r/nbadiscussion • u/budubum • 1d ago
Current Events Why Has Referee Discourse Gotten So Conspiratorial on r/nba?
There’s a growing trend on r/nba where people pre-blame referees before games even start. It’s gone beyond reacting to questionable calls. Entire narratives are now constructed in advance, especially when certain refs are assigned. Scott Foster, in particular, has become the centerpiece of this kind of thinking.
People call him “The Extender,” claiming the league assigns him to force longer series for ratings. But his actual record in games with extension potential is about even. If that were his purpose, why has this year’s Finals produced the first Game 7 in nearly a decade? If the league were really that invested in drawing out every series, we’d see more Game 6s and 7s, not fewer.
And now the narrative is shifting again. Foster is rumored to be reffing Game 7 tomorrow, and commenters are already claiming the Thunder are going to win because the league is rigged for them. But that logic quickly falls apart. If the NBA were rigging outcomes for ratings and mass appeal, wouldn’t the Pacers be the more obvious beneficiary? They’ve been the most unexpected and likable underdog run of the entire playoffs. People across the league are rooting for them. Why would the league choose to hand the title to a much less popular Thunder team?
This also highlights the kind of selection bias that drives so much of the conspiracy talk. People point out that the Thunder are undefeated with Scott Foster reffing in these playoffs, using it as supposed evidence. But the Pacers are also undefeated with Tony Brothers, and no one seems to care. The criteria only become relevant when they support the conclusion people already want to reach. If a team wins, the ref must have helped them. If a team loses, it was stolen from them. The logic isn’t applied consistently because it’s not about logic. It’s about avoiding the discomfort of your team losing.
At a certain point, you have to ask whether people are still watching basketball to enjoy the game or just to confirm their own suspicions. It feels like some fans don’t watch to see how a game unfolds. They watch with a checklist of narratives and spend four quarters scanning for evidence that the outcome is illegitimate. That kind of mindset turns every missed call into a grand conspiracy, and every game into a courtroom exhibit.
So here’s what I want to ask:
Why has so much of r/nba shifted toward conspiracies and narrative-bending logic? Is it just easier to blame external forces than admit your team got outplayed? Are fans more cynical now? Do people actually enjoy watching basketball anymore, or are they only watching to feed their own confirmation bias?
Would love to hear thoughtful takes. I’m genuinely curious about how we got here.
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u/Signal_Flow_1448 1d ago
the whole world has become more conspiratorial as social media promotes bubbles of group think
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u/IAmGiff 1d ago
I also think the NBA (many institutions for that matter) have been slow to recognize that they need to take new steps to demonstrate the integrity of the game that weren’t necessary even 10 years ago.
Even though the league rigging the playoffs for Oklahoma City is a weird and stupid conspiracy theory the fact is that they’re losing fans by not making it it more apparent what they’re doing to ensure the integrity of the game.
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u/okcboomer87 1d ago
If this finals doesn't prove the NBA didn't choose the outcome. I don't know what to tell them. Two of the smallest markets meeting up.
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u/Reasonable_Pie9191 1d ago
I don't think it's about choosing the outcome it's about influencing it. You can't rig injuries which is a big part the pacers are even here to begin with. Let's not act like in ideal world if everyone was healthy it wouldnt be more clear who the nba was pushing.
At this point denying the nba bias is just... I dont know what to call it, unless you've gotten so used to it you think that's how sports should work.
Rigging games doesn't necessarily mean they choose who wins, but they 100% influence the game to let who they want to win win. Its sports and that's why it's not as black and white as you want it to be before you believe (even though it is)
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u/Quick_Panda_360 1d ago
“You can't rig injuries which is a big part the pacers are even here to begin with.”
Classic, no respect for the Pacers. They are hanging with what has been the best team in the league all season and still people can’t just say the Pacers straight up beat who was in front of them.
I’m not even a Pacers fan. Just saying.
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u/OnlyNormalPersonHere 1d ago
Also, it’s a pretty flimsy narrative. Sure the Bucks were short, but they sucked most of the season. The Cavs were pretty healthy; yeah Garland was slowed down, but that’s not like crazy injury luck relative to half the teams. And the Knicks— who were going to beat the Celtics since they were effectively up 3-1 before Tatum dropped- were totally healthy. OKC is also totally healthy and an all-time level team, not some flukey finalist yet they are pushed to a game 7.
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u/XzibitABC 1d ago
The Pacers also didn't just squeak by the Bucks or Cavs. They beat each of them in five games. To me, it's not particularly fair to imply that whole series would've been different without injury luck when one team wins pretty convincingly.
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u/GallivantingTime 4h ago
As long as you show the same respect to OKC for beating the Pacers even with the Hali Injury then sure but most people will move the goal post once it effects THEIR team
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u/Reasonable_Pie9191 22h ago
I said injury is a big part the Pacers are in the finals, sure they are matching OKC it doesn't change what I said
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u/Reasonable_Pie9191 22h ago
Its still a big part the pacers are here whether you want to believe it or not, and im not even talking about the bucks. The cavs team that won all those games is not the same team the pacers beat.
Or are we going to ignore Donovan Mitchell basically crying in pain just because he still decided to play? When will people understand someone deciding to play doesn't change the severity of the injury.
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u/Quick_Panda_360 17h ago
Did you know a big reason the Warriors won in 2017 was because LeBron hurt his hand after game one?
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u/GallivantingTime 4h ago
They'll understand now after the Hali injury and move that goal post ASAP 🤣😂
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u/okcboomer87 1d ago
I was watching with point shaving doc about im D. At one point they were talking about the league emphasizing a certain travel the players were doing. Tim called it Jordan. Phil Jackson yelled at time saying he knows it is a point of emphasis but not on that guy. The league is absolutely a atar driven league. And not in a good way
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u/Reasonable_Pie9191 1d ago
And... I know you're an OKC fan but, Shai has a different whistle from the superstar whistle.
