Will 2013 NBA Playoffs Put Conspiracy Theories to Rest for Good?

People like to argue that the NBA is fixed. They want to imagine a great and vast conspiracy where refs get mysterious calls from David Stern, where large-market teams get the "nod" and are artificially granted extra grace to succeed.

Hopefully, this season will put such nonsense to rest. 

At the heart of the conspiracy is that the NBA wants money, and in order to get money they try and arrange preferential finals matchups that feature large-market teams. It's a notion that should be treated as seriously as the Illuminati or Alex Jones. 

The NBA succeeds with small-market teams. And it is doing so again this year. 

The Small-Market Contenders

First, let’s define what a small market is, as I can hear the guffaws coming over time and space through the Internet as I type this sentence. A small-market team is a team that is in a relatively smaller television market, which is distinguishable from a city.

San Antonio, for example, is the seventh-largest city in the United States, but is the 36th-largest television market, as listed by Nielsen. Here are the final four teams, their population, and their television market size:

Team	City Rank	City Population	TV Market Rank	TV Market Size
Miami Heat	44	408, 750	16	1,621,130
Indiana Pacers	13	834,582	26	1,089,700
San Antonio Spurs	7	1,382,951	36	881,050
Memphis Grizzlies	49	655,155	49	662,830

Now, you might ask, why is there so much disparity between a city size and TV market? Well, there can be a few different reasons. Sometimes the city population can be greater than the TV market size. Not everyone has a TV, and some cities have more suburbs or adjoining cities. San Antonio is limited by the close proximity of Austin and Houston, so its market size is actually smaller than the city population.

A city like Miami, on the other hand, is part of a larger metro area, including Fort Lauderdale and other suburbs, so it’s city rank of 44 is deceptively small. Miami is a smaller city than San Antonio, but actually has a larger TV market size. In fact, San Antonio is barely larger than Greenville-Spartanburg-Asheville.

If you want to quibble, then you can call all four Conference Finals teams “mid-markets” in terms of TV market size, but they are all relatively smaller markets .

It’s not even close when you look at the relative difference between large and mid-sized or small markets. The combined market size of the four teams is less than the market size for New York or Los Angeles, and not too much greater than that of Chicago.

Now you might ask, why does TV market size matter more than city population? Well, none of these teams are really having trouble selling out their games, so actual population doesn’t matter. What does matter are those watching on TV. That’s where the money is.

According to ESPN, the last TV contract the league signed was close to a billion bucks, a cool $930 million. That is a lot of money. And yes, a profit business doing things for money is justifiable. It’s called capitalism.

But Does Market Size Really Matter?

Bear in mind that this massive contract was signed in 2007, fresh off the heels of the worst-rated Finals in NBA history. So does it really even matter what the market size is?

This disputes the notion that the NBA needs to force a large-market team into the finals to be profitable, if for no other reason than that it shows the NBA didn’t need great ratings to get a massive TV deal.

Further evidence is found in the fact that last year’s Finals featured Miami and the Oklahoma City Thunder, yet rendered the highest-rated Game 1 in a decade and better-rated Games 2, 3, 4 or 5 than any of the Los Angeles Lakers vs. Boston Celtics games which came in the previous seasons.

Game-for-game, the small-market battle fared better than the large-market battle, because to most fans, what matters is the basketball. Sure, there are hometown fans who are going to watch only because their team is in it, but there are many more fans who are just fans of the game, and who are going to watch for good basketball.

You might argue that Miami is technically not a large-market team, that because of their star power they are a team with a national appeal. You could argue the same thing about Oklahoma City. In both cases you would be right, and you would prove the point—you don’t need to be a large-market team to have a national appeal.

This refutes the notion that larger markets mean better ratings, which disputes the notion that the NBA is conspiring to put large-market teams into the Finals.

But I Saw It!

There is a thing called “confirmation bias” which pollutes our logic. If you want to know what it is, listen to Skip Bayless sometime. Confirmation bias occurs when we see what we already “know” to be true, but ignore that which conflicts with what we “know” to be true.  

