I believe that the NBA blogosphere is the best in sports media. We have interesting people with a wide variety of backgrounds and takes. We have analysts, emotional diehards, stat obsessives, breakdown artists, photoshop freaks, whatever Golden State of Mind is, abstact conceptualists, and Holly MacKenzie. And I will go toe to toe with anyone that thinks their sport can hold a candle to the WebNBA.
But it’s time we have a talk, folks.
Let me provide a template for what I’ve seen from 90% of the NBA Team Blogs I read on a daily basis.Relevant component in bold.
IN CASE OF WIN:
(GETTY IMAGE BY HOOK OR BY CROOK)
-Declarative Statement About How Awesome We Are.
-Paragraph describing heroic individual/team effort.Relevant stats applied.
-Credit given to other team in what they did well. NOTE: Always describe in terms of things your team did badly, not that the other team did well. Make sure to never simply describe the other team as having executed or your team having an inherent weakness.
-List off great performances and plays.
-Complain about specific contributer for your team. Most often point guard.
-Talk about the great win tonight, despite the horrible officiating. You won, so be sure to mention how it was bad on both sides. What you actually mean is you still feel you got screwed on X plays, specifically Y play, but you can’t complain because you won. Specifically reference how Player A gets too many star calls, while your player B gets too few, and player X flops too much for his team. Your team would never do such a thing.
-Recap series, list next game time.
IN CASE OF LOSS:
(GETTY IMAGE OF UNFAIR CALL)
-Express Anger.
-Blame coaching/individual player effort.
-Credit other team with taking advantage of your mistakes. Be sure to tinge every big of compliment with “If our team did this like we should, this would not have happened.” Ex. “If our underrated Center no one appreciates had just rebounded like he does the rest of the time against a guy twice his size who’s an actual All-Star, this wouldn’t have happend. Our guy’s way better! Play like it!”
-Immediately preface with “I’m not saying we lost because of the officiating.’ Proceed to blame the officiating almost entirely with the loss. Specifically point out how frustrating it is that your team GOT HIT and FELL DOWN and yet there was no call. Mention how you accept it’s a physical game, then proceed to rail against any facet of physical play by the other team. Conversely, be sure to mention how the refs should let your team be more physical on defense. Blame the NBA’s conspiracy for certain teams to concede.
I’m asking for us to come together, people. Because I do it, too. I get emotionally involved. The most egregious officiating decision in the last four years (the suspension of Amare Stoudemire and Boris Diaw) haunts me to this day. But I’ve come around on it. That Suns team lost for a lot of reasons, and it’s hard to pinpoint one. Furthermore, no situation will ever approach that, 90% of the time. But even now, I complain about stars I don’t particularly like getting calls. And I’m wrong every time I do.
But I’m asking you, not to refrain from yelling at the television. Not to resist cursing the refs names to your friends and family. But if you’re writing a piece, a comment, a FanPost, a Bleacher Report, whatever it is. Don’t blame it on the officials. Right now there are Rockets fans complaining about Roy’s star-treatment and Blazers fans saying they’re done with the league. Boston has smacked Chicago around for four games with bigger bodies, then tried to flop repeatedly today. Chicago constantly harrassed Pierce, hacking at him. Noah sets illegal screens. Hinrich was fouled on the offensive rebound in the 2nd overtime. The list goes on and on.
You do your readers, and the rest of us in the NBA writing community a disservice by pinning it on the officials. If your team had executed the way you believe they can, they would have won, in most cases. But they don’t always. And sometimes that’s luck, and sometimes that’s great defense. That’s what makes the playoffs great.
Don’t cheapen it with shirking blame. Your team’s fallible. If it wasn’t, there’d be no joy in their rise above those faults.
I ask you this for the good of our discourse, for the quality of our conversations, for the good of the NBABlogfrica. God Bless You. And God Bless The Association.
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Well written.
I’ve been trying to keep it down as of late. Probably need to try a bit harder.
(The rest of the stuff, before the bolded officiating comments, is still alright though, right?)
