DICK BAVETTA STATS IN BUCKS GAMES SINCE 1991-92

[MickeyDavis]

This is some of the best work ever done on our board. Very interesting thread.

[Kcin11690]

All I have to say is wow. I knew Dick was bad, but this is unacceptable. I would like to see his record in 00-01 for the big market teams.

I agree. I think you should do this analysis for Dick's games with LA, Miami, Philly, and NY and compare it to San Antonio, Milwaukee, Sacramento, and Utah. Those were the top 4 seeds in each conference that year, so they all had winning records (the only non 50-win team there is NY with 48). See what comes up.

[jerrod]

that 0-7 for bavetta in 00-01 is staggering, i'd love to see who those were against and watch a few of them.

for me though, no matter how bad stuff like that looks, i still need to actually see the games (or have undeniable proof come from somewhere else) before i'll believe it completely.

it is possible that we just flat out lost those 7 games

[ReasonablySober]

Outstanding work.

[Kerb Hohl]

Where exactly on databasebasketball.com are you finding the ref portion of these stats? If the data is organized well I could probably write a little program to parse through it all and get foul/game-type numbers or his record with big teams like the Lakers.

[Bernman]

I did the math incorrectly, factoring in the game's Bavetta reffed into the probability. With those #'s thrown out, and our last game excluded when we mailed it in against the Heat, the chance of the Bucks losing 7 straight games at random in 2000-01 was more like 1 in 5,000.

Can anybody figure out the chances the Bucks' were 1-5 randomly the next season when they were 40-36 in games not reffed by Bavetta. And then figure out the chance we'd be 1-12 over the course of those two seasons?

No disrespect to Fam, but I think we can start bigger than BrewHoop. I'm sure at least Sparky would read the research on the air. He needs an excuse to rant always and loves the Bucks. And like I said maybe even Rome would read it with his history. This is a groundbreaking, newsworthy study.

[smooth 'lil balla]

S Cassell 19.

I just sent the text of your post, as well as the link to realgm, to Steve Czaban. He's the morning show host for the First Team on Fox, the nationally syndicated morning sports show, as well as the daily host to the sports reporters on in the DC area every evening.

He's been really focusing on the potential corruption in the NBA lately. I think he'll get a big kick out of your post (although he claims not to read his email very often, so i'm not sure he'll get it), and I would guess he would use it on both shows.

You will soon be famous!

[Bernman]

Yes, it's "odd".

I've never, ever been in the NBA conspiracy camp. These numbers regarding Bavetta, if correct, change my view of things.

There is absolutely no way, statistically, that the Bucks should be 9 - 27 in games worked by a certain ref if they are over .500 overall. No way in the world.


But the problem is that no matter what the numbers say that doesnt prove a fix. Bucks could be 0-100 with Bavetta with the other team shooting 90 fts and it doesnt prove a fix. Lakers can shoot 27 free throws in the 4th vs Sac and it doesnt prove anything. Its all he said she said. Unless lots more people (besides Donaghy) speak up...or if there is some sort of paper trail or recorded phone call...which i doubt....nothing will be proven.

An 0-100 record with Bavetta reffing games would be more damning them with him flat out coming out and admitting he fixed games. Maybe not legally, but in reality. He could be pressured to confess as part of a plea bargain. You can't manipulate 0-100. That would be tougher to do at random than winning the powerball lottery.

[bigkurty]

Yeah I agree SCassell is instantly a favorite poster of mine now. It really is amazing info. Just to join the fun I did a little quick study of something interesting to me. Its a small sample size but I looked at the average FTA this past season by team and averaged out the market sizes according to Neilsen data of the top 10 FTA teams and the middle 10 and bottom 10 and here are my preliminary results.

Top 10 most FTA in 2007-2008 with market size
Denver 18
Utah 35
Orlando 19
Sacramento 20
Lakers 2
New Jersey 1 (grouped with NY, don't know if thats the right thing to do though)
Atlanta 8
Clippers 2
Boston 7
Philly 4
Average Market size = 11.6

Middle 10 FTA in 2007-2008 with market size
Charlotte 25
Memphis 47
NY 1
Dallas 5
Cleveland 17
Golden State 6
Indy 26
Chicago 3
Washington 9
Milwaukee 34
Average Market Size = 17.3

Bottom 10 in FTA in 2007-2008 with market size
Toronto 1 (I don't know where they compare to US markets but they are #1 canadian market)
Minnesota 15
New Orleans 53
San Antonio 37
Portland 23
Houston 10
Seattle 14
Miami 16
Detroit 11
Phoenix 12
Average Market Size = 20.6

I have no idea what this means and I know there are a lot of holes in this data thus far but it is data that suggests further study could be interesting. If I had the time, I would like to chart out the average free throws attempted per team over the last decade lets say and see what happens to these results. If the results are similar over that long of period of time, I think it would be pretty easy to argue that over the long haul the big market teams do end up being favored in getting more free throws attempted on average.

