Basketball Statistics Blog

Sunday's Reflexions on Basketball Statistics:
The Race Relations in the NBA: Fair or Foul ?

Two studies paint contrasting pictures of race relations in the National Basketball Association. The New York Times released data from a study conducted over the course of 13 NBA seasons, which found that white referees called more fouls against Black players than against white players.

This study came out at the same time that Baron Davis and Stephen Jackson got tossed out of their playoff game against the Dallas Mavericks for clapping (no, not cussing, fouling or fighting, but clapping). This study affirms allegations of racism from several critics of the NBA, who point to the NBA’s age limit, dress code and other policies, as unfair and biased against Black players.

Afterward, the MSNBC reported a study which reached a very different conclusion: “When it comes to handling race in sports, nobody does it better than the NBA”

This study, released by the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports at the University of Central Florida, has found that the NBA has the highest percentages of VPs and office personnel of color in professional men’s sports history.

The NBA also has the only Black CEOs and presidents, and with 12 Black head coaches, leads pro sports in diversity. How do these statistics weigh against the previous study in regards to claims of progressive vs. prejudiced NBA policy? How can Black owners and coaches lobby for equal treatment of Black players (or should they)?

Photograph: Pro Basketball Talk

Trying to analyze those researches, I remembered the words of Phil Jackson when he said "you can almost make statistics prove what you want to prove. If you’re looking for it, of course you’re going to find it!”

After reading the 43 pages paper, I reached my own conclusions from the point of view of the statistics and numbers.
The NBA study includes only a fraction of the number of games (and fouls) in the original study. It fails to control for the countless variables included (position and size of players, all-star status, etc.).

The study is relied on publicly available “box scores” that show, among other statistics, the number of fouls each player received in the game. The race of the referees was categorized for each game in terms of the racial composition of the three-person crew, since from the "box scores" there is no way of knowing which of the three referees called fouls on which of the players. Consequently, a crew was either categorized as all-white, all-black, 2/3 white or 1/3 white.

Therefore, without being able to distinguish with exactitude which referee called a foul on which player, the controversy based on experimental data, not on a theory, from the authors of that post "Race Relations in the NBA" about racial influence in an unfair way is hold in suspicion when we apply standard statistics analysis.

Selected excerpts from the discussions at the eBA Annual Analysis System Clinic Chat about this topic "Professional Basketball".

This topic is resumed in the eBA Basketball Statistics Analysis System
at the eBA Encyclopedia > The Articles

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