Is this okay to put in if you’re impartial in a D-League game and writing a recap, as so many of us have done before?
Hilarious! Though sometimes that’s what us fans are looking for when we go to read our team blogs. I write about the Bulls a lot and I’m sure I do some of that stuff, but when I go to say Blogabull, sometimes I just want to hear about how the officials screwed us out of the game. Or if we won, I want to drink some Derrick Rose kool-aid.
No doubt it cheapens things up a little, but hey, sometimes us NBA fans can be very petty! Keep up the good work Matt. We love you over at NQTC!
[...] Paroxysm just put up a request to team blogs. I am going to repost a quick blurb, but you seriously need to check it out: Immediately preface with “I’m not saying we lost because of the officiating.’ Proceed to [...]
You’re not talking about me are you? Oh wait, my team’s not in the playoffs…
Your post is EXACTLY the reason I’ve been ignoring team blogs in the playoffs. Nicely done.
Thanks for reading, Matt.
But… but… but…
Brandon Roy *does* get an unnecessary level of star treatment!!! And Yao Ming gets beat up on the flip side!!
/goes back to box score, sees Rockets are up 3-1. Relaxes only slightly./
I knew you were part of the NBA/Lakers conspiracy.
/goes to his bathroom and closes the door. begins to cry/
The Stern ™ wants you to say exactly that about the terrible officiating……..
Timely post as Sixers’ lost Game 4 because of bad officiating vs Orlando, and we are victim of a conspiracy, and Dalembert is underrated, and Iguodala was hit on the desperation shot, and it should have been 3 FTs, 4 in case he missed one of the first three, and the Ron Jeremy/Stan Van Gundy similarity is distracting our players
Good pt. Coach Pop has been saying it for years, you win/lose because of execution, everything else like officiating tends to even out during the course of a series
For the record, the Amare/Diaw call was not “egregious” but was in fact in strict adherence to the rules. Maybe that rule itself is “egregious” but not even one owner (Sarver included) has tried to get it changed since that incident. Amare and Diaw were stupid to get off the bench like that, but their punishment fit the exactly what the rule says should have happened. So quit complaining about it (especially in a post about how we fans need to quit complaining about officiating).
Other than that transgression though, I agree with everything else. Nothing worse than seeing fans complain about how officiating screwed them. Of course the worst example of this was the Portland crowd chanting “these refs suck” during a 30 point blowout (they *still* blamed the refs even during that shellacking? Please).
I would like to take this opportunity to point out a particularly good job by the refs this weekend, regarding the reversal of the Brad Miller ejection yesterday. FINALLY they looked at the replay of a wrongful ejection and saw that it wasn’t warranted. I hope to see more of this, since that’s what the replay is there for.
Interesting treatise.
I generally tend to believe that officials don’t decide an NBA game. I also tend to believe that the NBA is the worst-officiated game in professional sports.
Which brings me to Sunday’s Boston-Chicago playoff game. It’s the height of hubris and irresponsibility for the league to assign two Chicago natives to work a game that includes so many unusually questionable calls and non-calls, many which seemed to go against the visitor.
I mean, anyone who thinks that the NBA’s officiating problems began and ended with Tim Donaghy is either The Stern, or spends the remainder of their time on the front porch waiting for someone to bring them a bag of money, a la Theodore “Beaver” Cleaver.
What’s really troubling here is the arrogance of the NBA front office, which willfully allows such an egregious conflict of interest to be carried out, replete with family members making the household’s partisanship visible for all to see.
I hear what you’re saying about officials. I just believe The Stern needs to do a LOT more to clean up the serious credibility questions that exist about his officials.
this is so stupid.
Hey Matt Moore, the main reason the NBA isn’t as popular as it should be is because of how godawful the officiating is. We would be doing oruselves and our fellow fans a disservice by not calling out the officials when they do something stupid or sketchy.
