NBA Notes
--the Dallas vs. Golden St. opening round series is the best series I've seen in a long, long time. If you have any interest in pro basketball whatsoever, don't miss tonight's game--the series has been wildly entertaining so far.--I've argued for years that no one Allen Iverson played with would ever develop as a player because Iverson needed way too many touches on offense, and those touches lasted way too long. Philadelphia kept bringing in guys with potential, but very few of them ever developed. And I thought Iverson was responsible for that.
Well, Philadelphia was 38-44 last year, and they were 5-18 this year before Iverson was traded. Without him, they went 30-29.
Denver was 13-9 before they traded for Iverson, 7-8 while Carmelo Anthony was suspended, and 25-20 after Anthony came back.
In other words, the 76ers traded away a first ballot Hall of Famer and got significantly better, while Denver traded for him--and didn't.
--there's been an insane amound of discussion over an article in the NY Times yesterday titled "Study of N.B.A. Sees Racial Bias in Calling Fouls." Here are some excerpts:
A coming paper by a University of Pennsylvania professor and a Cornell University graduate student says that, during the 13 seasons from 1991 through 2004, white referees called fouls at a greater rate against black players than against white players.
...players who were similar in all ways except skin color drew foul calls at a rate difference of up to 4 ½ percent depending on the racial composition of an N.B.A. game’s three-person referee crew.
That's 1 foul in 22, basically.
Seriously, if that's true, it means the NBA is probably one of the least discriminatory institutions in the country. Why doesn't redlining get as much attention as NBA referees?
If you're interested, the full paper is here.
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