BTW, I would love to see the data Cuban has. He used to make such a big deal out of that and now he rarely talks about officiating anymore compared to what he used to. I wonder if he either realized Stern was treating him well since Dallas is a large market or if Stern gave him a handshake agreement to look out for him more in the future to get him to back off somewhat. You never know.

[WallyMeanwell]

Great work and it does have the potential of being groundbreaking stuff.

One argument that I would stay away from without more evidence though, is that the Bucks shot less FTs than their opponents (especially in the good years). There are a number of factors that go into that, but:

1- The Bucks were a jump-shooting team. In order to understand the true differential based on the ref, an overall average would have to be determined
2- Plus, teams that are leading tend to shoot more foul shots. This is where it gets really tricky. Some analysis on this type of thing has just focused on the first three quarters of every game. Some don't worry about it until the last few minutes.

The bottom line is that refs aren't paid to call an equal number of fouls, nor should they. Without seeing a game, it is often very difficult to understand whether or not it was bad reffing, or style of play, or game circumstance that led to a discrepancy.

[mshnake]

Did Bavetta ref any games during the Bucks-Philly playoff series in 00-01 ?

Game 4...along with Bernhardt and Dan Crawford.

We where at home that game and had a 2-1 game lead. We lose. Odd part was that they shot 22 FTs to our 11. How often does that happen at home? AI shot 10-32 that night. I could not tell from the box scores if any Ts where called. But I think a couple of fishy things went down that game. And then all these years later a ref says that this series was rigged. Final was 88-83. One game that the refs had an huge outcome on the game.

Answer:

Technicals Milwaukee: Caffey , Robinson , Thomas
Philadelphia: Bell

[REDDzone]

SCassell FTW!!

DICKIE B FTL!!

[SCassell19]

Thanks everyone for all the responses and feedback.

For those that asked, here are the 7 games Bavetta reffed in 00-01

11/2/00 at Houston
11/18/00 at Toronto
3/1/01 vs Houston
3/10/01 at Charlotte
4/8/01 at Seattle
5/15/01 vs Charlotte (game 5)
5/28/01 vs Philly (game 4)

Bucks were the "better team" record wise in all of these games except Philly. However 4 of the 7 were on the road. In the Philly game we lost by 6 and they shot 11 more free throws (twice as many). In the Charlotte game we lost by 10. The Hornets shot 27 free throws and we shot 11. My favorite game is the Toronto game. We lost by 9. We shot 13 free throws while Toronto shot 49. So 36 more free throws for Toronto in a game decided by single digits.

I dont think the main thing to look at is free throws however. The main thing is timing and big games that look fishy. Like lets say the refs want to fix for Team A to beat Team B. Lets say Team A plays real well and Team B doesnt show up. They can give more free throws to Team B if they want and it wont matter because Team A will win. But when the fix become obvious is when the team they need to lose is much better than the team they need to win (like 2001 Mil-Phl and 2002 Sac-LAL). The Bucks were much better than Philly IMO and also the Kings were better than the Lakers IMO. So now when the league gets in these "must win" situations (Gm 4 of the Mil-Phl series and Gm 6 of the Sac-LAL series) they must pull out all the stops. If that means LA shooting 27 free throws in the 4th quarter then so be it. If Philly has to shoot twice as many free throws then thats cool. However if the 76ers were better than the Bucks and the Bucks dont show up then they dont really have to do much effort to make sure Philly wins. That would take care of itself most likely since they are better. So what im saying is it becomes obvious when the team they need to lose is better and its a huge game or huge series (such as the conference finals). And also I think its important to note our record when Bavetta refs when the Bucks are a .500+ team. I can see a poor record when we suck but when we are good our winning percentage with him should not drop over a sample size of that many games. This is a long 17 year study and the numbers should even out more then they are for him. They cant say we have been a jump shooting team each of the last 17 years.

SOmeone asked about video of the games. I have a lot of these games on either VHS or DVD. I have like 700 Bucks games recorded. Rilaman has a lot of games as well. I know for example I have that game vs Toronto because I watched it a few months back. I dont know how much interest there would be in a ref highlight reel of screwing us over...or a documentary sort of thing maybe. Im not sure how much time that would require.

I got the data off of databasebasketball.com simply by going through each and every boxscore and logging everything. Its not organized on there and takes a lot of time.

I do think much more work needs to be done. I think its too early to "run with this" info because theres simply not enough data compiled. We need info like this for each ref and then for each team. For it to cause any major chatter it must be a complete and thorough work with lots of angles analyzed.

