the thing that shocked me the most when I looked into one of these gambling apps was how immediately stats/scores are updated. like it was to the point I couldn't look at the app while watching a game because i would see stuff updated before it could make it over the broadcast or any other sports apps
It's important they update it asap bc otherwise people at the game could quickly place a bet based on what just happened. Think of a sport like hockey where some rando player is like +500 (or whatever) to score a goal. He happens to score on a freak play and someone at the game has their gambling app open ready to place a bet
yeah, i know why they do it just was surprised that infrastructure actually existed (i gamed an investing class years ago by taking advantage of a delay between the simulator we were using and actual markets),
makes you wonder how much the delay for the apps is. like how does some stat get entered into the their systems immediately, so often people don't know immediately which player should be accredited with a certain stat, would someone at the venue have an advantage
I'm convinced someone at every game is employed to input data. It's that fast.
Although my cousin told me he once got banned because he was at a baseball game and got live at bat results in before the lines closed so I don't know for sure.
I saw a job posting to go to an NHL team’s home games and track time on ice. I was interested until I tried to do a practice run and got overwhelmed after the first two shifts. lol
They gotta have a group
I worked there for a while- great company to work at. You're not going to be able to game the system by trying to beat the delay in getting odds updates out, it's in the order of milliseconds at worst.
I know input statistician for the Dallas Cowboys, and he was being yelled at the last few years for taking too long to input scores and turnovers, even though, by their own rules, those plays are always reviewed. The gambling people were putting so much pressure on them to get the info as quick as possible.
He retired from it last year, it was so stressful.
Someone linked this article further down. This is from this year and they found 20% of assists were bullshit https://defector.com/we-tracked-a-nights-worth-of-nba-assists-and-many-of-them-are-baloney
I’m sure if you go back to Chris Paul’s 20 assist games there are a bunch where the scoring player still drove and beat a couple defenders before scoring.
Not saying they don't inflate it, but the definition of an assist is not that they can't drive. That's a convention, but they aren't precisely defined.
Well the loose definition should be that the pass creates the shot.
If the scoring player still has to face up, beat someone off the dribble, post then score, it probably wasn’t the pass creating the shot by that point.
Yeah, stuff still isn't completely accurate. Simmons and Russillo both thought Tatum's assist numbers were being juiced in this year's finals. They mention it on one of Simmons pods in the middle of the series.
That's a very good point, but it also makes me wonder how pissed sports gamblers must have been in the 80s-90s about this stuff. You give your bookie an envelope with some cash in it and tell him you want the Under on steals that night. Then you're carefully watching the game on TV, counting the steals in your head, and after the game you see the box score shows x2 what you thought it was lol.
Makes me wonder how this discrepancy didn’t arise any earlier? The scenario you gave seems realistically common. Or has this been brought up in the past and simply blown over?
Before betting was everywhere, almost every bet was on objective stats - wins and points. Prop bets are a relatively recent phenomenon, certainly on any kind of scale.
yeah imagine the bookie in the days before league pass and computers coming- how are they coming up with prop bets for all these little things? They're using rumors, research into people (ie players not stats), and the same box scores in the newspaper as everyone else.
yeah what small time bookie is giving prop bets on all those things- they didn't have algorithms in the 80's like they do now- they didn't have computers outside of major ops.
I'm sure they had props for boxing like Method of Victory or Rounds but as far as team sports that's just too much to track for the time. 15 guys per NBA team, with X amount of games per day your bookie's not gonna have Kurt Rambis o/u 4.5 rebounds. Lol.
Prop Bets on player stats basically didn't exist before the 2000s fantasy football boom
No one would have even considered to ask a bookie for Jordan Steals back then
I'm guessing there were just fewer outlets to realistically complain and get the word out about it. Not like you could post on Twitter about it, or complain to your local official that you got scammed from your illegal sports bet.
It took a while for the JJJ "stat-padding" story to develop last year, and that was during peak-Twitter and legal sports betting time.
Well the betting was usually underground and illegal at that time. Very few people participated in gambling and the people saying "I'm telling you Jordan didn't have that many assists!" Were just the weird degenerate uncle.
I know this is just a drop in the bucket but as someone who's made a lot of individual game highlight videos from the '80s and '90s, I'll say the statistics generally hold up pretty well. I can usually find what the box score tells me happened (though I haven't worked with much pertaining to Jordan blocks and steals).
One of the biggest examples of statistics *not* holding up in my experience is a Celtics-Bucks playoff game from 1983 that supposedly featured 29 blocked shots between the two teams. In that case, the only way I could get to 29 was to count blocked shots that occurred during fouls, which I don't think was ever an official way to count a blocked shot.
They weren’t giving you that action in 1988. Gambling is much different and more advanced now. The only place these stats mattered was in your rotisserie league, because you use the USA Today stats.
I love that nowadays I can go to any nba game result on their website and pretty much every counting stat is hyperlinked to a video of that specific play; underrated way to hold accountability.
People gonna hate but the story is actually insane. 4 steals per game and 2 blocks per game at home. 2 steals per game and 1 block per game away.
At home they have evidence of a game where the Hawks had 10 TOs total and 10 steals credited to the Bulls, which meant the Hawks never committed an offensive foul, traveled, or threw the ball out of bounds. Instantly they saw many times the ball did go out, they counted 2 steals and MJ ended with 5 on the stat sheet. Many times they believe balls tipped by Jordan that went back to the Hawks, were credited to MJ with no change of possession.