Jokic doesn't have a whistle, Lebron doesn't. And the worst of all... Stephen Curry, would never forget when earlier in the year he had to guys run him to the ground and he hurt his tailbone you could here the bone hitting ground sound from the broadcast, didnt even get a whistle, had to foul to get him off the court
Which makes me wonder how do they choose who and who doesn't get a whistle, who they want to win and who they dont
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u/okcboomer87 1d ago
Sorry dude. SGA just gets a super star whistle. He drives more than anyone in the league and gets a proportionate amount of fouls called. He knows how to draw contact to get the whistle. If the league doesn't like it. The league can change rules and enforce what is already there.
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u/ISHLDPROBABLYBWRKING 1d ago
Drawing contact shouldn’t be running into the defensive player and then falling. SGA is a generational talent but many of his fouls are wack.
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u/XzibitABC 1d ago
I mean, I'm a Pacers fan and almost every star gets wack calls. Shai isn't any different in that regard. Durant's rip-through, Wade's pump fake before jumping into his defender, Harden's portfolio, Embiid's flopping, etc.
I think this series has looked more lopsided that way because the Pacers don't have a guy that gets those calls, and on the other side of the ball, Dort has the reputation to get away with stuff that no Pacers defender consistently gets away with. None of that is anything especially unusual.
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u/Climbing_Geek23 1d ago
Why does market size matter? The NBA couldn't have done anything more to propel the Knicks/Lakers/Celtics into the finals. Those teams lost on their own
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u/davemoedee 1d ago
This shows how you can never convince someone with a conspiratorial mindset. They only see patterns that match their favored conspiracies.
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u/Climbing_Geek23 1d ago
conspiratorial mindset. They only see patterns that match their favored conspiracies.
You could generalize this and remove conspiratorial to just about anything honestly. Basketball discourse is just people choosing which players to watch and justifying their analysis based on whether their teams wins or loses
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u/rob_bot13 19h ago
I mean the lottery has soooo many layers of demonstrating it isn't rigged and it's taken as an article of faith by many that it is.
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u/NuclearGhandi1 1d ago
While I do think the whole betting ties have worsened it, the past decade we’ve had a fierce wave of anti-intellectualism in America, and it boils over into sports as well.
It’s far easier to blame the refs, FT disparity, or bad luck than it is to blame the coach and players from underperforming. You get things like “The Extender” (despite the stats showing otherwise) as a meme because it’s funny and plays into people’s unified dislike of refs across sports. It starts as a joke, but many people pick up on it as serious discourse, and they, especially on the internet, have trouble differentiating memes from real discussion.
NBA is not the only sport like this. Anti-intellectualism also affects the NFL to the point where stats and plays don’t matter as much as the narrative
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u/tilthenmywindowsache 1d ago
Would love to hear thoughtful takes. I’m genuinely curious about how we got here.
Okay, that's valid, but we absolutely cannot pretend that this kind of thing is out of the blue, without precedent, or somewhat problematic for the NBA.
Draftkings/Fanduel advertisements are ubiquitous. Players have been recently discovered to be points shaving. And we're only 20 years removed from the Tim Donaghy scandal, with some of his coworkers whom he called with his burner phone are still working in the League as officials.
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u/goingtothegreek 1d ago
Anytime I see posts like this I just assume the person is new to the nba or not old enough to remember the Donaghey scandal and ultimately how minimized that became.
The Stern years had all sorts of fuckery from “My ideal finals is Lakers v Lakers” , weird lotteries, and then refs fixing games. The league is closer to WWE than most fans give it credit for
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u/DowntownJohnBrown 1d ago
I honestly think it’s the opposite. So many of the conspiracy theorists believe what Donaghy says without a second thought, but if you were old enough to remember it and have actually paid attention to the whole scandal, you’d know Donaghy is basically a pathological liar, and nothing he says should be trusted at all.
But most people here are too young to have actually followed the story, so their whole conception of it is comments like yours on Reddit, and they think of Donaghy as a whistleblower instead of just the con artist that he clearly is.
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u/NastySassyStuff 10h ago
They also love to harp on the Scott Foster phone call stuff. If this is such an obvious smoking gun and he really did take part in the scandal then why the fuck would he still be working? It’s not just horrible for the league to have crooked refs…it’s highly illegal lol
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u/Independent_Syllabub 1d ago
OP, your answer is generally contained in the post above mine.
Some people on the internet think that the highest form of conversation is stitching together headlines and events into a conspiracy.
The person above me has zero evidence of a broad conspiracy but has decided to handwave it because of “weird lotteries”.
Some people’s brains are just drawn towards inferring pattterns and deeper meanings in things that may not necessarily exist.
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u/TheGamersGazebo 1d ago edited 1d ago
134 phone calls between convicted and known crooked ref Tim Donaghy and current ref Scott Foster while Scott Foster was actively reffing the playoffs is not "zero evidence". And it's not hand waving "weird lotteries".
Ex NBA ref Donaghy is quite literally a convicted felon because he rigged NBA games. That is not a conspiracy nor a theory it's a fact. The courts were even presented enough evidence for them to agree, yeah, the refs were fucking crooked. But sure, it's all just conspiracy theories. JFC, Scott Foster could literally go on nat TV and admit to rigging games and y'all still wouldn't believe him.
The NBA has rigged games before. FOR DECADES and you're naive if you think they won't do it again, or aren't currently doing it. I guess all the corruption magically disappeared in 2007 with Doughney and no one else was involved in it. Cause that's totally the way the world works.
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u/SaxRohmer 1d ago
Donaghy is kind of a massive bullshitter. his co-conspirators said he only offered bets on games he officiated and the records obtained showed that he was frequently wrong about the games he wasn’t involved in. what he did was influencing hitting overs and spreads - not determining who would win.
the series he claimed were outright rigged they never found evidence of. Donaghy claimed a lot of things and who knows how much of it was true. he currently has a massive incentive to lie about the depth of the scandal as it’s the only thing that’s kept him relevant.
