Officiating always seems to come under the microscope during the NBA Playoffs. There are some truisms spouted about in the media about how playoff basketball is a much more rough and tumble brand of basketball and further the Refs let them play more. Is this accurate?
I have mentioned in previous posts how some of Tim Donaghy’s alleged betting methods were debunked over at True Hoop.
One of the games that Donaghy and his crew bet was a February 26th 2007 game withMIA @ NYK.
In his book Donaghy explains why he decided to bet on NYK -3
Madison Square Garden was the place to be for a marquee matchup between the Miami Heat and New York Knicks. I worked the game with Derrick Stafford and Gary Zielinski, knowing that the Knicks were a sure bet to get favorable treatment that night. Derrick Stafford had a close relationship with Knicks coach Isiah Thomas, and he despised Heat coach Pat Riley. I picked the Knicks without batting an eye and settled in for a roller-coaster ride on the court.
I’ll be looking specifically at the following game;
Tick by tick line history for this game from Pinnacle;
This game has very sharp and pronounced line movement. The line opens with Houston a 2 point favorite, and closes with Orlando a 1.5 point favorite.
Looking over archived injury alerts for this day there were no urgent messages or late messages that would have caused such a large line movement. Why then did this game move so much more than other Donaghy games?
I think one possible reason would be that at this point Donaghy and Battista had been working together for almost 3 months - and the books and people they were betting with started to take notice. It’s also very likely that another group not involved with Donaghy and Battista also liked this game and were betting it as well - either way the line moved a fair bit.
Another relevant detail in this game was HOU had been playing without a backup PG for some time now - this will become important as we go over some of the calls.
In poker we refer to “tells”
There is a famous scene in Rounders where Mike discovers KGBs tell;
Here is Donaghy’s tell;
Call 1
HOU 22 ORL 13
I wholeheartedly believe that if you had no prior knowledge to which side Donaghy and his crew bet, or weren’t privy to any type of inside information (be it testimony - or access to some of his wagering accounts) and you wanted to know which side Donaghy bet on - merely looking at his his illegal defense call would be quite the start.
Here are the 16 fouls+violations that Donaghy called in the HOU@ORL game mentioned.
In my last post I linked to a rather benign possession on a play that may or may not have been a marginal call by Tim Donaghy. One could argue that if Donaghy really wanted to fix games he could have called been even more blatant and called an offensive foul on Shaquille. In general this isn’t how Donaghy operated, what Donaghy actually did do was to try and avoid the really blatantly bad calls as much as possible and instead focused on exerting a collection of very marginal or questionable calls in the favor of his team.
Later on we’ll see that he didn’t always succeed in avoiding making the really blatantly bad calls but for now lets focus on what I feel is a clear pattern of Donaghy making a collection of calls that favor the side he is betting on -
One of the things I talked about in my previous post was how altering around 6 points per game will get you to around 70% likelihood of covering the spread. I also talked about how each possession has a rough expected value or “ev”.
You can actually get quite detailed in your assessments of what a given possession means in terms of ev for a particular team. For instance the ev of an offensive possession for the Cleveland Cavaliers with LeBron James on the floor is much different than it would be without LeBron James.
For our purposes we’ll just use very basic league-wide averages to assess the “ev” of a particular play. Here is one example;
This is from a game played on February 26th 2007 with the Miami Heat playing at the New York Knicks.
The betting line “opened” with the Knicks as a 3 point favorite. The closing line had the Knicks favored by 4.5 points. The line move was not due to any injuries or late game information so its fair to say that the line moved 1.5 points due to someone betting a largish amount of money on NYK.
Its fair to say that the bulk of the insider money on this move (the originators) was placed at a line of NYK -3, with the stragglers or those following the bets may have placed wagers at -3.5 and -4.
Here is the play in question;
Tim Donaghy officiated 69 Regular season games in the 2006-2007 NBA Season. It is my belief that he bet nearly all of them. Assuming he actually biased his officiating based on the team he wagered on, why then have the NBA or others found it so difficult to assert that he actually fixed games?
One thing to note;
Donaghy wagered exclusively on sides. I am not sure why this is the case and I think that totals are eminently more easy to influence than a side I’ll probably go into why this is (and why the not so bright Donaghy chose sides instead of totals in a future post). But for now just believe me when I say that they bet sides and not totals. I’ll also add that in all testimony Donaghy and his cohorts only mentioned betting on sides.
In my last post I alluded to the fact that Tim Donaghy only had a vested interest in the games he officiated. Remember that Donaghy claimed that he didn’t actually bet on the games. Instead he claimed that he would receive payment from his co-consiparators James Battista and Thomas Martino if the team he selected won.
This is not unusual in the gambling business, its known as working on a freeroll and its quite common. I’d also offer that that its not that different from actually wagering on a game. Its clear that Donaghy still had a vested interest in the games he officiated.
