🎵 Tale as old as time, officials' favorite crime: missed calls screwing the Kings 🎵
And another one.
Good morning. It’s Election Day in America. If you agree with my politics, I hope you have already voted or will vote today. If you disagree with my politics, I hope you have a disappointing and contemplative night. Just being honest! Let’s basketball.
Oops, They Did It Again
Stephen Curry has a real claim to being the best basketball player on the planet. He’s the only player that gives me pause when I incessantly cite Giannis Antetokounmpo as the best basketball player on the planet. It’s Giannis, it’s Steph, and then it’s everyone else (in some order: Luka, Jokic, LeBron, KD and apparently Lauri Markkanen).
Curry looked like a god in the throes of a triumph Monday night against the Kings.
Just a perfect encapsulation of what makes Steph great.
And yet … you wonder if the Kings — who were right there all night long — might have stolen in the game in overtime, if only the officials would call a completely obvious foul on the attempted tying shot by Kevin Huerter RIGHT IN FRONT OF THEIR FACES.
Huerter is a career 78% free throw shooter, so if he gets three free throws there, he has a 48% probability of making all three and sending the game to OT. And the other night, if the obvious travel is called on Tyler Herro before his game-winning shot, the Kings go to overtime against Miami. Ho hum.
This may feel like a conspiracy …
… but it’s not. Here’s the deal: the Kings have been mediocre for a long time. It is human nature to assume the mediocre among us — mediocre brands, mediocre people, mediocre teams — will remain in mediocrity for eternity. This is internalized to the point where we subconsciously discount the ability of the mediocre to be anything but. Officials are human. It would be impossible to strip them of the ability to understand that the Golden State Warriors are the Golden State Warriors and the Sacramento Kings are the Sacramento Kings. It would take a lot of time and repetition to flip the table here, and get humans to subconsciously assume competence on the part of those wearing Kings jerseys and incompetence on the part of those wearing Warriors jerseys. It’s simply human nature.
You know how Domino’s spent tens of millions of dollars to convince people that their pizza was no longer mediocre? There’s a reason they had to put in that effort: because consciously and subconsciously so many of us had come to the conclusion that Domino’s Pizza was trash and we would not buy it given a choice.
The conscious bias against the Kings does not exist widely among NBA officials. I will allow that certain officials have certain biases against certain players that can be chalked up to personalities and limits to individual patience. There were a couple of officials (i.e. half of the NBA official corps) who had no patience for DeMarcus Cousins, for example.
But a subconscious bias that, based on supporting evidence from the past 16 years, the Kings are not as good as most other NBA teams — that’s plausible and leads to stuff like Tyler Herro getting the benefit of the doubt or Klay Thompson getting the benefit of the doubt and the Sacramento Kings almost never getting the benefit of the doubt. I buy that. It’s not a conspiracy, it’s just another hurdle moribund franchises need to overcome in their path toward competence.
The Kings will get there someday, presumably in our collective lifetimes. Just not yet.
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