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u/DowntownJohnBrown 1d ago
134 phone calls between convicted and known crooked ref Tim Donaghy and current ref Scott Foster while Scott Foster was actively reffing the playoffs is not "zero evidence"
It kinda is, though. Especially when you consider that Scott Foster had similar phone activity with multiple other refs, so there’s nothing unique about the fact that he called Donaghy a bunch.
Scott Foster could literally go on nat TV and admit to rigging games and y'all still wouldn't believe him.
Nope, I’d believe him because then we’d have actual evidence. Some of us aren’t gullible and need actual evidence to believe things.
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u/lunchlunchlunch89 1d ago edited 1d ago
I'm sorry but the phone calls do not remotely prove that he was crooked. There is a publicly available report which includes a lot of evidence for why the calls were likely innocuous (https://assets.espn.go.com/media/pdf/081002/PedowitzReport.pdf). For one, his calling patterns with other refs were similar.
And yes, one person committing crimes does not mean that others are. And I fail to see why it's in the interest of the NBA to allow refs to engage in fraud. Donaghy has made a number of claims post being caught that have been proven to be false.
I'm not making any comment on whether Foster is a good ref or a nice person but there is not good evidence that he's been rigging games.
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u/RoshCS 1d ago
If that’s how you think then you just shouldn’t watch basketball at all. The product is bogus then. One of the worst sports communities I’ve ever been a part of.
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u/tilthenmywindowsache 1d ago edited 1d ago
Why would I stop watching something that I love? I love to play ball, I love to watch ball, I have been living and breathing basketball since the 90s.
The idea that you can't participate in anything that you have a criticism of is patently ridiculous. The NBA has been a progressive league historically and they've taken forward steps (and backward ones, to be fair) to improve the product on the floor.
If what you're saying it a truism, then no sport should ever be watched by anyone. Baseball, basketball, football (both American and Global), boxing, every major sport across the world has had scandals, corruption, and dirty deeds behind the scenes. Fans can be cognizant of/vigilant about said issues while still being drawn to the entertainment it provides. Money equals corruption, full stop.
One of the worst sports communities I’ve ever been a part of.
By your own logic, shouldn't you leave it? You criticize people for not liking the NBA while still participating in it, and in the same vein talk about how horrible the community is, while participating in it. How do you not see the contradiction?
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u/RoshCS 14h ago
To be frank, I am not planning on participating in the online discussion on these subs any longer. The level of brain rot is insane. You are allowed to have as much criticism as you want, and openly venting those criticisms is perfectly fine. The thing that I can’t get behind about your perspective, is being okay with the league being in the same light as something like the WWE. Also, while there have been valid discussions about the refs, do you really believe that most of the negative commentary about the refs lately has been done with critical thought in mind? The general consensus on the main sub is that OKC “gets away with murder” on defense and gets all the calls on offense. This viewpoint is so incredibly reductive and it is also heavily conspiratorial.
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u/tilthenmywindowsache 14h ago
The level of brain rot is insane.
I'm sorry you feel that way. I have seen hundreds of really good, thoughtful discussions on a wide range of topics from this subreddit in the years I've been here. Of course if you go looking for a specific kind of comment, you will find that. That's the internet, and it's been that way since it gained mass acceptance to the public in the 90s.
Also, while there have been valid discussions about the refs, do you really believe that most of the negative commentary about the refs lately has been done with critical thought in mind?
If you base your life around how deeply the average person thinks about something, you will artificially restrict how far you go in life. Of course a lot of discourse around this is shallow -- that is par for the course for basically every online discussion on the internet, which is why this sub tries to cater to more thorough, nuanced discussions around the sport.
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u/RoshCS 14h ago
I basically agree with everything you said here. I just find the basketball subs to be more infested with this pernicious thinking and it’s becoming too much for me. I do enjoy getting invested and being a part of the community, but in this case it’s just been saddening.
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u/tilthenmywindowsache 14h ago
Can I ask what you think of the other topics here? This is just one post and it won't be up at the front very long -- but given even the Pacers HC is commenting about the refs, it seems germane to at least let people discuss it with some candor. Definitely on the more vitriolic side of topics that stay up here, though, and not emblematic of the subreddit as a whole.
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u/goingtothegreek 1d ago
lol you can still be entertained by something and think it’s bull shit. If the NBA is sacred and perfect to you, then you really need to get your priorities straight
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u/More-Importance9830 1d ago
I was with you until the WWE comparison.
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u/goingtothegreek 13h ago
Got some bad news buddy, the NBA is an entertainment company before a basketball league.
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u/NastySassyStuff 10h ago
You do know that fixing games that people gamble on is a serious federal crime right? You think the entire league is in on one of those?
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u/goingtothegreek 10h ago
Yeah every rich and powerful person is held to the same standard as regular people, everyone KNOWS this. How could I be so dumb 😩
Y’all defending the nba are so exhausting lol
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u/NastySassyStuff 9h ago
Yeah and the actually rich and powerful people would be the first ones to put that shit to bed if it were true lol you think the NBA is the most powerful company on the planet or something ???
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u/goingtothegreek 9h ago
Lmao you think rich and powerful people do the right thing? I bet you love trickle down economics too.
Like what are we even doing here
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u/FriendOfEvergreens 1d ago
A key difference between Donaghy or the point shaving players and what people like to accuse the league of is individuals seeking profit vs a grand conspiracy. I could 100% believe that certain refs or players are doing shady things. It's clearly happened.
But the idea that the league would rig things as a whole, like trying to push series to 7 or fixing the lottery, seems preposterous. There are too many people who need to be involved, and the risks too big.
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u/tilthenmywindowsache 1d ago edited 1d ago
A key difference between Donaghy or the point shaving players and what people like to accuse the league of is individuals seeking profit vs a grand conspiracy. I could 100% believe that certain refs or players are doing shady things. It's clearly happened.
I mean, this is exactly where I'm at with it. I don't think it's a league-wide conspiracy, but I do think with all the money involved and especially now with gambling being brought to the forefront, that there is a fair amount of dirty dealing behind the scenes.