Sorry, but you’re dead wrong. If there is one professional sports league in America whose officiating is so suspect as to reverse the unwritten rule that you don’t blame a loss on the officials, it is the NBA. If anything, in the NBA, especially in the playoffs, the first thing you should look at when evaluating a game is the officiating. The league is crooked. It just is. Accept it. After Miami’s title, the Donaghy scandal, Duncan v. Crawford, how can you say this stuff with a straight face? The worse part is that this has been happening for years and Stern has defiantly refused to do anything about. Meanwhile mainstream media (those who are left anyway) continue to preach the company line, “don’t blame the officials” I welcome the blogosphere’s critical eye on officiating. Mainstream sports media has failed with respect to NBA officiating. FAIL. For that alone, they deserve to die. If you want to join the queue with them, go right ahead but know this, pretending to be mainstream, holding their ideals and trumpeting their dogma, will not exempt you from their fall. NBA officiating is a traveshamockery. It is as big a stain on professional basketball as steroids are on baseball.
So you’re saying it’s not okay for we mere webloggers to use Getty Images?
Premise: Getty or AP owns every damn photographer that’s actually allowed into the press box.
Premise: It is almost impossible to find quality photography of professional sporting events that weren’t taken from the press box.
Premise: It’s $2000 a year to license Getty controlled photography.
Premise: The average blogger can’t afford to invest $2000 a year into their blog.
Conclusion: It’s nearly impossible for the average blogger to afford Getty Images.
(Therefore: It’s nearly impossible for the average blogger to afford putting up pictures of professional sporting events on their blogs legitimately.)
Great post and I know I complain about the refs but for me I don’t pick and choose sides, I just want refs to call games evenly and many times you can see by FT attempts in a game that games aren’t being called evenly and that is frustrating for any team. I know I can’t do anything about it so I do give up, as a basketball player myself I always been baised towards officals since they jacked up a lot of my games but I will take your polite request and chill out.
I think they should extend the use of replay to change calls. Don’t let the refs change stuff while the pace of the game is working, but there’s tons of time during timeouts and quarter breaks to fix horribly broken calls.
I feel special…
Love the post. my team blog reading def DOES go down in the playoffs!
did the NBA pay you guys to write this?
the whole point of the NBA “blogosphere” is that it’s an independent view, a fan’s view, and a more piercing view of the NBA compared with the mainstream media. you already know this of course because you guys write a good blog. but to suggest we should mute our complaints of the refs when in many cases its very warranted (as others have pointed out), is ridiculous. it is in no such way a “disservice” as you claim. team blogs are not “cheapening” anything by blaming refs. they’re doing exactly what they’re supposed to be doing, and that is injecting some opinionated and biased content into the blogosphere for other fans to agree/disagree with.
This blog is pretty right on, gotta’ say. The only defense I have for people who commit these blogging sins is that sometimes I feel that officiating can have an impact on a game. Not necessarily in a conspiracy theory type way, or in a last second horrible call that gives away a game, but in much more subtle ways. I feel like officiating shouldn’t be mentioned, but there might be times when something needs to at least be brought up, like when ít is legimately questionable and impacting a series. Adelman had no problem going to the Houston press about the mistreatment of Yao, and ever since, Yao has been untouchable.
I’m a Portland fan, and I do think the officiating over the course of the series has been a little suspect, but I can say that we’ve deserved every loss we’ve gotten. Does officiating have something to do with it? Who knows. Who knows how things could be different. All I know is that all three of Portland’s losses have been deserved by our play.
Why not stop dancing around the bush and re-title this thing An Open Letter to Blazers’ Edge?
Going to have to disagree. I’d rather the best arguments for and against any effect that officials have on the game get thrown out there and talked over rather than supressed.
I think there’s definitely a perceived officiating issue within the league. Part of this is because of the fast pace and ambiguity of the game, coupled with the way technology has allowed scrutiny of the refs by fans. But there’s a debate to be had about the point swing for which referees can be responsible, that I think is good to have.
Maybe a biased team blog isn’t the best place, but it’s a place where people feel strongly, so it’s a good starting point.
Couldn’t disagree more. In the most recent Celtics/Bulls issue there are 2 factors worth discussing….
