Thread by @tomhaberstroh

👁️THREAD: The NBA assigns its best, most-experienced referees to the Lakers and Warriors. Worst-caliber refs: Magic.

The league almost never puts rookie referees on Lakers, Sixers and Knicks games.

I'll explain the simple way I calculated Ref Rating. (1/x) #basketballilluminati

Each morning, the NBA publicly announces its refs for every game with role assignments (transparency!). Track this for every game and we can see which refs the NBA trusts in its leader role (Crew Chief), secondary role (Referee) and last (Umpire). #basketballilluminati (2/X)

Based on the NBA's roles, I created a very simple 5-point referee rating that a kindergartener could follow. But it's helpful! Once you map every referee with its distribution of roles (CC, R, U), we see a stratified pattern among them. #basketballilluminati (3/X)

Once you calc Ref Rating, you can see which teams receive the top referees. And the evidence is clear that marquee teams get preferential treatment by NBA. The top 5 teams in Ref Rating have been on National TV 80 times. Bottom 5 in Ref Rating?

3.

#basketballilluminati (4/X)

You might be thinking: Wait, do the biggest audiences tend to get the best refs? The trend is obvious. The TV channel with the largest audience (ABC) has the highest Ref Rating. And descends from there. If you're team is only on League Pass, sorry. #basketballilluminati (5/X)

If the National TV factor is not the only one. Once you strip away National TV games, the trend still favors the big-market teams. Even on non-National TV games, the Lakers receive the best referees on average. Wizards, Rockets, Magic still at bottom. #basketballilluminati (6/X)

Giving preferential treatment to Lakers and Warriors is a choice and it may be a smart bit of business! But I'm guessing most teams/fans would want NBA to distribute quality referees evenly among all 30 teams.

More on the #basketballilluminati podcast: open.spotify.com/episode/5jEpze…