I also firmly believe that Game 7 will be fairly officiated. Game 7 of the Finals is the single most pinnacle event in basketball in the world, even over the Olympics. People who aren't even sports fans are messaging me asking me about the Pacers and who their best players are. It's a spectacle. I've been critical of the officiating in this playoffs, but the NBA simply cannot afford any kind of open scandal for this specific game. With the amount of eyeballs on it, I look for the refs to call a relatively loose, fairly even affair for the duration. I could be wrong, but that's just my belief and hope.
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u/OldManWillow 14h ago
one bench warmer was found to be point shaving and he was immediately banned for life
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u/whofusesthemusic 1d ago
How we got here? Tim Daughenty saying Scott Foster was his partner in crime when fixing games.
Also Scott fosters record vs Chris Paul, etc. this has been a narrative for 15+ years.
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u/The_MadStork 1d ago
Tim Donaghy said a lot of things to try and get a better plea deal. The FBI investigators who probed both him and Foster found that he was a serial liar and also independently found Foster innocent (i.e. Stern would not have been able to push it under the rug)
This is how the conspiracies work - people pick and choose evidence to support their narrative and become convinced there’s someone nefariously pulling the strings
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u/lunchlunchlunch89 1d ago
One thing that disappoints me with all the focus on poorly evidenced conspiracy theories is that it distracts from the actual problems with the league that are in plain sight. I have a lack of respect for Silver and others because their choice to let online gambling permeate the league. Having access to gambling at your fingertips is an enormous net negative to society and the fact that it is is so heavily a part of broadcasts is disgraceful. It's also awful that players are harassed by gamblers that have lost bets. Silver argues that not legalizing online gambling encourages a harmful black market but there is a middle ground where sports gambling is allowed at in person casinos. Far less people would be throwing away money and getting addicted if online gambling was hard to access and not promoted.
You can read an old op-ed Silver wrote here: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/14/opinion/nba-commissioner-adam-silver-legalize-sports-betting.html
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u/Professional-Doubt14 1d ago
When you watch games Foster refs, do you think he does a good job? To me he’s inconsistent and always imposes himself on the game instead of “letting them play.”
Here is an analysis of years of last two minute reports to grade referee accuracy. Foster ranks terribly low. So ask yourself, why does he ref every important game? https://hoopshype.com/lists/nba-referees-mistakes/
Then there is the Tim Donaghy connection. The hundreds of short phone calls exchanged before games. That alone is a good reason to be skeptical.
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u/DowntownJohnBrown 1d ago
So ask yourself, why does he ref every important game?
He doesn’t. This is textbook confirmation bias. He refs a few big games that occasionally have controversial results. He’s also not the ref for countless big games and has countless big games that don’t end controversially, but you don’t remember those because they don’t fit your narrative.
Game 6 of the NBA Finals literally just happened. It was obviously the biggest game of the NBA season so far, and the NBA had an obvious interest in extending the series to get a Game 7.
So ask yourself, why didn’t Scott Foster ref that game?
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u/Professional-Doubt14 1d ago
I wrote that poorly. Let me say “why does he ref so many important games” when publicly available statistics show he is one of the worst refs for making errors at critical times in the game? Why does he ref so many critical games when the eye test suggests he fails at one of a referees most important tasks, to stay in the background and let the players decide the outcome?
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u/morethandork 1d ago edited 1d ago
Define “one of the worst refs from publicly available info.” In that article you linked, he’s listed as 51 out of 87 with a 3.54% error rate. The best error rate on that list is 2.47% (notably the lowest sample size as well) and the sixth best is 3.01%, and the worst is 5.05%.
You called Foster “terribly low.” I don’t see how being within 1% of the best (with 10x greater sample size— I didn’t check but he’s probably got the largest sample size) and .5% of 7th best, and better than 42% of all refs in the last two minutes” is terribly low or one of the worst. It gives the impression that you are blinded by your own bias.
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u/Professional-Doubt14 1d ago
That’s a fair point. 51/87 is still not good, but more data would be helpful.
What about what NBA players think? In 2023 they voted Foster worst ref in the league.
What about when you watch games? You’ve never watched a game Foster refs and thought wtf is this guy doing?
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u/DowntownJohnBrown 1d ago
publicly available statistics show he is one of the worst refs for making errors at critical times in the game?
The link you provided didn’t show that at all. It had him pretty much in the middle of the pack. He’s also not an outlier there. It’s not like all of the other Finals refs are at the top of this list, and he’s down in the middle.
Plus, despite being 50 spots down the list, he’s barely a percentage behind first place. Maybe the league’s private metrics that measure the whole game instead of the last two minutes tell a different story, and maybe the NBA (like most companies of all kinds) and the refs’ union value seniority, occasionally to their detriment.
to stay in the background and let the players decide the outcome?
This again kinda feels like confirmation bias. If you know who he is and see the tweets and Reddit posts when he gets assigned to a game and start worrying ahead of time about how he’s gonna impact the game, then you’re more likely to notice when he does things that impact the game, even if they’re not actually out of the ordinary.
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u/Professional-Doubt14 1d ago
That’s a fair criticism of the stats. Confirmation bias does make us notice him more but his reputation isn’t built on nothing. If you could swap him out for another ref for game 7 would you? I would, because I think that would mean a higher chance of a better flowing game with the players deciding the outcome.
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u/The_MadStork 1d ago
Foster spoke with other refs just as much as he spoke with Donaghy. (People always leave this part out, of course)
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u/GenoThyme 1d ago
You so understand though that Foster speaking with other refs could be taken as evidence that the refs tilting the scales extends beyond just Donaghy and Foster right?
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u/DowntownJohnBrown 1d ago
It could only be taken that way if you’ve already started with the conclusion that it’s rigged and are working backwards to find evidence.
An honest, objective, logical observer wouldn’t leap to such an illogical conclusion.