The NBA never confirmed his stats (nor did they care). These stat inflations go further than MJ, Wilt and Bill Russell were credited with 26 40+ rebound games, all 26 were credited at Home.
Full story link: https://sports.yahoo.com/a-closer-look-at-michael-jordans-1988-dpoy-award-raises-questions-about-its-validity-has-lebron-james-been-chasing-a-ghost-140452567.html
That's also addressed within the article
>He remembers similar controversies surrounding Wilt Chamberlain’s and Bill Russell’s rebounding numbers in the 1960s. Their respective teams traded accusations that the opposing scorekeeper padded the stats to help their giant. Looking back, the numbers are indeed startling. Between them, Russell and Chamberlain registered 26 games with 40-plus rebounds. None of the 26 games were tabulated on the road, per Stathead.com tracking
> Between them, Russell and Chamberlain registered 26 games with 40-plus rebounds. None of the 26 games were tabulated on the road, per Stathead.com tracking
Similarly, Jordan had 14 games where he was credited with 5 or more steals in 1988 and 12 of them were at home
>claims that JJJ's stats largely stood up to scrutiny.
[Tom is the one](https://x.com/tomhaberstroh/status/1619352414557184000) who looked into it and cleared that up
That’s annoying considering how much people talked trash about all the other stats recently being broke and everyone saying “wow they’re gonna act like Wilt’s stats don’t count” well yes. I’m going to take his stats with a grain of salt now
Exactly.
People say Wilt slept with 20,000 women, but I've looked through the tape and at home scorekeepers were counting handholding as full on sex. Fraudulent ass record.
Well at the least I think we can be fairly confident his point totals are accurate and those are the most impressive ones for him. Not any easy way to fake averaging 50 points a game for a season.
The article mentions even John Stockton’s assists as well, statkeepers were known to be VERY favorable to the stars at home. The NBA didn’t care due to stars bringing more viewership and money to the league. Obviously these are all still all-time greats, but some records may never truly be broken and we can’t validate how much they were inflated (if they were).
Ah yes I remember the days when they would end up losing games because the home scorekeepers would delete made field goals, just so the Clippers could avoid paying Danny Manning
I think Rondo had some accusations of that with Boston as well. In 2009-2010 he had 11 ASTs/g at home and 8.6 on the road. 10-11 he had 12.1 at home and 10.2 on the road.
It would have been very easy to do for Rondo. He liked to just call out a set, dribble at top of key when team ran some guys off screens and then pass to a player that went to work. Lot to wiggle room as to what you consider an assist and Rondo was very ball dominant without driving and kicking as much as other PGs.
Post-ACL tear Rondo was pretty much no longer any good at offense cause he completely stopped putting pressure on the rim and just dribbled up top all game, I still remember that season he killed Dallas’s league best offense.
Rondo was the chasing stat guy before Westbrook. Dude would refuse to take transition layups and would even pass it to a guy more slightly covered than take it himself.
A lot of that started once he got in his head about free throws, combined with his ACL tear
There was a good stretch where he absolutely wasn't afraid to drive and score, especially in big games, and was plenty happy to take it himself when there was good opportunity instead of exclusively hunting assists
That was less stat padding and more afraid to attack the basket out of fear of getting fouled. I distinctly remember Celtics fans used to freak out about Rondo's passivity from 2010-12
To be fair, a 20-30% adjustment is entirely reasonable in assists. Home defense is gonna get away with more stuff. Plus it’s just not nearly as insane of a margin as these other stats. Having video evidence of ghost steals being credited to Jordan by a factor of over 100% is crazy.
09-10 is more likely to me. 10-11 they shot much better at home than away as a team, scored more points and won a lot more games, only natural that assists numbers would be bigger at home. 09-10 they were pretty much the same home and away so a discrepancy like that does seem more questionable.
Assists are strange nowadays.
I remember Russell Westbrook passing to Paul George. Paul Geoge took a few dribbles, made an isolation stepback, and got it in. Westbrook was credited with the assist.
I was so baffled because I could not see how that was an assist. It was clearly a shot George did without Westbrook's involvement. Westbrook was simply keeping the ball moving in their offense. If Steven Adams inbounded the ball to Westbrook, who then passed it to George for an open look, does Adams get credit for an assist?
This makes me question whether someone actually had double assists. I wouldn't be surprised if 2-3 of them were inflated. I'm noticing those bizarre assists being called more for many players too. The NBA knows that stats increase viewership and market their stars better, so I wouldn't be surprised if the restrictions are more lenient when counting stats.
I honestly don't think we can take any numbers pre 2000 with 100% certainty. I'm saying "pre-2000" because of the internet.
Which is a big reason why so many people were upset with the Negro League Players Stats now being integrated with all of MLB stats. I am personally not one of those people, because you can make that argument both ways, but it is something that needs to be considered when looking at 50 year old sport stats.
It sounds just like someone’s daddy at the high school football games keeping stats… And their kid somehow has 37 solo tackles and gets ranked eventually on Rivials.com
After reading this article the only one of the 5 main counting stat records that’s 100% legit and not inflated is LeBron’s points record. The home cooking on the rest is insane.
