[Kelvin green]

[QUOTE=Da Official;591614]"The NBA data, released in early May by Justin Wolfers, a public policy professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and Joseph Price, a Cornell University economics graduate student and doctoral candidate, concluded that black players received between 0.12 and 0.21 more fouls per 48 minutes when the number of white referees officiating a game increased from zero to three. The study reported that white players were also discriminated against in games officiated by allblack referee crews (“The News” 7/07)."

QUOTE]

What utter nonsense... ..2 fouls more per player per ball game. that is so statistically insignificant ... 1 foul difference in a game? Give me a break

" Mr. Wolfers and Mr. Price also report a statistically significant correlation with decreases in points, rebounds and assists, and a rise in turnovers, when players performed before primarily opposite-race officials.

“Player-performance appears to deteriorate at every margin when officiated by a larger fraction of opposite-race referees,” they write. The paper later notes no change in free-throw percentage. “We emphasize this result because this is the one on-court behavior that we expect to be unaffected by referee behavior.”


They blamed a decrease in scoring, rebounds and assists and increased number of turnovers on the officiating crew...

They never did look at whether the call was right or not.

Even this study's raw data says.

compared to white players, black players play more minutes per game (weighted means—30.7 minutes vs 27.2 minutes; while the unweighted means among those with positive playing time are 25.0 vs 20.5).

Black players receive about the same number of fouls per game (2.55 vs 2.53) as white players, but receive fewer fouls per 48 minutes played (4.33 vs. 4.97).
The differences in foul rates largely reflect the fact that white players tend to be taller, heavier, and more likely to play center than black players. (wasnt their a movie with a name that told us that?)

They create some foul rate and break it down by crews...

Their conclusion in their study

We find that players earn up to 4% fewer fouls and score up to 2½% more points on nights in which their race matches that of the refereeing crew. Player statistics that one might think are unaffected by referee behavior are uncorrelated with referee race. The bias in foul-calling is large enough that the probability of a team winning is noticeably affected by the racial composition of the refereeing crew assigned to the game.

Non sense because it is team effort... A team's probablitity of winning is effected by their numbers....Just dont think so.

Break this down (even assuming this is true)..They do a whole bunch of math and economic wizardry Kobe Bryant scores (assuming scores 40 points per game) scores 1 point more in a game when he has an all black crew as opposed to an all white crew.. The authors claim that since so may games are decided in OT or by one point that this is statistically significant...

They try to equate dynamics in games but how do you deal with the home court versus away. LA playing in Boston as opposed to Oklahoma. Teams with better players, players with higher salaries? Teams with better benches, points scored per minues, who is in the gameat the end.... (ad nauseum)

they also state In addition, it is generally believed that coaches have some influence over the decision of referees. If the own-race bias of the referees extends to the race of the coach then we would expect a coach of a particular race to have more influence when a larger fraction of their referees are of his race, especially when facing a coach of the opposite race. ... shows some weakly suggestive evidence of bias against opposite-race coaches; the magnitude of the coach effect is equal roughly equivalent to the effect of the race of a single player, but quite imprecisely estimated

I could do some sort of regression model that shows that when the full moon is out there are more points, or defense are better on thursdays than Fridays, There may be some bias out there but I think most of it is more percieved than not...

They still never do tell us out of the 600,000 foul calls how many were wrong or right. Nor do they analyze the no call and how many were made (go figure no data from a box score they used)... I wonder how they would do that study, or how about the one that superstars get less calls than the rookie? or that subs get more fouls than starters. I know how about fouls ber dollar earned? (Bill Lambier would have been the lowest paid player in the league)