1. How the hell is Bill Kennedy considered good enough to ref a playoff game period?
2. Why would he be allowed to ref a Celtics/Bulls game after being fined for his conduct in the last Celtics/Bulls game?
To try and claim people have no right to be upset with bad officiating is ridiculous. It is an opinion! It is exactly what blogs are for, opinions!
For people who aren’t real Boston fans to be upset about what they witnessed would mean they aren’t real fans.
“Smacking them around with bigger bodies?”. Let’s see, KG is out. Powe is out. Mikki Moore weighs 20 pounds. Who, aside from Kendrick Perkins, are they bigger bodies?
If you don’t like “biased” team blogs I have a solution for you: don’t read them!
People in general don’t want to look at truth that does not agree with their own opinions. In this regard sports fans are like rednecks.
Since we can’t blame our own team for a close loss, and we can’t credit the hated opponent for better execution/shooting, then we really are left with banging on the officials.
I too see a number of questionable calls each game, but, over a 7 game series the best team invariably wins. The only time I question that is when D. Wade destroyed the Mavs, but, then again, they also self destructed. I’m neither a Mav or Heat fan.
So you honestly believe that there is an anti-Celtics bias at stake? Honestly? Try running that past people. Just your average human being, try running that by.
They have every right to be upset by bad officiating. It’s a fan’s right to complain. But you add nothing to the conversation. You don’t think the calls are fair? Chicago fans don’t feel the calls are fair. What, magically, you’re the one getting screwed?
Perkins and Davis have bullied Thomas and Noah consistently over four games. And that’s okay! They’re the defending champions and they’re willing to get dirty! Chicago fans shouldn’t complain either! Both sides have arguments.
To claim that there’s a bias AGAINST the Celtics is beyond lunacy. Try floating that one by CelticsBlog or RedsArmy.
The passion of biased sports fans can make a blog great. But hearing that a team that failed to execute lost because of officiating adds nothing to the conversation.
Hell, if you want to write a separate post outlining a blown call, even that I’m fine with. Bad calls happen. But to make blanket statements as if that excuses things like your Finals MVP missing free throws? Weak sauce. Bring more to the conversation. The level of discourse deserves that.
ESPN/NBA employee asks for bloggers to lay off the refs.
I’d laugh if it wasn’t so sad.
I mean, its not like we don’t know for a fact that recently a ref WAS fixing games. No way it could happen again. Why talk about our observations? They might add up to a trend.
/my team didn’t make the playoffs so I don’t have a dog in the fight, except to say that the truth should be told in every occasion.
Artest and battier have only been called for 13 fouls combined in the ENTIRE series guarding an All-NBA player. Oden and Joel Przybilla have a combined 36 in half the minutes. Just sayin sometimes you have to call these things out…
Will you guys stop complaining about the Heat 2006 championship?
Gimme a break, the Mavs choked hard core and Dirk missed HUGE free throws more than once that allowed the Heat to win. Its not the refs fault the Heat won, Wade is just that good and the Mavs choked that bad.
“For people who aren’t real Boston fans to be upset about what they witnessed would mean they aren’t real fans. ”
The preceding sentence has done irreparable damage to my thinkbox. Please type more carefully next time.
Also, with regard to your post in general, DK, he wasn’t saying you don’t have a right to be upset, he wasn’t saying you don’t have a right to your own opinion. Hell, he wasn’t even saying you don’t have a right to complain about individual situations (such as when refs are given seemingly inappropriate assignments). He’s simply saying–and I agree–that too much of the chatter going around the NBA blogosphere revolves around what has become all-too-common mantra of lazy pro hoops writers for the last half-decade: “waaaaaahhhh, the refs are bad and my team suffered for it.”
For what it’s worth, I do think the NBA reffing is sub-par, even taking into account that basketball is maybe the hardest sport to call consistently. And I agree, there should be much written about that. However, if you think you’re contributing to a discussion of the state of NBA refs when you whine that they’re not giving your team calls, you’re a fool. Those who pull for your team will agree and ignore the faults your team put on display for that game, and those that pull for the other will think you’re a hack. If you want to have that conversation, then have it–but don’t use it as cover to make excuses for your team.