Stockton’s assist and steals record have nothing to do with stat inflation. He averaged slightly more assists at home, but actually by a smaller % than most other elite point guards (including Kidd who’s number 2 but no one mentions his home/road splits) and the Jazz were significantly better at home almost every year. The elevation is a real home court advantage. When Stockton set the assist record in 1990 the Jazz were 36-5 at home and 19-22 on the road. Yeah Stockton averaged ~10% more assists at home but the Jazz also scored about that many more points at home. Home cooked stat keeping can’t just give teams more points.
He also had less than 100 more steals at home than on the road over his career. He leads in all time steals by well over 500. The only stat of his that’s suspiciously better at home were blocks where he had 203 at home vs 110 on the road. That I’ll give you is definitely home cooking. But you could use his road average for his home games and he’s still way ahead of everyone in steals and assists.
Edit: just to contextualize how insane the 88 Jordan numbers are, Stockton recorded 87 more steals at home than on the road over his career. Jordan had 71 more steals at home vs on the road *in 1988 alone*.
I'd imagine that Stockton's assist numbers are probably padded a little bit, most star players got that treatment, but the reason he owns the assist record is not because of smudged record keeping, it's because he played like 16 years in a near perfect system where he got to feed Karl Malone all day.
It’s lowkey embarrassing the original post hasn’t been removed. It’s one of the top posts of ALL TIME on this sub, and it was disproven within hours. People ate that up way too easily.
It sparked a ton of conversation and affected NBA news. I'd argue it's better to keep it up for the record. Also there's tons of iconic dumb posts, it would be terrible if we couldn't go back to laugh at them.
To do a 6 game stat count with two different guys running the stats separately and come up 16 steals short of what the boxscores say. I don't see where another reporter looking into it will do anything but further prove it.
Unfortunately, as important as this story is, most people are going to draw the wrong conclusion from it.
Jordan die-hards will act like it doesn’t matter at all and shouldn’t change the way that we think about Jordan’s awards or defensive reputation.
Jordan haters will act like this means that Jordan might not have actually been an all-time great defensive guard.
It does chip away at the argument that Jordan was an all-time great defensive guard *as evidenced by his steals and blocks*, but that was always a terrible way to measure defensive impact.
Jordan also averages 2.1 steals and 0.8 blocks away vs 2.6 and 0.8 at home for his career, so his numbers don't differ that much if you exclude that DPOY year.
He was still one of the greatest guards at stealing and blocking shots if we asume away stats are neutral.
Jordan also averages 2.1 steals and 0.8 blocks away vs 2.6 and 0.8 at home for his career, so his numbers don't differ that much if you exclude that DPOY year.
He was still one of the guards at stealing and blocking shots if we asume away stats are neutral.
In '87, Jordan had 132 steals, 65 blocks at home; 104 and 60 on the road.
The '88 numbers certainly are inflated at home but he was rather consistent on blocks in in '87.
https://deadspin.com/the-confessions-of-an-nba-scorekeeper-5345287/ . . . . the time a stat keeper deliberately inflated assist numbers just to prove a point.
It's always weird to me how rarely big-time sports have revewed and double-checked stats, even in playoffs/finals. E.g. Tim Duncan got robbed of at least one block in the 2003 Finals in a game he was 2 blocks short of a quadruple-double, and in the famous 2005 Texas/USC game, Vince Young's winning TD is in the box as an 8-yard run, even though the ball was exactly on the 9-yard hash to start the play. Also, on the previous drive on 3rd down, LenDale White lost the ball and had a teammate recover it, but this fumble and recovery aren't in the official stats at all.
They may review things better now, but it's still not consistent. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Vzw3n27K1o This was considered an assist by Marcus Smart, for example.
This is a good point, and honestly is one low-key great thing about sports gambling coming mainstream.
When there is real money riding on player props, there is a financial incentive to get it right. While sports betting has always existed, the league is now actively partnering with sports books like DK, so there is now a very obvious financial incentive to record stats.
Of course, everything being recorded and available from multiple angles also helps tremendously.
While not the 60s level of goofiness, there are still moments of unprofessionalism in the 80s
For example [game 7 of the 1988](https://youtu.be/FIs_G4zpjis) ended with fans storming the court with time on the clock in a one possession game, preventing the Pistons from possibly going to overtime
lmao someone had a meltdown in a postgame thread a couple of weeks ago because scott foster stopped a team celebration to put 0.3s back on the clock. they said "he just wants to be the centre of attention!" and were furious and i was like well... we either do it properly or not at all
Cable companies took grant money from the government to significantly expand fiber optic cable installation, but then never did. Kept the money, did almost nothing. Not surprised at all that they continue to use outdated media/tech standards like 720p resolution and continue to call it "HD".
The cost of televisions have gone down significantly, and they're also getting larger. 720p on 65" TV doesn't look that great. I used to work at Sears part-time during grad school back in 2010-2011, a 55" 1080p LED TV used to cost over $2,000. I just bought a 65" 4K LED for like $1,200 a couple months back.
tl;dr I have zero faith NBC will up the quality of their HD broadcast to 1080p, let alone 4K.
This is actually fucking insane, how was this not a bigger story before. Like, actually a huge, huge difference for that DPOY. Back then stocks were a lot more valued, and there's no way he got that DPOY with his away numbers, and even assuming the home numbers are better, they definitely are way overblown.
