What racial bias?
According to a recent article in The New York Times, a study has shown that there is a racial bias in calling fouls in NBA games. A University of Pennsylvania professor and a Cornell grad student conducted the study, and they recorded the foul-calling data from 1991 to 2003.
The study showed that white referees, who account for 68 percent of all total NBA referees, called fouls on black players more extensively — in fact, at a 4.5 percent higher rate.
They pulled the data from public box scores, which tallies up the fouls and the referees. In addition, the study took other details into consideration: players’ positions, fame, playing time, home games or away games, and other necessary data.
The study’s results have been met with mixed opinions. Mark Cuban, the vocal owner of the Dallas Mavericks, did not disagree with the study.
“We’re all human. We all have our own prejudice. That’s the point of doing statistical analysis. It bears it out in this application, as in a thousand others,” said Cuban.
However, two African-American veteran NBA players are totally indifferent to the situation.
“If that’s going on, then it’s something that needs to be dealt with,” Mike James said. “But I’ve never seen it.”
David Stern, NBA commissioner, dismissed the study based on the faulty public data.
“We think our cut at the data is more powerful, more robust, and demonstrates that there is no bias,” Mr. Stern said.
However, with a database of 600,000 foul calls, a 4.5 percent increase in foul calls for black players is pretty suspicious. For NBA teams, that is more than enough to determine who wins and who loses.
I think this study further supports something that we already know about our society whether we like it or not: Extensive amounts of racial biases exist.
“It’s not about basketball — it’s about what happens in the world,” said David Berri, a sports statistical analyst. “Given that your league is mostly African-American, maybe you should have more African-American referees — for the same reason that you don’t want mostly white police forces in primarily black neighborhoods.”
Either David Stern is the most naive person on earth or he is trying to sugarcoat the situation. Whatever the case, the least he can do is to admit to the problem and do something about it. Whether there is acutally something that can be done to change the situation is a totally different question.
As a commissioner, Stern’s job should be to fix apparent problems, not to deny that they exist.
— Ranny Ma
Comments
Come on Ranny, background check that study man. Their data didn’t take into account the official who called the foul, just whether the crew was predominantly one race. The study was also given individual referee info by the NBA, and chose to ignore it in their study. Players know what constitutes a foul and what doesn’t, if they have never accused ref’s of having racial bias, and don’t agree with the study, I would trust them.
Posted by: Mike Renner | May 9, 2007 7:47 PM
The bottom line is that reffing is not an exact science. You can’t deny the refs are subconsciously giving one team the advantage or looking to throw a player out (Tim Duncan). And part of that human nature obviously is racial bias. The difference might be subtle, but once you have collected enough data, you can make a claim. And plus I would trust those facts over what the players or what David Stern says, who is trying to cover his ass. Also, I think further evidence can be found to support this idea if they did studies in other sports. For instance, check the flags in the NFL. Or check the ump’s strike zone in baseball. Regardless of what sport you talk about, there is a human aspect, and racial bias is unfortunately part of it.
Posted by: Ranny Ma | May 10, 2007 11:39 AM