I am going to focus primarily (for now) on the 2007 NBA Season as this is the season that Donaghy began working with Martino and Battista.
Battista makes it quite clear in several interviews (HBO Real Sports did a great piece) that he was uninterested in betting on any games that Donaghy wasn’t officiating.
I have added the Opening Line, the Closing line as well as the other 2 officials. Note that I am using my own database for the lines which may differ from other sources. The line I use for the opening line is the actual widely available line (wa lines) at approximately 6:00am PST the day of the games. The actual time will vary from game to game but the general idea is that the first time a games market is full, this is the opening line.
By full market I mean that generally you will be able to place a wager of between 50-100k on a full game side, and ~40k on a full game total. These numbers will vary depending on the size of your market and the number of outs (places you can bet). Why is this important?
If you believe (as I do) that the people working with Donaghy were intending to bet as much money as possible on these games (why wouldn’t you) then its clear that the earliest possible time they would be able to bet these games would be at around 6:00am PST the day of the games. I’ll outline later on why even using the 6:00am opening line as your benchmark line for detecting movement doesn’t always work either in another post.
So now that we have a list of the 2007 Donaghy and the opening and closing lines which games then did Donaghy and his crew bet on?
All of them.
I mentioned last week that I’d be sharing some of my thoughts on whether or not Tim Donaghy fixed games. As a primer I highly recommend you read the following two articles posted by Henry Abbott of True Hoop.
Tim Donaghy Addresses the Research
The cliffs on the above two articles go like this;
Tim Donaghy goes through great lengths to explain how he was able to be so successful betting on NBA basketball games he officiated while not influencing the outcomes. The Donaghy camp provides details to some of his techniques “Bet on underdogs when Dick Bavetta is officiating” “Bet against Allen Iverson teams when Steve Javie is officiating” are two examples.
All of the angles that Donaghy provides are debunked and Donaghy responds
“”These are some of the criteria that I used,” Donaghy says. “I’m not saying I bet every game. … You can spin the stats any way you want … The FBI investigated thoroughly. … To sit here and say there was a science to how I did this, with the stats you’re throwing at me. … Based on the information you’re using, with your equation, it’s not even in the same ballpark. There were other factors that came into play. Inside information about injuries. Home game or away game. Home crowd. Many more factors to take into consideration.”
Of course this is all bullshit, as far as I can tell the only criteria Donaghy considered when he was betting on NBA games was whether or not he was actually slated to officiate the game -
[video]
Who made the call?
There were 65 *calls made in Game 2 of the Utah and Denver series last night, here is the breakdown of which referee made which call (click on ref name to get details for each ref).
31 Calls
18 Calls
16 Calls
Here is a summary of each referee grouped by the type of call and who the called favored.
* calls being actual whistles for infractions or violations that were made by only ONE ref. We ignored calls where 2 or more refs simultaneously made the same call as well as infractions where it was unclear which referee made the call.
Recently a few people have posted their 2010 All Defensive teams on that note I present to a list of players who have play *significant minutes and are the worst defenders at their positions.
1st Team;
PG Johnny Flynn
Normally I’d be loathe to include a rookie on any list, especially one that plays the PG one of the more difficult positions to play as a rookie. But Johnny Flynn really set himself apart from the rest of the league in his inability/unwillingness to defend.
His 1 year defensive APM numbers have him at a net -7.09, his unadjusted numbers having his team giving up nearly 3 points more per 100 possessions on defense.
SG Kevin Martin
Kevin Martin is an interesting player, on offense he has one of the quickest first steps of any SG guard in the league. On defense, not so much. A lot of his defensive inefficiencies are the result of his penchant for gambling and leaving / losing his man. But even that aside, he is simply not physically equipped to be an adequate or average NBA defender.
Kevin Martin is one of the most efficient potent offensive players in the league but yet he has always been a net negative for any team he has played on - the reason for that is his lack of defensive ability and effort.
One of the overlooked aspects of Houston’s acquisition of Martin is how much this will trickle down to Yao and the other bigs. Martin will certainly get his team in offense in the penalty with his ability to draw fouls, unfortunately he does the same on defense.
SF Andres Nocioni
This is a tough one, generally players at the SF position are the best defenders on their team. Nocioni is in a tough spot because although he isn’t big enough to play PF, he is also too slow to play the SF position. Although he isn’t a horrible defensive player, he is most likely the worst defensive player to have played significant minutes at the 3.
If I could fudge around a bit and put Yi as a SF he would supplant Nocioni as the starting SF, unfortunately he is playing the most of his minutes at the PF position and its hard to rate him worse than Charlie V although its close.