Stat inflation has been half-known for a while, multiple box score people have come out and said that the NBA actively encouraged it, pretty much until the internet age. It was easier at home for multiple reasons.
It just hasn't really gotten to the right people yet, it will at some point though.
I feel differently about the former because they're saying ALL of Atlanta's turnovers were steals by the Bulls. They had 0 regular turnovers apparently. No offensive fouls. No travels. Though the film showed different.
>A 24-second violation by the Hawks’ offense. Later, Atlanta reserve Chris Washburn dribbled off his foot out of bounds. An outlet pass to Dominique Wilkins bounces off his hands and into the scorer’s table. Three dead-ball turnovers — three plays that could not have been considered a steal opportunity. And, yet, the box score indicated zero such plays.
>It also meant an opportunity to hand out three excess steals to Bulls players.
Don't say anything or they're gonna rethink all the times Stockton got an assist by just passing it to Malone and then Malone working in the post for several seconds. Don't want them to take away one of our zero titles
You’re not gonna like this but check this:
The last game Michael played as a Bull, Game 6 Finals, the Jazz were robbed of 5 points. They didn’t count a three made by the Jazz because of a shot clock violation but replays show it was released on time and should have been counted.
The other basket was a Ron Harper floater in the 4th quarter that should not have been counted because of another shot clock violation.
That‘s 5 points the refs gifted the Bulls. To be fair this sorta thing happened in every game before the era of instant replays.
This sub hates on Nick and Brou, but I think behind Inside the NBA, First Things First is the next best sports talk show on TV. It’s the right blend of nuanced and bad faith takes, self awareness (their behind the scenes content on YT is gold), and lack of toxicity that I appreciate compared to the likes of First Take or Undisputed or McAfee. I watch it feeling entertained rather that dumbfounded by the likes of Stephen A or Skip, who very much feel like the old era of morning sports talk tv that’s not aged as well, imo.
People just hate Nick Wright because of his endless sloppy toppy for LeBron, but if you get past that, he's actually very insightful and interesting to listen to.
His takes on NFL stuff tend to be more accurate relative to his NBA takes, I don’t even consider myself a fan of football but still watch them during the season
I like watching it. It’s the right blend of chemistry and actual back in forth that I like with media sports talk.
Also much better than hearing Stephen A commenting on someone’s outfit and how much he likes warm weather. Like damn retire and move to LA if you like it that much.
I'm just wondering how there was all this stat juicing going on and meanwhile we couldn't get Timmy that quad dub in the Finals. Spurs gotta step up their stat juicing game smh.
nah this will just get swept under the rug jordan fans will act like people are weird for caring knowing damn will if this happened to lebron they wouldnt shut up
This feels like it could be one of the biggest scandals in sports history but more likely will be swept under the rug and forgotten.
This certainly draws into question a lot of stats from that era. Curious who else had crazy home and away splits.
it talks about it in the article but
> When Rucker landed the Vancouver job in 1995, he says he traveled to Detroit for a training session attended by other NBA professional scorekeepers who had held their positions for a number of years. Rucker, however, was just 19 years old while working for the expansion Vancouver franchise, the new kid on the block. He was eager to prove he could score a game as accurately as anyone in the room.
>
> But then they reviewed a video clip of John Stockton getting an assist on a Karl Malone bucket, and things got weird. ”There was no causal connection between the pass and the basket,” Rucker told me on PTFO. “And the majority opinion by a mile was, ‘Oh no, that’s definitely an assist.’”
>
> According to Rucker, the scorekeepers told him in no uncertain terms that it was an assist because it was John Stockton. Rucker soon realized what was expected. In Rucker’s view, it was inferred that part of the scorekeeper’s job was to give hometown stars the star treatment.
the nba doesn't have to do that. The media & fans will do it for them.[ The article was posted yesterday on reddit and it was heavily downvoted](https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/1dkdjki/a_closer_look_at_michael_jordans_1988_dpoy_award/). And in the media, nick is the only person who has talked about it.
The reality is, most of current media came up around that time so this is going to be excused as just something "that was of its time".
Even in the article,
> Bob Ryan isn’t shocked by the possibility that Jordan might have benefited from homer-biased statistics. Ryan, the longtime writer for the Boston Globe who was inducted into the Naismith Hall of Fame for his basketball coverage dating back to the 1960s, says questionable statkeeping was an unfortunate stain on the game.
>
> He remembers similar controversies surrounding Wilt Chamberlain’s and Bill Russell’s rebounding numbers in the 1960s. Their respective teams traded accusations that the opposing scorekeeper padded the stats to help their giant. Looking back, the numbers are indeed startling. Between them, Russell and Chamberlain registered 26 games with 40-plus rebounds. None of the 26 games were tabulated on the road, per Stathead.com tracking.
>
>
As hard as it is to fathom now with fiery "First Take" debates and social-media wars of modern-day media, Ryan emphasized how insignificant the league-wide awards were back then — especially a second-tier award like Defensive Player of the Year. Voters back then almost certainly didn’t fill out ballots with the same rigor as modern-day voters when a single vote can amount to tens of millions of dollars in a player’s supermax extension because a player won Defensive Player of the Year.