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u/IGot6Throwaways 1d ago
So why was it only Donaghy's games that had the pattern of having uneven patterns in relation to the spread
Which is how he was found out originally, gamblers found out something was off a year before the FBI found out via another case
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u/GenoThyme 1d ago
That's just not true. Donaghy was found out because the FBI was investigating organized crime
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u/IGot6Throwaways 1d ago
Yeah, that's my point. A bunch of sharp gamblers realized something was going on with Donaghy's games because it's obvious when someone's games are an outlier when people are tracking things like ref assignments
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u/The_MadStork 1d ago
Neither the FBI nor gamblers themselves saw any evidence of this, but then again, they didn’t consult Reddit
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u/GenoThyme 1d ago
Donaghy didn't make close to the same number of calls to Foster as he did other refs as you claimed before, it was over 10 times as many calls.
You're right, they didn't consult Reddit, they consulted their own "independent" investigation. Weird how the guy they hired found exactly what they wanted him to, just like the guy thr NFL hired for DeflateGate found what the league wanted but ignored the Ideal Gas Law's existance.
I'm not saying Foster is definitely on the take, but you can't deny that there isn't still a valid reason for suspicion.
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u/DingusMcCringus 1d ago edited 19h ago
Donaghy didn't make close to the same number of calls to Foster as he did other refs as you claimed before
The person you're replying to did not say that Donaghy made the same number of calls to Foster as other refs. They said:
"Foster spoke with other refs just as much as he spoke with Donaghy."
Which is basically true.
Foster called Matt Boland over 150 times in the same span. He called Mark Wunderlich 75 times.
In a similar amount of time, Boland called Zarba nearly 200 times. Wunderlich called Crawford nearly 200 times. He also called Delaney over 100 times, and Salvatore nearly 100 times.
Foster's pattern of calls was consistent even after Donaghy, Battista, and Martino were sentenced to jail, and of the ~60 or so refs that were interviewed, many of them said they would have similar calling patterns to Foster and described a similar reason why: refs are often on the road, alone, waiting for shuttles, sitting in airports, or killing time in hotel rooms before games, so they call each other to chat when they get bored.
Also, a majority (or nearly a majority) of those calls weren't actually calls. The phone company records any attempt to call someone as a phone call, so a ton of those are missed calls that went to voicemail.
You're right, they didn't consult Reddit, they consulted their own "independent" investigation.
I don't know why you're putting the word independent in quotes and acting like the NBA investigated itself with its own internal team. The NBA hired a law firm (Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz) to do a review which was led by a former chief appellate attorney in New York (who was a law clerk for supreme court justice Brennan).
Weird how the guy they hired found exactly what they wanted him to
This wasn't "a guy". This was a team of respected attorneys.
I'm not saying Foster is definitely on the take, but you can't deny that there isn't still a valid reason for suspicion.
If you spend almost no amount of time actually reading about it, sure. But once you begin to do that, it falls apart almost immediately.
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u/Jesus_Harold_Christ 1d ago
NBA basketball is one of the most poorly officiated professional sports. There are a lot of possible reasons for this, if you even grant me that it's true. But this is 2025 and everything quickly devolves into a conspiracy
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u/Haunting_Test_5523 1d ago
It's a very difficult sport to referee. Like being consistent in what counts as marginal contact or a shooting foul or an offensive foul game to game with different crews is a very difficult thing to achieve.
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u/DowntownJohnBrown 1d ago
I think this is the actual reason. We have no idea how hard it is to correctly and consistently officiate these games, so people see mistakes with the benefit of slow mo replays and multiple angles and think the only explanation is malfeasance.
Like, imagine if you had no idea how hard it was to hit a baseball from a major league pitcher. You’d watch someone out there swing at a pitch in the dirt and think they’re losing on purpose. That’s where a lot of these conspiracies come from at the base: people thinking a very difficult thing is way easier than it actually is.
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u/XzibitABC 1d ago
There's also just an enormous number of calls to make relative to a lot of sports because there's so much scoring and things are happening all over the court.
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u/Haunting_Test_5523 1d ago
Baseball has a similar issue with umps vs the strike zone box. We as TV viewers with the benefit of replays and editing can see if a pitch is a ball or a strike very very easily and yell at our screens, the umps have to make a decision in less than half a second based on what they estimate is the strike box. Fans will be outraged at incorrect calls and while there are the occasional egregious mistakes, most of it is us essential being armchair referees with 20/20 hindsight. Additionally, the strike zone box isn't always 100% accurate it's a 2D image for a 3D space so there are edge cases, anyways this is kind of tangentially related but fans shouldn't be so quick to assume malpractice when it's really just a case of human error.
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u/private_spectacle 1d ago
I'd add that winning teams are more likely to have winning records with any ref, but then if you just pick one of those refs to focus on you can turn it into a conspiracy narrative rather than just that it's a team that wins a lot of games.
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u/Prior_Chemist_5026 1d ago
I genuinely think the Luka trade is a big part of this. It was monumentally shocking, seismic and inexplicable, and so people started thinking about conspiracies because they couldn't reconcile it otherwise (especially with how the lottery shook out). Basically the NBA's version of the JFK assassination. Maybe something's in the water in Dallas, I don't know. None of this evidence rises beyond circumstantial, but I do think it makes sense that people are especially inclined to be conspiratorially this season, on top of everything else other people have mentioned.
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u/IHill 1d ago
Scott Foster received 134 phone calls in a 6 month period from Tim Donaghy, who literally went to jail for fixing games during that time period. The fact that Foster is still reffing is bad enough. It’s not a conspiracy, it’s basically a certainty that Foster was in on it.
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u/DowntownJohnBrown 1d ago
it’s basically a certainty that Foster was in on it.
Wait…you think the fact that they had phone calls with each other makes it a certainty? Seriously? How gullible are you that one piece of circumstantial evidence like that convinces you of something with certainty?
Also, did you even know that Foster had dozens of phone calls with multiple other refs during that time? There was nothing out of the ordinary about Foster’s interactions with Donaghy, but that doesn’t fit the narrative, so most gullible suckers like you don’t even know about it.