PF Charlie Villaneuva
There was a quote early in the season where John Kuester stated that until he had a few weeks to be around Charlie V, he didn’t really know just what Charlie could do - presumably this was a compliment. I think given another 4 months or so he’d likely restate the above, but not in a complimentary fashion.
Charlie V’s one year adjusted Defensive rating has him at a -6.13, he scarcely keeps his man in front of him and doesn’t defensive rebound particularly well.
C Andrea Bargnani
This was a close call between Andrea and Al Jefferson but I think Andrea’s lack of athleticism gives him the slight edge. Andrea’s one year defensive adjusted +/- rating is a staggering -9.13 and although adjusted plus minus rankings should be taken with a rather large grain of salt (especially 1 year ratings) when I substitute Andrea for any other starting center in the league, Toronto’s defensive numbers improve across the board.
Honorable Mentions;
JJ Barea
Jeff Green
Yi Jianlin
Drew Gooden
Al Jefferson
Will Bynum
Jordan Farmar
Derek Fisher
David West
I went ahead and placed these players onto a team and simulated a game with them vs a slightly above average team (Boston Celtics)
here are the Four Factor Results of such a simulation (50,000 games)
The way our simulation works is we simulate the game in 3 different parts;
The 1st half (first)
2nd Half minus the last 2 mins of the 4th quarter (second) + first 3 mins of any OT
The last 2 mins of the 4th quarter or Overtime.
The reason we do it this way is the end game scenarios vary greatly depending on the score and situation.
This year I am taking part in the True Hoop Stat Geek Smackdown. In addition to providing the series winner as well as a projected number of games, we were asked to provide some brief analysis.
Here then are my selections;
Eastern Conference
The only real chance Chicago has of sneaking a game or two in this series is if Cleveland struggles some trying to get Shaq back into the rotation. If I was Cleveland I’d keep O’Neal in mothballs and trot him out there in the ECFinals to start each half against Howard and the Magic. Which by the way should be the actual NBA Finals as Cleveland and Orlando are far and away the two best teams in the league.
Orlando in 5
Orlando has the sharpest best coach in the league, the best defensive player in the league and seems to understand better than most that a 3 point shot is worth more than a 2 point shot. The lone advantage Charlotte might have in this series is Gerald Wallace vs Rashard Lewis, unfortunately for Wallace after getting by Lewis on the perimeter he’ll most likely be faced with Howard in the paint.
Atlanta in 5
I’d have made this series near a pickem on a neutral floor if Bogut was healthy, unfortunately he isn’t and Atlanta has HCA. Milwaukee should look to go small in this series playing Ilyasova at the 5 when Kurt Thomas comes off the floor, if they do that and shoot the 3 ball well they have a chance of making this a fun 1st round series.
Boston in 6
Just how good is Dwyane Wade? Take a look at his supporting cast and get back to me, Miami basically played playoff basketball all season really minimizing the number of possessions in a game and protecting the ball. As bad as Boston has looked this year unless Udonis Haslem can shoot around 70% on wide open mid range 2s after Wade is doubled on the high screen roll, it’ll be awfully tough for Miami to win.
LA in 7
This will be a tough series for the Lakers who are probably the worst #1 seed the West has seen in a number of years. They are probably at best the 3rd or 4th best team in their conference, luckily for them they are playing an extremely young OKC team that may have some trouble adjusting to the Playoffs their first go of it. OKC has a decided advantage at the PG position and although Durant is by far their most valuable player, in this series the play of Westbrook and Harden will likely decide the series for OKC. If Westbrook can abuse Fisher / Farmar and Brown (as he should) then this could and should be a long tough series for the Lakers.
Dallas in 7
Good news for Dallas they drew the 2 seed and have HCA vs any team not named the Lakers, the bad news? They face one of the top 3 teams in the conference in the first round. I think most would agree that the Spurs are one of the hotter teams in the west at this point. This series should be a good example of why the NBA is a matchup league and not a power ranking league. Dallas strengths matchup pretty closely with the Spurs weaknesses.
Phoenix in 5
Without a healthy Brandon Roy it’ll be extremely tough for the Blazers to win more than 2 games in this series. The acquisition of Camby has really helped Portland but they are facing a very good team that is playing exceptionally well. The main weakness on this Phx squad is having Collins and Frye at the C position. Portland doesn’t really have anyone to exploit that too much also look for Admundson to play a decent role in the playoffs for the Suns as he has played very well of late.
Denver in 7
This is a tough series for me to pick mainly because I am somewhat in denial regarding just how much a bench coach is worth. Karl coached the Nuggets all year, they are playing a system he installed. Their current coach has been a longtime assistant under this head coach and has been with the team all year. How important could in game adjustments and lineup shuffling be? When you go from George Karl to Adrian Dantley, apparently very important. Denver can and should win this series, whether they will is another story