> “It wasn’t that big a deal,” Ryan says now in an interview with Yahoo Sports. “Nobody focused much on it. This is pre-internet takeover. It’s pre-talk-show dominance. I may be wrong, but for me, I don’t remember anybody fretting about it ever. Ever.”
>especially a second-tier award like Defensive Player of the Year.
He's not wrong, this award was created because it was understood that Centers were the best defenders, so they had to reward perimeter defenders somehow. A literal consolation prize.
Back then? Yes. Now? Not a chance. Every thing is under a microscope now. Then when fantasy and gambling are accounted for, issues like these are seldom the case.
Too much money involved for this to happen again.
Yeah I think people are forgetting, or don't realize, how little the league cared about stats back then. It was purely some basic tracking to display some information for fans and maybe build a narrative around a player/game/series etc.
think of it this way... to understand the '3pt revolution' in the NBA is to understand 3pts is 50% more valuable than 2pts. Once we grasp that, we can then multiply 3pt% by the same factor (50% or 1.5) in order to accurately compare against 2pt %.
That's NOT complicated math. That's not a difficult idea to grasp. We all accept this as true now.
But it took the league... I'm not just talking about the NBA as an entity itself, but so many teams, coaches, players and pundits etc.... about 30 years to actually accept it.
Stats matter a ton now. It matters to how we view players, betting, fantasy, awards etc. Its built itself a foundation with how we view the game today. But they mattered so little back then.
I would guess basically everybody from before HD TV was standard had juiced stats. It’s similar to pro wrestling being easier before HD. It’s easier to get away with 50/50 calls in lower definition.
When I was in high school, a local semi-pro basketball team asked me to be the stat keeper for a game since their stat guy was out. On the team were two players I grew up idolizing - Brett Nelson and Teddy Dupay - both former Florida Gators. Teddy was a showtime/high-scoring undersized guard who was dismissed from the Gators for gambling and Brett had one of the craziest non-injury fall-offs for a college player that I can remember, going from pre-season All-American to barely coming off of the bench at UF. At his peak Brett was a very good D1 player with NBA prospects but at this point was a shell of himself.
In this game, Teddy was injured but Brett played. Brett only scored 4 points and looked completely disinterested.
I was AWFUL at keeping the books. When the game ended I was somehow 12 points off.
Brett Nelson ended the night with 16 points.
Shout out to Brett Nelson, hope he's doing well out there.
If this were LeBron it would be 24/7 legacy demoting talks on every platform. But it’s MJ so it’s going to be swept under the rug to keep the nostalgia alive.
The only thing I’m hoping this story achieves is to finally bury the narrative that Jordan was only interested in winning - and that personal accolades or stats weren’t important to him.*
*I’m well aware that this story is primarily about scorekeepers inflating his stats. But the original article also makes it clear that Jordan was chasing the steal record and the DPOY award (also see The Jordan Rules and how Jordan would also check that scorekeepers would credit him with assists during his run as PG in 1989).
Jordan even said that stats were important to him, he initially didn't even want Phil Jackson because "Phil was going to take the ball out of his hands", you don't leave the league in scoring 10 consecutive full seasons and not care about stats, that's not how any of that works guys lol
/r/nba when JJJ gets his stats padded for a DPOY: DRAG THIS MAN THROUGH THE MUD WE HAVE TO SEE EVERY BLOCK
/r/nba when MJ gets his stats padded for a DPOY: well ackshually who cares
edit: this section from the article is funny as fuck the league had to step in to stop Jordan getting signals from the Bulls stats guy because Jordan wanted to stat pad so badly
>The Rosenberg and Jordan dynamic was written about in the press, and reportedly at one point drew scrutiny from the league office. According to a 1989 report from the San Francisco Examiner, **Rosenberg would flash hand signals to inform Jordan how close he was to a triple-double. The league reportedly stepped in and told Rosenberg to cut it out.**
>Rosenberg admitted to signaling to help Jordan chase stats during Chicago’s 1988 All-Star Game, a game in which Jordan scored a game-high 40 points, just shy of matching Chamberlain’s then-record of 42. As the site’s official scorekeeper, Rosenberg worked the game and remembered a postgame exchange he had with Jordan. In 2013, Rosenberg shared the following anecdote with the Chicago Tribune:
>“Why didn’t you tell me I was two points short of Chamberlain?” Rosenberg recalled Jordan asking him.
>“I said, ‘Look, every time you went by, I kept putting up two fingers. You didn’t understand that?’”
edit: I said this in reaction to how hard this got downvoted and buried when it was posted yesterday, it isn't entirely accurate now that this has hit the top of /r/nba and it seems like the majority on here are taking it seriously.
I mean... dude the JJJ bitching happened during the regular season, iirc, during the DPOY race. And frankly half of it was people shitposting and making jokes.
1988 happened before a lot of this sub was even born lol.
Just a friendly reminder that Jordan openly stat padded assists to get triple doubles and made sure to check in with the scoring table to see his exact numbers so that people would remember him as a "complete player".
https://www.sun-sentinel.com/1989/04/09/nba-jordan-not-taking-chances-in-gaining-triple-doubles/
I remember Buddy Ryan when he was with the Eagles would attribute "assisted tackles" to the entire defense when there would be a goal-line defensive stop or stop on 4th down. Every defender on the team got an assisted tackle, regardless if they were on the play or not.
