Matt Yglesias examines home court advantage in the NBA, acknowledges that officiating may be a factor, but is skeptical that it is sufficient to account for the scale of the home court advantage.
First, I have no doubt that there is a home court advantage to officiating, and there always will be so long as the officials are human and the game is played in arenas filled with fans rooting for one team. If LeBron James collides in the lane with an opposing player, the official will more often than not make the call that will not result in 20,000 people howling at him. This isn’t an indictment of the officials, just an acknowledgement that they’re human.
This probably adds up to only a few calls a game, which, as Yglesias writes, does not fully account for the scale of home court advantage.
More importantly, everyone, including the players, know these biases exist. Since they are playing to win, they will take this into account. How might they do this?
A home player might:
- drive to the basket more and force the official to make a call one way or the other.
- play defense more aggressively knowing he might not be called for as many fouls
- argue calls he does get to get the crowd on the officials
A visiting player might:
- launch jump shots rather than drive to the basket rather than drive to the basket and risk a no-call.
- shy away from contact on defense
- not argue calls as aggressively.
Basketball has another factor that amplifies this impact — basketball players are ejected from the game after six personal fouls. So if a visiting player picks up a questionable foul or two, he has one more reason to act passively.*
Doubt this happens? Remember, the Miami Heat won a championship two years ago with an offense mostly based on Dwyane Wade hurtling himself toward the rim and hoping to draw a foul.
I think there’s a larger lesson here — any injustice or inequity in a system has an impact greater than that incident itself if it feeds into a perception that the entire system is rigged. Sure, it may not be such a huge injustice if a black guy gets a speeding ticket while a white woman doesn’t. But if the black man starts thinking that the deck is hopelessly stacked against him, or if the white woman starts thinking she is immune from prosecution, then that could lead to more serious problems.
*Incidentally, I know baseball is the national pastime, but it seems to me that for “three strikes” laws, fouling out of a basketball game would be a superior metaphor. Getting put in jail for the rest if your life is more akin to being thrown out of the game than just striking out. Not that we should be basing our criminal law on arbitrary rules of sports, anyway, but…
