NBA referees prejudiced?

Amazing (but typical) story from Sports Illustrated today in which a study claims that white NBA referees are biased against black players -- they call more fouls on black players than white players.

To which I ask the question: There are white players in the NBA??

OK, seriously -- I'm not nearly a statistics expert, but nowhere in the article is it explained how the vast disparity between the number of black players and white players in the NBA was taken into account. Nowhere. I mean, if upwards of 80%+ of the NBA is black, the much greater likelihood of even all players on the court at one time being black! And then, what about positions played? Many (most?) fouls occur underneath the hoop which is usually dominated by the taller players. How many white centers and forwards are there in the NBA compared to black?

The NBA hotly disputes the research and appears to back up their refutations quite well in the article:

The NBA strongly criticized the study, which was based on information from publicly available box scores, which show only the referees' names and contain no information about which official made a call.

"The study that is cited in The New York Times article is wrong," president of league and basketball operations Joel Litvin told The Associated Press on Tuesday night. "The fact is there is no evidence of racial bias in foul calls made by NBA officials and that is based on a study conducted by our experts who looked at data that was far more robust and current than the data relied upon by Professor Wolfers.

"The short of it is Wolfers and Price only looked at calls made by three-man crews. Our experts were able to analyze calls made by individual referees."

Litvin said in an original version of the paper, dated March 2006, Wolfers and Price came to the conclusion that there was no bias. He added that the NBA's research "all prove beyond any doubt in our minds that these guys are just flat wrong."

Well, come on, Mr. Litvin! How else to get a study noticed than by invoking the 'ol "racism" charge??

At any rate, SI plays the usual game with the "scary" headline: Study: White officials call more fouls on black players. Oh, and also mentioned in the article was that the study "also found that black officials called fouls more frequently against white players than black, but noted that that tendency was not as pronounced." Oho! Black officials appear to show bias too! Not worthy of a headline, of course! And again, perhaps it's "not as pronounced" for black refs ... because there just aren't many white dudes in the league?

Even if the vast disparity in player numbers was taken into account (which I'm sure it was somehow, but again, I'm not expert enough to judge and the article never mentions it anyway), could it be that black players actually DO foul more? This sort of reminds me of the situation in education where the question is often asked "Why are black students disciplined more often than white students?" and the one answer that is usually never considered is "maybe it is because they just misbehave more often?" Instead, [white] teacher bias -- and racism -- are invoked as the culprits.

Hey, let's apply an education "solution" to the NBA problem here: Multicultural training for all NBA referees. [White] refs need to realize that what may be a foul in white culture isn't necessarily a foul in black culture. After all, since blacks tend to play more "street ball" when growing up, that kind of play tends to be more "freelance," hence a bit "rougher." Fouls aren't called as often. Therefore, white refs need to consider this before blowing the whistle against a [black] player.

Just a thought!

Posted by Felix at May 2, 2007 03:37 PM | TrackBack