That kind of research would take a very long time. I would not be able to do all that. So I am asking you guys if theres anyone that wants to help compile data on differant teams and such. The work is basically going through each boxscore for each team and logging info into a spreadsheet. If anyone is interested in helping at all let me know and ill try to organize something here. Maybe people from other boards may also want to help? Id imagine theres some Kings fans that might be a little pissed right now and want to do something.

Causing a stir and providing interesting data and being talked about on tv/radio is no big deal. It doesnt change the fact that the Bucks WILL NEVER win a championship the way it is now. I think 2001 proved that. IMO we need a complete overhaul of everything. Stern needs to be out, all his people need to be out, probably all the refs need to be out and this needs to become a fair league. Do you think if the Florida Marlins were in the NBA they would have ever won TWO Championships? Would the league have let them beat the Cubs in the Bartman series? Doubtful.

So i think the next step should be this: I will (and whoever wants to help) work on collecting more data like this and will analyze and organize everything in an easy to read format. Then if the whole Bavetta fixing games and the league fixing games chatter just blows over with nothing done about it we can then provide the data we have and figure out the best way to "run with it".

So if anyone wants to help with this let me know.

[SCassell19]

Yeah I agree SCassell is instantly a favorite poster of mine now. It really is amazing info. Just to join the fun I did a little quick study of something interesting to me. Its a small sample size but I looked at the average FTA this past season by team and averaged out the market sizes according to Neilsen data of the top 10 FTA teams and the middle 10 and bottom 10 and here are my preliminary results.

Top 10 most FTA in 2007-2008 with market size
Denver 18
Utah 35
Orlando 19
Sacramento 20
Lakers 2
New Jersey 1 (grouped with NY, don't know if thats the right thing to do though)
Atlanta 8
Clippers 2
Boston 7
Philly 4
Average Market size = 11.6

Middle 10 FTA in 2007-2008 with market size
Charlotte 25
Memphis 47
NY 1
Dallas 5
Cleveland 17
Golden State 6
Indy 26
Chicago 3
Washington 9
Milwaukee 34
Average Market Size = 17.3

Bottom 10 in FTA in 2007-2008 with market size
Toronto 1 (I don't know where they compare to US markets but they are #1 canadian market)
Minnesota 15
New Orleans 53
San Antonio 37
Portland 23
Houston 10
Seattle 14
Miami 16
Detroit 11
Phoenix 12
Average Market Size = 20.6

I have no idea what this means and I know there are a lot of holes in this data thus far but it is data that suggests further study could be interesting. If I had the time, I would like to chart out the average free throws attempted per team over the last decade lets say and see what happens to these results. If the results are similar over that long of period of time, I think it would be pretty easy to argue that over the long haul the big market teams do end up being favored in getting more free throws attempted on average.

BTW, I would love to see the data Cuban has. He used to make such a big deal out of that and now he rarely talks about officiating anymore compared to what he used to. I wonder if he either realized Stern was treating him well since Dallas is a large market or if Stern gave him a handshake agreement to look out for him more in the future to get him to back off somewhat. You never know.

Nice work. Would like to see how that works out over a long period of time. Also would really like to see how the holds up in playoff games. Like how often does the team with the better tv market shoot more free throws in a series? It should be 50% of the time if everythings equal. But I bet its much higher than 50%

[Siefer]

This is fascinating stuff. Keep up the good work SCassell19.

[EastSideBucksFan]

SCassell19, stand up and be recognized.


Czabe has used your information up on his site


http://czabe.com/the_daily_czabe/2008/0 ... ng-ma.html

[bigkurty]

That's great news the Czabe jumped on board. We need to blow this thing up bigger though. If Bavetta was doing this to us, you know he was doing it to other people. I mean statistically that 16 game losing streak with Bavetta is so unlikely that mere chance could only be a factor something like 0.0003% of the time. What that means is that if you were to ref the bucks over the same period for 16 games, the odds that you would happen to ref 16 losing games in a row is 1 out of 333,333. So essentially you would have to ref the Bucks for 5,333,328 consecutive games to statistically have a realistic chance of this happening. I suppose you have a better chance at doing that than winning the lottery but man that is just crazy to think about.

[SpeedBump44]

Kudos to you for doing the research. I haven't posted for several months, but this outstanding work on your behalf has brought me out of semi-retirement. Well Done!

[paulpressey25]

That Czaban thing helps. Props to you guys for getting that link.

Something tells me that in the dog days of August, Dick Bavetta, who turns 69 in the fall, will quietly announce his retirement. And like the end of the Raiders of the Lost Ark, the Ark will get filed away in the dusty warehouse, never to be seen again.

Have some fun with his Wiki entry for those who know how to do that. Maybe one of you can put up SCassell's stats there....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Bavetta

[midranger]

It's absolutely amazing how many of the "fishiest" NBA playoff games Dick Bavetta has been a part of.

And I agree PP, Bavetta will retire this summer with a few million wired to an offshore account.