The Real Players

I usually leave the Bill Simmons adulation to Oberon, but this nugget in his recent Human Power Rankings is shocking:

12. Danny Crawford
Just the facts according to our guy Alok Pattani. Starting with the 2001 playoffs:

A. The Mavs are 2-16 in playoff games officiated by Crawford since 2001 (including Game 3 of the Spurs series, a loss) ... and 46-39 in all other playoff games. They won their first 2001 playoff game with him (Game 5 versus Utah), so they've lost 15 of the past 16.

B. Against the spread, the Mavs are 4-14 with Crawford officiating ... and 45-40 in all other playoff games.

C. They averaged 21.9 free throws in the Crawford games; 27.1 free throws in the non-Crawford games.

48-55 overall, 2-16 when Crawford officiates. A statistical method--hypergeometric distributions--can calculate the probability that an 18 game subset of the Mavs 103 playoff games would contain 2 or fewer wins. You'd assume that if you pick 18 random games from the 103, the Mavs would go 8-10, or 9-9, or thereabouts. The probability that the Mavs win 2 or fewer games? 0.000673. That's about 7 in 10,000.

What this means is that there is a 7 in 10,000 chance that the Crawford effect is coincidence. Crawford is thus the most important player on the floor in Dallas Maverick playoff games.

Smartest man in America? Tim Donaghy. Understanding that refs control the game, he bet the refs. And won. And got caught. And summarily silenced and ignored, to the point that his book (which, if the unexcerpted portions are anything like the excerpts, is probably the second-best read ever, behind Where the Red Fern Grows) cannot get published.

Hey David Stern, YOUR REFS ARE BIASED, PLEASE DEAL WITH THIS. If the Deer get jobbed tomorrow night, you better put some good ol' California cheddar on that there shitburger, because you ain't getting any of the real deal.