Yes, it's a lengthy read, and the topic's probably been discussed to death at this point, but nevertheless it's an interesting and comprehensive look back at the controversial 2002 Western Conference Finals between the Los Angeles Lakers and Sacramento Kings.
I enjoyed reading through it for the historical significance and profile of a series that I remembered, but it also got me thinking about how some of the issues are still relevant today, as well as how some things have changed. Instant replay rulings were introduced the season after those Playoffs, and in today's NBA, incidents such as the wrong team being awarded the ball on an out-of-bounds call would be less likely to happen. Then again, perhaps not, given what's happened in a couple of recent games.
It got me thinking about all the conspiracy talk, and the rigging that the NBA is supposedly engaging in. I've seen the accusations that the league is doing everything in their power to help the Oklahoma City Thunder advance, and similar accusations have been made regarding the Miami Heat's fortunes in the past few years. Questionable calls are cited as evidence, just as they are in regards to the Lakers winning that series back in 2002.
The article brings up a good point about that 2002 series, however: no one ever really talks about the Kings getting some generous calls in the pivotal Game 5, which turned into a victory that put them one win away from the NBA Finals (and quite likely, the championship). Had they performed better in Game 7, perhaps we'd be talking about how the officiating allowed them to go on to win it all that year. Since the Lakers won, the controversial calls from Game 6 became the story of the series, rather than the ones from Game 5 or the Kings' performance in Game 7.
I can't help but see some parallels to the teams that the league is supposedly pulling strings for today. Our attention is drawn to the questionable calls that favoured the winning team, but in doing so, we overlook bad calls that worked in the favour of the team that lost. But for a bounce of the ball, those teams could have emerged victorious instead, in which case we'd probably be scrutinising iffy calls that benefited them.
That's not to say that we can't criticise the officiating, or that questionable calls don't have an impact on the game, especially when they come at really inopportune moments (or opportune moments, depending on how you look at it). But it did get me thinking...we do tend to focus on very brief moments of the game, when the reasons for one team winning and the other team losing are spread out across 48 minutes, or indeed several games in a series when you're talking about recurring problems or weaknesses. You never want to see iffy or downright bad calls mar a competitive series, but looking back on that series in 2002, maybe we don't keep the whole picture in mind when we're declaring shenanigans.
If nothing else, here are a couple of noteworthy quotes:
Scot Pollard (center, Kings): We had a motley crew of guys. We had Euro guys. We had guys that couldn’t speak English. We had guys that didn’t want to speak English. We had guys like me from planet whatever.
Delaney: I’d love to bring the fans out on that floor with me and have them referee a quarter or two of games so they understood what that experience is. Because I think they give us so much more credit than we really deserve. It’s hard enough getting the call right without processing who did the fouling, what’s going on in the game — you can’t put that into your head and make a split decision. The easiest way to describe it, to be on an NBA floor, it’s like 10 guys in a blender and they’re just going at high speed, oh, baby … And then to say that I have the ability to not only process the play but then put into my mind who and which player is doing it, and I’m going to make a decision differently because it’s a Michael Jordan versus another player? Man, we should leave my brain to science, because I’m pretty damn good.
