I hear what youre saying. When i see the a team like the knicks.....even the league can't manipulate them into a winning team. Im not saying it's the WWE.....just think when the playoffs come around......they league has an agenda and they try to get certain matchups.
Im sure there isnt a directive from Stern but by assigning certain officials to a specific series....i think they do their best to give the team the league wants to advance an advantage.
I hear that. I mean the league can definitely put officials with certain biases in certain games, they can even alert the officials on what to look out for. So they can indirectly influence the calls by telling refs to call 3 seconds tighter, or hand checking. I just think reffing is not easy and you see it at every level from grade school, high school, college, to the pros. Have you ever been to a big time high school basketball game? I rather ref in the pros than around those crazy fans and parents.
I mean, even in my mens hockey league the refs know most of the players, they hate some players... if you are losing they tend to let you get away with much more and call it much tighter on the team winning. Basically I think there is a chance that refs can manipulate games based on their bias... I just don't believe it has anything to do with the league telling them to make sure one team wins over the other. I think they do it just because they are humans and the game is hard as shit to ref.