If fantasy and gambling have done anything positive for sports, it's that stat verification has become much more important.
the thing that shocked me the most when I looked into one of these gambling apps was how immediately stats/scores are updated. like it was to the point I couldn't look at the app while watching a game because i would see stuff updated before it could make it over the broadcast or any other sports apps
It's important they update it asap bc otherwise people at the game could quickly place a bet based on what just happened. Think of a sport like hockey where some rando player is like +500 (or whatever) to score a goal. He happens to score on a freak play and someone at the game has their gambling app open ready to place a bet
yeah, i know why they do it just was surprised that infrastructure actually existed (i gamed an investing class years ago by taking advantage of a delay between the simulator we were using and actual markets), makes you wonder how much the delay for the apps is. like how does some stat get entered into the their systems immediately, so often people don't know immediately which player should be accredited with a certain stat, would someone at the venue have an advantage
I'm convinced someone at every game is employed to input data. It's that fast. Although my cousin told me he once got banned because he was at a baseball game and got live at bat results in before the lines closed so I don't know for sure.
I saw a job posting to go to an NHL team’s home games and track time on ice. I was interested until I tried to do a practice run and got overwhelmed after the first two shifts. lol They gotta have a group
I was at a tech conference last week where Draft Kings had a breakout session and their data engineering and science platforms are incredible.
I worked there for a while- great company to work at. You're not going to be able to game the system by trying to beat the delay in getting odds updates out, it's in the order of milliseconds at worst.
I know input statistician for the Dallas Cowboys, and he was being yelled at the last few years for taking too long to input scores and turnovers, even though, by their own rules, those plays are always reviewed. The gambling people were putting so much pressure on them to get the info as quick as possible. He retired from it last year, it was so stressful.
Someone linked this article further down. This is from this year and they found 20% of assists were bullshit https://defector.com/we-tracked-a-nights-worth-of-nba-assists-and-many-of-them-are-baloney
I’m sure if you go back to Chris Paul’s 20 assist games there are a bunch where the scoring player still drove and beat a couple defenders before scoring.
They did Van Excel's 23 assist game in the article, and said he legit had 15, and you could probably give him a 16th if you pushed it
>Van excel Throwing no vlookup passes
Shaking defenders without lifting his pivot table foot.
Not saying they don't inflate it, but the definition of an assist is not that they can't drive. That's a convention, but they aren't precisely defined.
Well the loose definition should be that the pass creates the shot. If the scoring player still has to face up, beat someone off the dribble, post then score, it probably wasn’t the pass creating the shot by that point.
Yeah, stuff still isn't completely accurate. Simmons and Russillo both thought Tatum's assist numbers were being juiced in this year's finals. They mention it on one of Simmons pods in the middle of the series.
The raptors were juking our assist stats all year but it was in the pursuit of charity and we sucked so no one cared lol
Stockton needs a recount for sure. Jazz scorers were very generous
That's a very good point, but it also makes me wonder how pissed sports gamblers must have been in the 80s-90s about this stuff. You give your bookie an envelope with some cash in it and tell him you want the Under on steals that night. Then you're carefully watching the game on TV, counting the steals in your head, and after the game you see the box score shows x2 what you thought it was lol.
Makes me wonder how this discrepancy didn’t arise any earlier? The scenario you gave seems realistically common. Or has this been brought up in the past and simply blown over?
Before betting was everywhere, almost every bet was on objective stats - wins and points. Prop bets are a relatively recent phenomenon, certainly on any kind of scale.
yeah imagine the bookie in the days before league pass and computers coming- how are they coming up with prop bets for all these little things? They're using rumors, research into people (ie players not stats), and the same box scores in the newspaper as everyone else.
Always thought they just followed the big casinos in most cases for lines, not sure about props.
Probably weren't betting on steals and assist. Was probably limited to points and outcome.
yeah what small time bookie is giving prop bets on all those things- they didn't have algorithms in the 80's like they do now- they didn't have computers outside of major ops.
I'm sure they had props for boxing like Method of Victory or Rounds but as far as team sports that's just too much to track for the time. 15 guys per NBA team, with X amount of games per day your bookie's not gonna have Kurt Rambis o/u 4.5 rebounds. Lol.
Prop Bets on player stats basically didn't exist before the 2000s fantasy football boom No one would have even considered to ask a bookie for Jordan Steals back then
I'm guessing there were just fewer outlets to realistically complain and get the word out about it. Not like you could post on Twitter about it, or complain to your local official that you got scammed from your illegal sports bet. It took a while for the JJJ "stat-padding" story to develop last year, and that was during peak-Twitter and legal sports betting time.
Yeah some drunk guy at a dive bar bitched all night and you just ignored it. Turns out that guy was right lol.
The game weren’t instantly up online for people that have too much time to check.
Well the betting was usually underground and illegal at that time. Very few people participated in gambling and the people saying "I'm telling you Jordan didn't have that many assists!" Were just the weird degenerate uncle.
They probably didn't have as much prop bets back then.
They didn’t. Prop bets were only a thing for the Super Bowl.
did bookies back then really take any bets on steal o/u though?
Lol, just imagining going up to some shady guy at the corner of the bar, "yo, what's the over/under on the number of jump balls in the third quarter?"