/climbs off of soapbox, falls because soapboxes are slippery
This might be one of the best posts I’ve ever read.
I never blame the refs and I am not blaming Matt Moore but if he had only done what we’ve seen him do in ever other blog all season long Amare and Boris would have been so enthralled with his words that they would have never left the bench.
Instead, Matt choose that day to mail it in which lead to the inevitable boneheaded move by two otherwise genius players known for their fortitude and clutchiness.
Matt might try and deflect the blame for the Suns demise on to Steve Kerr and Shaq but we all know that the closing of the Suns window came on that fateful day in spring 2007 when Matt Moore phoned it in.
The funny thing is that there are fans of every team who thinks there’s a conspiracy against their team. Blazers fans think the refs are helping the Rockets and Roy never gets the calls. Rockets fans think Roy gets all the calls and the Rockets are getting screwed by the officials. Celtics fans think there’s a conspiracy against them and the refs are pro- Bulls. Bulls fans will tell you the league wants the Celtics to win. Hornets fans say the Nuggets always get the calls and that’s the reason why the Nuggets are beating them and Paul never gets a single call (tonight the Hornets lost by 58 and it wouldn’t surprise me to see Hornets fans blaming this loss on the refs), Nuggets fans complain about Melo not going to the line enough and complain Paul gets every single call. And so on. Seriously, that’s ridiculous. At times I wonder if people even understand the game and realize that there are lots of reasons why their team lost: missed shots, missed free-throws, turnovers, bad defense etc. Complaining about the refs ALL the times is pathetic.
Basketball is an extremely tough game to officiate. Just think how many judgment calls there are. Judgment calls can go either way, which means there will always be people upset about it. It has always been like that and it will never change. It’s just the nature of the game. Plus, players keep getting biggers, stronger, faster and it’s impossible to see everything. People scream at the refs after watching countless replays from different angles, slow-motion etc. But let’s keep in mind that refs don’t have the luxury to do the same.
Another thing: can you stop complaining about free-throw disparity? Many times it has to do with the fact team A is more aggressive, attacks the basket all the times and the only way to stop them is fouling them. And team B, on the other hand, prefers trying jump shots and never attacks the basket, meaning they aren’t going to draw any fouls, which is what happened in the Cavs/Pistons series. So lots of times free-throw disparity has nothing to do with the refs penalizing a certain team.
And can we please stop saying the league is fixed and crap like that? It’s ridiculous. If that was the case, the Spurs wouldn’t have won so many titles in the past few years. Remember: Spurs=lowest tv ratings ever. And the funny thing is that EVERY single fan base in the league thinks there’s a conspiracy against their team. And not just small market teams’ fans. Even Lakers, Celtics etc. fans think the league hates their teams, hate Kobe and don’t want them to win. Cavs fans are convinced LeBron should get way more calls and the league wants the Cavs to lose so that LeBron gets upset and leave for New York. Go figure.
People, just stop the madness. And stop accusing the refs of being criminals if you don’t have any proof (and no, don’t tell me that bad calls, blown calls etc. are the proof..this has nothing to do with being criminals and fixing games).
While I’d love to say you shouldn’t blame the officials the fact of the matter is the NBA has a serious problem with calling games consistently or remotely well. This has been a horrific on going problem all year, to the point where I couldn’t even stand to watch two neutral(to me) teams play games anymore without wanting to throw stuff at my tv as I watch refs blow call after call.
[...] not even close to a play on the ball, which these days is supposed to be a flagrant foul. However, I’ve been asked to refrain from wagging any fingers at the officials, so I’m not going to complain about that particular ripoff call. (But for the record, Charles [...]
What a joke.
The guy’s making a desperation reach because Miller’s going to score, and somehow that’s a flagrant? Ridiculous.
On a night when the officials decide to foul Ray Allen out while the same Miller hooks him on a grotesquely illegal screen?
The Rondo foul was a hard playoff foul, nothing more.
bulls got robbed. that was a flagrant on Miller.