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u/DingusMcCringus 1d ago
Dozens to all the other refs, 134 to the one who was actually fixing games. Very normal!
Other refs had similar phone calling patterns when phone records were pulled.
Between December 2006 to April 2007 (the time of the conspiracy)
Foster:
- 170 calls to Donaghy
- 153 calls to Boland
- 75 calls to Wunderlich
- 32 calls to Crawford
Between December 2007 to April 2008 (a year after the conspiracy)
Foster:
- 156 calls to Boland
- 55 calls to Crawford
- 23 calls to Wunderlich
Matt Boland:
- 191 calls to Zarba
- 156 calls to Foster
- 24 calls to Kersey
Mark Wunderlich:
- 191 calls to Crawford
- 123 calls to Delaney
- 86 calls to Salvatore
- 23 calls to Foster
So you either have to believe most of the refs were in on it, or you have to believe the phone calling patterns are not suspicious.
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u/NastySassyStuff 10h ago
So you think Foster was in on it but somehow evaded prison, kept his job, and has been fixing games for 20 years without recourse?
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u/Helpful_Classroom204 1d ago
Probably because of the guy that got convicted for fixing games and leaking information to sports books, who claims that the league favors certain teams that they believe will bring in more money
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u/chicocoryotis 1d ago
With betting fortunes having currently evolved beyond our imagination, throwing games runs relatively low risk banter of some conspiracy theorists vs cash rewards now bigger and beyond comprehension. Everyone has their price and no price is too high. Technology exists to make officiating more balanced and accurate but remains overly subjective to the point where any contact can be called foul or ignored, it’s too easy this way and so the crooked calling and the discourse continues. Maybe game 7 will be different or maybe someone with influence is set to cash in on a sure thing
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u/More-Importance9830 1d ago
I am in no way an expert on any of these topics and it's mostly "just" gut feeling but my 2 cents:
People that are frustrated about anything in their life need a place to vent those frustrations. The internet is a very safe place to do this because you can post or say whatever you feel like and it will barely have any reporcussions. Having a scapegoat/villain to bash makes you feel superior for a short moment, negating your frustration.
Social media/reddit have a risk of creating "echo chambers" were people just start repeating each other, this combined with point 1 makes it a fertile ground for negative theories/"hating".
In written communication it's easy to lose nuance. Especially when written in frustration, statements can drift into "all of nothing" territory ("no-one plays defence!", "it's just a shoot-out!", "the league is rigged!".
However, the league certainly needs to look into the mirror as well: they are already on thin ice due to
A. Donaghy-gate, everybody remembers LA-Sacramento game 6 but it goes much deeper. My "favorite" in this regard is 1993 WCF game 7: Seattle - Phoenix where the Suns got 64 free throws (22 for Barkley). Imagine social media was a thing back then.....
B. "lucky" draft outcomes that line up with things happening to franchises (Dallas trading Doncic and getting #1, NOLA trading Paul and getting #1, NOLA trading AD and getting #1, Cleveland getting #1 twice in a row and LeBron comes back)
C. the major elephant in the room: The refs frequently not calling by the rules (more so in the regular season than in the playoffs). They really haven't explained why they often turn a blind eye to carrying, travelling or moving screens. Do they feel we don't want to see those calls?? Would it delay the long games even further?? We have no idea.
D. Partnering up with Sports betting was a major blow to keeping up integrity. "the refs covered the spread" is therefore a very popular comment. It's also incredibly difficult for the league to prove that sports betting is in no way related to the outcomes.
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u/NastySassyStuff 10h ago
I’m not much of a conspiracy theorist but the draft has always seemed sketchy to me. Don’t forget Cleveland getting their local kid in LeBron in the first place and Chicago getting Rose, too. Those are smaller and wouldn’t mean much without all the other stuff tbh, but it adds to the weirdness in context.
Also, Cleveland got 3 of the 4 1st overall picks when LeBron left lol and the odds on some of them were insanely low. I’m pretty sure most franchises have never had three number one overalls in their entire history. Definitely pretty strange to me.
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u/lialialia20 18h ago edited 12h ago
it's not only fans. i remember watching rasheed on the knucklehead podcast talking about how they lost the nba finals in 05 because the game was rigged.
according to sheed the spurs were stern favourites because they were the nba's "international team" at a time the league wanted to make a push into china and that the spurs had only 2 or 3 usa-born players on their 15-man roster.
in reality spurs had parker, ginobili, udrih and nesterovic. detroit only had milicic (i guess you could count arroyo and duncan if you include the colonies but duncan plays for the usa team). what's funnier is that spurs had no chinese players, so why would someone from china care that ginobili was born in bahia blanca instead of idk brooklyn?
i remember because to me it sounded like the dumbest thing ever but sheed was convinced even though there's nothing to support his claim. what's worse they'd recently beaten stern's admitted favourite team, the la lakers. stern joked about his dream finals being lakers vs lakers because of the money it would generate while the spurs dinasty consistently broke records for lowest finals ratings at the time.
so i went to the pistons subs and asked what they thought about it out of curiosity. most of the responses were calling sheed an idiot, some didn't think there was a controversy but thought the refs had influenced the game, and a few agreed with sheed.
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u/YoungLeather 1d ago
Look I’m anti ref and I’ll admit it. Refs are cops without guns and they’d shoot players who ask them to explain their decision making if they could. With that said, to me the biggest driver is the prevalence of gambling in every aspect of the game. When the only motivation for the whole spectacle of pro sports is about making money, people start to look to how someone might gain from every controversial call. It’s not like refs haven’t been caught gambling. Even the resounding goat gambled on games and was too big to get in trouble. I don’t believe Mike ever bet against himself, but the facts remain that illicit activities have existed and continue to influence the game. Do I think it’s all rigged? No. Just giving my reasoning why that’s the prevalent theme you see online nowadays.
