deflect, both on the court and in life. And doesn’t that somehow mitigate the disappointment an average fan has with the league over this violation of the public’s trust?**

*A piece I shall not link to again, because three gratuitous plugs…well, that’s just over the line! Or is it?

**Probably not. But it was worth a shot…Honestly, I just wanted an excuse to do a post with Chuck Klosterman’s name in it in the hope that he has a Google alert set up for himself and will come to comment on my ridiculous theory. A boy can dream, can’t he?