NBA

LeBron, Kobe rip study about refs' racial bias

Academic report said white refs called fouls against blacks at higher rate

Paul Connors / AP

The Lakers' Lamar Odom complains to referee Joe Forte during a game in the Lakers' first-round playoff series against the Suns.

“The fact is there is no evidence of racial bias in foul calls made by NBA officials and that is based on a study conducted by our experts who looked at data that was far more robust and current than the data relied upon by Professor Wolfers,” said Joel Litvin, president of league and basketball operations.

“The short of it is Wolfers and Price only looked at calls made by three-man crews. Our experts were able to analyze calls made by individual referees,” Litvin said. “... This is a fundamental flaw in the Wolfers/Price analysis making it nearly impossible to determine if, in fact, race affects play calling.”

But Wolfers said they compared the calls made by all-white officiating crews and all-black officiating crews, and the results were the same as in the overall study. The study also didn’t verify the exact race of players and referees, saying, “We simply noted whether a player or referee appeared black, or not.” But Wolfers said the sample was large enough so that wouldn’t be a factor.

“That’s a lot of diagnostic evidence,” Lakers coach Phil Jackson said. “If you have a conclusive evidence you want to come out with, you can almost make statistics prove what you want to prove.

“If you go in with that it’s about race, maybe you find the things you’re looking for.”

Former NBA star Charles Barkley said on TNT, “The thing that bothered me most is these guys didn’t even go to the game. They looked at box scores.”

Union chief Billy Hunter hasn’t read the study, but said he wasn’t surprised by its results. There is bias everywhere in society, Hunter said, so why should the NBA be immune?

But Hunter also said he’s never gotten any complaints about discrimination.

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“No, never heard, never gotten one,” he said. “I know (commissioner David Stern) wouldn’t tolerate any conscious bias, racist act by a referee or by anybody else.”

Stu Jackson, the league’s disciplinarian for on-court actions, agreed.

“I can say I’ve never heard a coach or a player or a team official reference race as a reason why they didn’t approve of a ref’s performance,” Jackson said.

Wolfers and Price are to present the paper at meetings of the Society of Labor Economists on Friday and the American Law and Economics Association on Sunday. They hope it will eventually be published in an economic journal.

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