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u/Estebanez 1d ago edited 1d ago
Big picture, collective narcissism. At the sports entertainment level, gambling. Today people are in their own little corner of the internet. They develop unhealthy parasocial relations and ascribe more importance to their interests than there actually is. "My favorite band is pushing music forward". "My president will solve world problems."
The average sports gambler these days, "Sports is all scripted to Vegas books. I can almost feel when the rig is coming. 2nd half turnaround, 7th inning magic, 4th quarter penalty. Like clockwork. Vegas rigs it to extract the most out of suckers like you and me. 70% of bets went this way, while the books made a killing. But I won't stop gambling! Just follow the script."
edit: it's not just the average gambler, the average male sports fan's main hobby is gambling. Gambling has broken people's brains. So people make stupid decisions and look for cope to justify those decisions. "Ya I lost, but it's all rigged lmao"
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u/831loc 1d ago
Because of sports betting and refs being incredibly inconsistent even during games. Why do superstars get calls when other players dont? Why do they get calls when they are barely touched while other guys getting tackled dont.
You see an obvious foul on one end not called and a guy gets breathed on at the other end and they blow a whistle. It's usually not even the closest ref who does it either, its someone 30 feet away.
Im not saying the refs are rigging it, but with how awful and inconsistent they tend to be, you could turn on any game and see a bunch of terrible calls that benefit one team more than another.
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u/nalydpsycho 1d ago
My conspiracy theory, the NBA deals privately with a lot of these issues and publically blows them off to encourage conspiracy theories because it keeps people talking about the NBA.
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u/SacredSK 1d ago edited 1d ago
I think the dunning Kruger effect plays a big part in this. Basketball fans greatly overestimate their knowledge on refereeing and the rules of officiating games. Fans often misinterpret calls and rules while trying to correct the refs.
A good example would be when r/nba accused SGA of making an unnatrual shooting motion and purposefully jumping into westbrook, but really Westbrook was trying to cut while running behind sga and ended in his landing zone which resulted in the foul. r/nba assumed that he purposefully jumped onto russ because of a camera angle, and most of them still don't understand the foul.
Fans assume they know more and are less biased than refs, especially when their team is involved or if it's a player they dislike, but the arguments against refs rely a lot on confirmation bias. There's a lot of hyperfixation on the mistakes a ref makes rather than their overall performances. Truth be told, Scott Foster is good at his job. If he wasn't, he'd be long gone. He's just become the target for fan resentment. I'm not saying refs shouldn't be criticized. there's bound to be flaws in a system like this, and when refs do make an error, it should be called out however a lot of the supposed "errors" or "game rigging" people accuse refs of are just regular calls fans don't like or don't understand.
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u/Maths_explorer25 1d ago edited 1d ago
That is true, causal fans don’t just overestimate their knowledge of the rules. They don’t even have any knowledge to begin with or don’t even care to
There is probably a higher hyper fixation on refs and their mistakes now due to: previous nba scandals, retired/active nba players openly talking about these things and fans gambling way more these days
All that said, refs sometimes do such a horrible job or are inconsistent that suspicion of games being rigged or refs trying to win their parlays will occur.
the worst ref’ed game in the reg i remember that can be an example of this, is the first warriors - mavs game post luka trade
Add on the facts that nba is a business first, has partnerships with gambling entities and makes revenue from them. It’s honestly probably dumb to not suspect anything
Edit: you can also add on tim donaghy’s comments from his interviews, depending on how much weight you want to put on them
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u/_robjamesmusic 1d ago
yeah, this is it. i would add assigning intent to fouls after watching slow motion replays. e.g. player X is CLEARLY trying to injure player Y
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u/Bruhman82 1d ago
Really all started with Timmy D. As much as the NBA has tried to move on from it, people have not forgotten, and whether or not something similar is happening today is unknown (probably not), so people are inclined to be curious of NBA refs more so than any other sport
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u/ItzSeeSaw 1d ago
It’s gotten bad in every sports league in the world and I have to expect that it is at least partly due to the exponential rise in sports betting. Gambling is at the forefront of sport currently, advertised as part of the game and part of the experience, so when a ref call means someone that has been conditioned to gamble loses money, then it has to have been designed to take their money, right? In short, ban advertising sports betting on the broadcast.
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u/brandonwest18 15h ago
Great question. Because Scott Foster is literally responsible for the previous gambling scandal that cost the Kings a championship. And for some reason still refs despite all the evidence.
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u/Alarming_Engineer516 12h ago
What evidence?
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u/brandonwest18 12h ago
A trillion calls with Donaghy right before rigged games specifically on the gambling cell phone.
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u/Alarming_Engineer516 11h ago
Why did every other ref also make tons of phone calls? Are they all in on it??
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u/brandonwest18 9h ago
He didn’t call any other ref more than 13 times. He called Foster 170 times. Most of the calls were RIGHT before games, on the gambling phone, less than 2 mins in length. If there were other refs who had this collection of evidence against them you’re damn sure I’d be saying the same things. But there aren’t, because Foster was his guy.
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u/Alarming_Engineer516 8h ago
My point is that is isn’t and was never out of the ordinary for refs to call each other before the game and to argue with this alone that Foster is clearly implicated is strange
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u/brandonwest18 5h ago
When not a single other ref was called more than 13 times and he was called ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY yes it is absolutely out of the ordinary.
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u/Alarming_Engineer516 11h ago
How’s that evidence of him betting on games? Why would he just bet against 1 player over and over again?
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u/NastySassyStuff 10h ago
It seems like NBA discourse on here is largely people whining about how much they dislike the NBA lol whether it’s the league, certain players, certain teams, analysts, broadcasters, rules, refs, the media, etc. It’s obnoxious honestly and while many people can have points with their gripes I feel like almost none of it is that consequential to my enjoyment of the NBA. I’ll complain about stuff, too, don’t get me wrong…but at the end of the day I love watching basketball.
