I'll tell you why: I once read a book by an old NBA ref, Earl Strom. He discussed this very thing. Admitted stars get star calls. Why? I'll paraphrase, but essentially he said it's because it's a stars' league. People pay to see these incredible athletes -- the stars -- do sensational things. So they get the benefit of the doubt, and they get extra room to do what others cannot.
Basically, the best players get to play an easier game than the players who aren't as good as them. Makes total sense.
The NBA has steered it into a stars league. It used to be a teams league. It was more about city rivalries. Baseball is still a city rivalry league. The NFL is as well. The NBA is the only stars league in pro sports, and I blame the NBA/David Stern/and now AAU.
Did the announcers "miss" that? I didn't. They kept saying Kanter ran into him until someone finally showed them the correct angle.
Is that the same book where he talked about how if a ref called anything on a star player at the end of a game he'd get called on the carpet?
I can say with a near certainty with the shit that Jokic has been getting away with if Nurkic was playing there would have been several confrontations between Nurk and the joker, at the minimum
It was like watching a Nuggets home game. Horrible. I couldn't believe how all they talked about was Denver, even though we were winning.
Basketball is the only sport that can be a "stars" league--in no other sport can one player carry a team to being pretty good, or two to three players carry a team to being a contender. Even in football--the Packers were a bad team last year despite Aaron Rodgers, because the rest of their roster was barren. Baseball, football and hockey have too large of rosters for teams to succeed based on one or two great or transcendent talents. The Angels haven't achieved much with Mike Trout, a top-five player in the history of the game. Basketball also allows you to funnel everything through your star if you want. Football has some of that only if your star happens to be the quarterback--baseball has none of that. So there are structural reasons why basketball is such a star-driven league. That's why the marketing is around stars. Pretty much since marketing has been a major thing in basketball, stars have lined the marquee. Even in the "good old days" of Los Angeles-Boston, the marquee was Magic vs. Bird. That specific star rivalry has been credited many, many times for turning basketball into a mainstream, prime time sport.
No hyperbole here, I counted TEN uncalled fouls on Jokic (also not counting whatever the shove could've/should've been) and I wasn't even looking for them. It's one thing for a star player to get away with a few fouls, but what that fat fuck is getting away with is just ludicrous. I hate whiny teams, but at some point I'd like Stotts or Dame to say something and make it a bigger deal. Feels like we're always turning the other cheek...
In 20 years, some dude will write a computer program to analyze all of the traveling and other stupid shit that doesn't get called, and re-evaluate NBA history. They'll probably take away a couple of the Bulls trophies.
Ugh, that just reminded me that it's not just fouls that have been called differently between the two teams but also traveling and KICK BALLS!
The refereeing is ABHORRENT.... That FAT BITCH (God I hate Jokic now) should've fouled out on that Dame drive. Completely hacked his arm. For all the people complaining about star calls, how come our stars never seem to get them?
We certainly got away with a few ourselves, but I truly don't think its exaggeration to suggest that Jokic could've had 20 fouls called on him last night. Maybe that's being a little ticky tacky and not accounting for the added physicality of the playoffs, but I counted at least 5 alone on either swiping our defenders' hands away on backdowns or using his off-arm to shield when going up for layups (and again, was only casually paying attention to that aspect of the game). By the book, each one of those is a foul and they were plain as day, yet not one got called on him all night long. The crazy thing is, I'm really struggling to figure out the reasoning behind it... Is it possible that NBA refs truly are just that bad? It would seem like -- especially given how the OKC series ended -- Dame would have greater star power than Jokic, yet he can't seem to buy a foul call going to the basket and Jokic both gets a ton of fouls called on us AND somehow none against him... Denver's not a major media market, they don't have an especially strong brand -- there doesn't seem to be any apparent "narrative" reason why the NBA would push Denver to win the series... Fuck it. Let's just take care of business and have the backing of the entire world (minus the Bay Area and the league) in the WCF...