Let me give you a perfect example of a confirmation bias and how it affects perception. Quickly, answer this question: Which player do you trust more with the game on the clock, LeBron James or Kevin Durant? Who would most people say?

Most people would probably believe that Durant has this great history, and James has a horrible history. Some would think that maybe James did better in the last year or so, having “finally” become reliable in the clutch. Some wouldn’t even accept that.

They would also think Durant never misses. Yet, according to Basketball Reference, on shots to tie or take the lead with 24 seconds or fewer left in the game, Durant is 26-for-85, shooting .306, and James is 33-for-105, shooting .314. Not only is James' percentage better, but he’s actually made more attempts.

With Durant we see the makes and excuse the misses. With James we see the misses and excuse the makes. It’s confirmation bias at work.

It works in the whole conversation about “fixing” the games, too, or David Stern having such an influence.

Here are two universal truths for you. First, every team benefits and gets hurt from bad calls. Second, (insert your favorite team here) benefits less and gets hurt more by said bad calls. This is also true if your favorite team is whoever is playing the Lakers, Heat or Celtics.

When the Toronto Raptors beat the Chicago Bulls on a bogus basket-interference call, no one talks about it, because A) Chicago won a game from Toronto on a bad call, too, and B) it’s Toronto, and no one is going to argue that the fix is in for Toronto.

But when it’s a high-profile team, we assume there is some link between that bad call and the team winning. If it’s a small-market team who benefits, then we find a reason to excuse them as a “large-market” team. If we can’t think of  a reason, we just excuse it as the exception.

We end up with this malleable conspiracy theory, where we only see what we want.

So let’s do a little reverse conspiracy here. In Game 1 between the Heat and Pacers, there was a highly questionable call when Dwyane Wade was whistled for an air-foul when he whiffed his arm past Paul George, who was sent to the line to make three and put the Pacers ahead. If it weren’t for that game-winner by James, the “fix” would have been in, and Indy would have won.

Or in Game 1 between the Spurs and Grizzlies, there was a highly questionable “flagrant” foul called on Manu Ginobili when he fouled Tony Allen, and Allen smashed his head on the air. Allen rolled about in “pain.” After reviewing the call, the refs obtusely stuck to their guns and determined that it was a flagrant foul. The ruling nearly reversed the eventual outcome of the game.

Do you really think that David Stern has the fix in for that very watchable Pacers vs. Grizzlies Finals, which would have a viewing audience of Tom Thibodeau and pretty much no one else?

In virtually any tight game, you can point to a play, or a smattering of plays, where the “refs won the game for them.” Just change the names of the teams and the refs and you have a conspiracy. Make it the right teams and you have a conspiracy to get the preferred teams to the finals.

There’s another hypothesis, which might be more believable: Maybe it’s not fixed. Maybe getting more calls doesn’t equate to a fix being in.  

According to Basketball Reference, in 1991, the Atlanta Hawks took 29 more free-throw attempts than the Detroit Pistons to force a Game 5. No one cried “foul” there. But we have a fourth-quarter disparity in a certain Game 6 between the Los Angeles Lakers and Sacramento Kings and we scream, “fix” for years. Couldn’t at least part of that have been due to Hack-a-Shaq?

Well, I guess we do have the word of a convicted liar and cheater to cling to.

There were some questionable calls. But that’s where we need to go back to pointing out that there are always questionable calls. But when it’s a team we hate, we “see” it more. When it’s a team we don’t care about, we don’t really keep a record in our heads.

If we look at what’s really happened in this postseason, nine teams from top-10 markets were in the postseason. Only four of those made it to the second round, and none made it to the Conference Finals. Small-market teams are getting the benefit of bad calls. And to top it all off, we’re looking at a possibility of having the most boring Finals in modern history.

If there is a David Stern conspiracy going on here, he’s doing a very bad job of it. Let’s put the conspiracy theories to rest and just enjoy the playoffs.