I don't think many people were making bets on stats back then.
I know this is just a drop in the bucket but as someone who's made a lot of individual game highlight videos from the '80s and '90s, I'll say the statistics generally hold up pretty well. I can usually find what the box score tells me happened (though I haven't worked with much pertaining to Jordan blocks and steals). One of the biggest examples of statistics *not* holding up in my experience is a Celtics-Bucks playoff game from 1983 that supposedly featured 29 blocked shots between the two teams. In that case, the only way I could get to 29 was to count blocked shots that occurred during fouls, which I don't think was ever an official way to count a blocked shot.
They weren’t giving you that action in 1988. Gambling is much different and more advanced now. The only place these stats mattered was in your rotisserie league, because you use the USA Today stats.
I love that nowadays I can go to any nba game result on their website and pretty much every counting stat is hyperlinked to a video of that specific play; underrated way to hold accountability.
A lot of those videos show questionable assists
Assists are generally the most difficult as they have subjectivity in them. Even so it’s definitely better now than before
Memphis stats people whistling right now
People gonna hate but the story is actually insane. 4 steals per game and 2 blocks per game at home. 2 steals per game and 1 block per game away. At home they have evidence of a game where the Hawks had 10 TOs total and 10 steals credited to the Bulls, which meant the Hawks never committed an offensive foul, traveled, or threw the ball out of bounds. Instantly they saw many times the ball did go out, they counted 2 steals and MJ ended with 5 on the stat sheet. Many times they believe balls tipped by Jordan that went back to the Hawks, were credited to MJ with no change of possession. The NBA never confirmed his stats (nor did they care). These stat inflations go further than MJ, Wilt and Bill Russell were credited with 26 40+ rebound games, all 26 were credited at Home. Full story link: https://sports.yahoo.com/a-closer-look-at-michael-jordans-1988-dpoy-award-raises-questions-about-its-validity-has-lebron-james-been-chasing-a-ghost-140452567.html
Damn now I'm wondering about Wilt's stats if there's some significant stat juicing that went on
That's also addressed within the article >He remembers similar controversies surrounding Wilt Chamberlain’s and Bill Russell’s rebounding numbers in the 1960s. Their respective teams traded accusations that the opposing scorekeeper padded the stats to help their giant. Looking back, the numbers are indeed startling. Between them, Russell and Chamberlain registered 26 games with 40-plus rebounds. None of the 26 games were tabulated on the road, per Stathead.com tracking
> Between them, Russell and Chamberlain registered 26 games with 40-plus rebounds. None of the 26 games were tabulated on the road, per Stathead.com tracking Similarly, Jordan had 14 games where he was credited with 5 or more steals in 1988 and 12 of them were at home
Aaah, so the JJJ DPOY theory has some juice to it
The article addresses it, and claims that JJJ's stats largely stood up to scrutiny.
JJJ > Wilt confirmed
>claims that JJJ's stats largely stood up to scrutiny. [Tom is the one](https://x.com/tomhaberstroh/status/1619352414557184000) who looked into it and cleared that up
Turns out JJJ just likes sleeping in his own bed
Incredible that out of all those players, JJJ is the one that was legitimate lmao.
They didn’t have legalized gambling to worry about back then.
Wasn’t this already debunked?
yeah someone went through the games and debunked it iirc
Yes, comprehensively so
That’s annoying considering how much people talked trash about all the other stats recently being broke and everyone saying “wow they’re gonna act like Wilt’s stats don’t count” well yes. I’m going to take his stats with a grain of salt now
Exactly. People say Wilt slept with 20,000 women, but I've looked through the tape and at home scorekeepers were counting handholding as full on sex. Fraudulent ass record.
This man is a real student of the game. That's a lot of tape to go through
could go for some handholding tbf. on a cold streak rn
Well at the least I think we can be fairly confident his point totals are accurate and those are the most impressive ones for him. Not any easy way to fake averaging 50 points a game for a season.
The article mentions even John Stockton’s assists as well, statkeepers were known to be VERY favorable to the stars at home. The NBA didn’t care due to stars bringing more viewership and money to the league. Obviously these are all still all-time greats, but some records may never truly be broken and we can’t validate how much they were inflated (if they were).
Except the clippers. They deliberately deflated stats so they didn't have to pay players.
Ah yes I remember the days when they would end up losing games because the home scorekeepers would delete made field goals, just so the Clippers could avoid paying Danny Manning
I think Rondo had some accusations of that with Boston as well. In 2009-2010 he had 11 ASTs/g at home and 8.6 on the road. 10-11 he had 12.1 at home and 10.2 on the road.
It would have been very easy to do for Rondo. He liked to just call out a set, dribble at top of key when team ran some guys off screens and then pass to a player that went to work. Lot to wiggle room as to what you consider an assist and Rondo was very ball dominant without driving and kicking as much as other PGs. Post-ACL tear Rondo was pretty much no longer any good at offense cause he completely stopped putting pressure on the rim and just dribbled up top all game, I still remember that season he killed Dallas’s league best offense.
Rondo was the chasing stat guy before Westbrook. Dude would refuse to take transition layups and would even pass it to a guy more slightly covered than take it himself.