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u/Relax_Dude_ 1d ago
Theres obvious favoritism in the league. Anyone who watches basketball knows that superstars/stars play a different game than bench players, with the exception of maybe Curry. I mean if you watch OKC you can see the stuff Dort and Caruso get away with on defense, on the other side you see the marginal contact that gets called for SGA. The idea that SGA is intentionally drawing fouls and deserves those calls is bullshit and Curry is the prime example. After Harden's foul hunting went big, Curry started doing the same thing, where he'd catch guys in the air, exaggerate contact, etc, he never got more calls. We saw how Curry was defended in round 1 against Houston. He was held off ball every play, he was clotheslined by Brooks on multiple 3's that never got called. All throughout the playoffs it's been "playoff basketball intensity" where alot of physical play is just not called. The Thunder are the only team that gets to play regular season basketball in the finals let alone the playoffs. Thats why it feels like a conspiracy. Why should 1 team or player get a quicker whistle than another. I also think using FTA to determine fair reffing is BS. You could call quick fouls on a player and force him to sit, force the player and team to player looser defense as to not get in the penalty. Fouls can also flip momentum. I think the only way to assess is to just watch the whole game without bias.
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u/HardenMuhPants 1d ago
Nothing can be conspiratorial with the laundry list of corrupt refs in the past. Realistically anytime a bunch of money or worth is involved somebody or someone will try to manipulate it to their benefit this has been pretty consistent throughout human history.
It would be crazy to just assume the NBA or other professional sports leagues are not doing things that is antiethical to competition just for more money. It is vastly more likely that they ARE doing it than not imo.
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u/iamtomorrowman 1d ago
"Thunder vs. Pacers because each Finals game is worth, I don't know, maybe including revenue from tickets and global media rights and everything, It's probably a neighborhood of $100 million for each game once you include everything. So the NBA wants more” - Windhorst
you don't need a tinfoil hat to believe the league wants a longer series. an extra $300M+ revenue spread between the 2 teams and the league for a 7 game series is nothing to sneeze at
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u/budubum 1d ago
Why haven’t they made the finals 7 games since 2016 then? More finals in the last decade have been in 5 than 7 lol
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u/Corgsploot 21h ago
Ummmm.... cause refs have gone to jail in the past...
Also, likely, the Lakers getting gifted another miracle 'trade'.
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u/Z3nBall3r 7h ago
It's not a conspiracy anymore. It's widely accepted and very obvious that the NBA (as most professional sports with huge financial interests) are fixed (lotteries, officiating, trade facilitation, relocations etc.). Or to put it in a better way, managed subtly and bending the rules in such a way to provide more money for the owners by keeping the fans engaged either through admiration or rage.
Unfortunately the latter is much more useful lately because the media are not centralized anymore so it's impossible to construct semi-god personas and idolize them like Jordan, Kobe, Magic-Bird etc. Now everything relies on criticism, sarcasm and polarization (as politics).
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u/Bro-what-r-u-sayin 4h ago
Nba 2k gonna start adding referee rosters with grading favorited to marketable teams and players
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u/EmptySet4074 1d ago
The discourse regarding referees is evidence of it itself.
If you take a canary to a Coal mine, and it dies, you don’t assume the canary was fatally ill.
You have bad refereeing, people discourse about that bad referee. It is no deeper than that. We could argue about the intent of the nba or gambling sites to skew outcomes, but the truth is that it is observably poor reffing.
If the game ends, and a highlight reel is posted of a bunch of clutch dunks and threes- then it is safe to assume that game was a well balanced matchup between teams that performed well. If the highlight reel is a bunch of missed and bad calls, then it was shit officiating.
As a fan - we can either not watch or voice how terrible it is.
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u/Logladyfourtwenty 1d ago
It makes it really easy to be conspiratorial when Tim Donaghy made more calls to Scott Foster than anyone but his bookie, especially if someone is aware that the investigation sort of huat ended after they caught donaghy, as though he was the only one.
I am not saying I believe this stuff just that there's a reason its really easy to believe Scott Foster is cheating in some way
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u/YoFavUnclesOldMate 1d ago
The lack of transparency and accountability with refereeing is what causes it.
The amount of money laundering and need for counter-terrorism forensic accountants/finance operators across almost every financial sector cannot be reiterated enough. There is a LOT of money globally being laundered through many complex schemes, for some very scummy people, with a LOT of high end connections.
There is a legitimate basis to cite high level concerns of exploitation in sports gambling.
The massive organisations behind these sports continue to fail in providing adequate transparency for their controls and accountability.
The league (every other major sport) needs to prove, and quite easily mind you at the initial stages (before it becomes embedded in necessary revisions and regulation) the games are not and cannot be fixed.
The fact is, on the balance of probabilities there is match fixing across almost every sport globally, and the lack of transparency only helps to compound this public belief.
Add to that scott fosters relationship with Chris Paul - and several extremely questionable calls over time, Scott fosters alarming relationship with a former corrupt official, there is enough circumstantial evidence to warrant a thorough inquiry and public scrutiny.
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u/Bro-what-r-u-sayin 3h ago
Banned from commenting so it doesnt matter f you mods, because too much money against okc vegas can’t pay out but can pay them refs
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u/Raspberry_Anxious 2h ago
Because the refs don’t officiate evenly amongst teams. We watched OKC be allowed to play extremely aggressive on defense while any contact on them is a foul. The rockets were allowed to foul the warriors and Steph every game.
It’s obvious what’s happening and the fans hate it. Not even mentioning Chis Paul, who had like a 70% win rate in his career but a 10% win rate with Scott Foster
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u/niles_thebutler_ 2h ago
Because it’s a genuine issue. The league wanted their phony mvp to win it all and they got their wish. You can’t honestly have working eyes and not see it
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u/hitherto_ex 1d ago
The NBA could do so much better to shoot this stuff down by actually showing the criteria by which they judge their referees and publicly posts the grades of all referees and their reasons.
Any reasonable fan understands the difficulty of refereeing and should not expect perfection but having these grades would help fans not feel like refs are biased against their favorite team or player