What? Sports referees are biased and are screwing my team? It is a story that started as soon as the first game with a referee was played. Refs are human and make bad calls. They will sometimes make a mistake and overcorrect or make a makeup call. Also, even with perfect refereeing, if you slice the stats enough, you will find bias in random noise.

As for the NBA, there are known biases: if a superstar and bench warmer make contact on a play, the refs will always favor the star. Bigger players are allowed to bang in the paint while smaller players are protected. Refs will only call a blatant charge and never if there is a defense foul on the play. As long as I can remember (20 years), if a player or coach whined about refereeing after the game, they would automatically get a fine but coaches would still do it so that refs favor their team’s next game for fear of providing evidence to the story.

There is always a story that the league is pushing the popular team. Before the Lakers it was the Warriors who the refs favored (it was infuriating fun to count how many moving screens Draymond could get away with).