Stern must be pleased: Study of N.B.A. Sees Racial Bias in Calling Fouls

[temujin]

Here a few essential twists.

Firstable, it would be EXTREMELY interesting to separate charging fouls from all other fouls and correlate with race.
Those are usually the most questionable calls.

57 players on the active rosters of playoff teams are non-american citizens (plus Bell and Duncan).
The vast majority are whites (38).
Overall, this is 25/28% of active rosters of playoff teams.
How does that very impressive 4.5% of additional fouls called on black players apply to the "international" players?
Is there a bias in favor of international players?
Or against?
Is it fair to have international players BUT american-only referees?

Next, it is absolutely mandatory to calculate the travelling and three seconds violations and correlate both with international/white, international/black, american/black and american/white. Unless the latter cohort is too skinny to have robust data on.

Last, but definitely not the least, is there a correlation between laughing on the bench, technicals and race. I guess this can be limited to international players that have a -valid- american passport.

There is work for AT LEAST two PhDs, 3 years fellowships at $50000/year funded by the generous donations of the MCNCAFF (Mark Cuban Numbers Come Always First Foundation).

Anybody interested?
It would be fascinating.

[CubanMustGo]

Interesting take by Hollinger - what do you bet that Mr. Stats is figuring a way to do some of this analysis himself?

[dallaskd]

of course it does.

[ArgSpursFan]

Now i see why Manu doesnt get that many calls and don´t go to the line like other guards in the league.

[boutons_]

They should study on fouls and ejections vs square feet of tatoos and corn-rows.

[Obstructed_View]

The study did insinuate that, but to a lesser degree.
Again, I am not saying that the study is true and the conclusion correct, but I am still struggling to find the reason for the statistical difference.

Well, since the difference in fouls amounts to significantly fewer than one per game, let's just think about when the most fouls occur in a game, and that's at the end of a game when one team is trying to come back. Since the statistical majority of players on the floor at that time are going to be black and the statistical majority of officials are going to be white then it stands that most of the legitimate, intentional fouls whilstled will be by white officials on black players. That is WAY more than enough to tip the results of the study; do you think Lebron James has more than 11 intentional fouls over the course of the regular season?

[ambchang]

Well, since the difference in fouls amounts to significantly fewer than one per game, let's just think about when the most fouls occur in a game, and that's at the end of a game when one team is trying to come back. Since the statistical majority of players on the floor at that time are going to be black and the statistical majority of officials are going to be white then it stands that most of the legitimate, intentional fouls whilstled will be by white officials on black players. That is WAY more than enough to tip the results of the study; do you think Lebron James has more than 11 intentional fouls over the course of the regular season?

I believe it is 0.2 fouls per player per 48 minutes, so that amounts to 0.2 fouls x 5 players = 1 foul per game.
The statistical majority of the player on the floor at any time is mostly black, and refs mostly black, and I still fail to see how your scenario will affect how the black and white refs will play out. The thing is, if Lebron James commits 11 intentional fouls per game over the course of the season, so will Nash in the same situation, and those should be 11 intentional fouls regardless of whether a black or a white ref is calling it. Refs do not subs ute, and calls throughout the 48 minutes.
Correlation != Causation, but somebody better find a cause.

[Obstructed_View]

I believe it is 0.2 fouls per player per 48 minutes, so that amounts to 0.2 fouls x 5 players = 1 foul per game.
The statistical majority of the player on the floor at any time is mostly black, and refs mostly black, and I still fail to see how your scenario will affect how the black and white refs will play out. The thing is, if Lebron James commits 11 intentional fouls per game over the course of the season, so will Nash in the same situation, and those should be 11 intentional fouls regardless of whether a black or a white ref is calling it. Refs do not subs ute, and calls throughout the 48 minutes.
Correlation != Causation, but somebody better find a cause.

No. Don't get sidetracked. Lebron leads the league in minutes, and he's just used as an example of how small the numbers are; it has nothing to do with what color his skin is.

It is a statistical certainty that there are going to be numerically more intentional fouls called by white refs on black players at the end of games due to the fact that that's who is on the floor at the end of the games. That is enough to skew the stats by 0.8 fouls per game. 1.6 does not equal 2.

[LEONARD]

This study is GARBAGE.

They don't know WHICH ref called the fouls, so in about 2/3 of the games (those in which there are black and white refs together) we don't know if a black ref or white ref called the foul...

GARBAGE

[Obstructed_View]

This study is GARBAGE.

They don't know WHICH ref called the fouls, so in about 2/3 of the games (those in which there are black and white refs together) we don't know if a black ref or white ref called the foul...

GARBAGE

And that's the real killer. Since they had to get all their information from box scores, which don't indicate who blew the whistle, they had to just guess how many whistles went to each ref. That sufficiently muddies the numbers in and of itself.

[SRJ]

Most everyone in this thread has made great points and rendered the study completely meritless.