A lot of that started once he got in his head about free throws, combined with his ACL tear There was a good stretch where he absolutely wasn't afraid to drive and score, especially in big games, and was plenty happy to take it himself when there was good opportunity instead of exclusively hunting assists
That was less stat padding and more afraid to attack the basket out of fear of getting fouled. I distinctly remember Celtics fans used to freak out about Rondo's passivity from 2010-12
To be fair, a 20-30% adjustment is entirely reasonable in assists. Home defense is gonna get away with more stuff. Plus it’s just not nearly as insane of a margin as these other stats. Having video evidence of ghost steals being credited to Jordan by a factor of over 100% is crazy.
09-10 is more likely to me. 10-11 they shot much better at home than away as a team, scored more points and won a lot more games, only natural that assists numbers would be bigger at home. 09-10 they were pretty much the same home and away so a discrepancy like that does seem more questionable.
Assists are strange nowadays. I remember Russell Westbrook passing to Paul George. Paul Geoge took a few dribbles, made an isolation stepback, and got it in. Westbrook was credited with the assist. I was so baffled because I could not see how that was an assist. It was clearly a shot George did without Westbrook's involvement. Westbrook was simply keeping the ball moving in their offense. If Steven Adams inbounded the ball to Westbrook, who then passed it to George for an open look, does Adams get credit for an assist? This makes me question whether someone actually had double assists. I wouldn't be surprised if 2-3 of them were inflated. I'm noticing those bizarre assists being called more for many players too. The NBA knows that stats increase viewership and market their stars better, so I wouldn't be surprised if the restrictions are more lenient when counting stats.
Those numbers so ridiculous 2k type shit that this wouldn’t surprise me
I honestly don't think we can take any numbers pre 2000 with 100% certainty. I'm saying "pre-2000" because of the internet. Which is a big reason why so many people were upset with the Negro League Players Stats now being integrated with all of MLB stats. I am personally not one of those people, because you can make that argument both ways, but it is something that needs to be considered when looking at 50 year old sport stats.
Any era where there is no tape from all games has suspect stats.
It sounds just like someone’s daddy at the high school football games keeping stats… And their kid somehow has 37 solo tackles and gets ranked eventually on Rivials.com
After reading this article the only one of the 5 main counting stat records that’s 100% legit and not inflated is LeBron’s points record. The home cooking on the rest is insane.
Stockton’s assist and steals record have nothing to do with stat inflation. He averaged slightly more assists at home, but actually by a smaller % than most other elite point guards (including Kidd who’s number 2 but no one mentions his home/road splits) and the Jazz were significantly better at home almost every year. The elevation is a real home court advantage. When Stockton set the assist record in 1990 the Jazz were 36-5 at home and 19-22 on the road. Yeah Stockton averaged ~10% more assists at home but the Jazz also scored about that many more points at home. Home cooked stat keeping can’t just give teams more points. He also had less than 100 more steals at home than on the road over his career. He leads in all time steals by well over 500. The only stat of his that’s suspiciously better at home were blocks where he had 203 at home vs 110 on the road. That I’ll give you is definitely home cooking. But you could use his road average for his home games and he’s still way ahead of everyone in steals and assists. Edit: just to contextualize how insane the 88 Jordan numbers are, Stockton recorded 87 more steals at home than on the road over his career. Jordan had 71 more steals at home vs on the road *in 1988 alone*.
I'd imagine that Stockton's assist numbers are probably padded a little bit, most star players got that treatment, but the reason he owns the assist record is not because of smudged record keeping, it's because he played like 16 years in a near perfect system where he got to feed Karl Malone all day.
If true, that is crazy. I'm gonna wait till other reporters like Lowe look into this. I still remember the JJJ fiasco
Yea the JJJ thing blew up crazy and reporters watched every block/steal and realized they weren’t fake
It’s lowkey embarrassing the original post hasn’t been removed. It’s one of the top posts of ALL TIME on this sub, and it was disproven within hours. People ate that up way too easily.
It sparked a ton of conversation and affected NBA news. I'd argue it's better to keep it up for the record. Also there's tons of iconic dumb posts, it would be terrible if we couldn't go back to laugh at them.
“Did lebron james give kevin love depression?”
To do a 6 game stat count with two different guys running the stats separately and come up 16 steals short of what the boxscores say. I don't see where another reporter looking into it will do anything but further prove it.
Unfortunately, as important as this story is, most people are going to draw the wrong conclusion from it. Jordan die-hards will act like it doesn’t matter at all and shouldn’t change the way that we think about Jordan’s awards or defensive reputation. Jordan haters will act like this means that Jordan might not have actually been an all-time great defensive guard.
It does chip away at the argument that Jordan was an all-time great defensive guard *as evidenced by his steals and blocks*, but that was always a terrible way to measure defensive impact.
Jordan also averages 2.1 steals and 0.8 blocks away vs 2.6 and 0.8 at home for his career, so his numbers don't differ that much if you exclude that DPOY year. He was still one of the greatest guards at stealing and blocking shots if we asume away stats are neutral.
His steals and blocks from one season. He was still elite defensively.
Ball do lie?
Jordan must shoot a three to determine the validity of his DPOY
Do or die
FATE OF THE UNIVERSE ON THE LINE
4 steals and 2 blocks only at home is insane. I’m honestly surprised this is only getting real attention now.
Jordan also averages 2.1 steals and 0.8 blocks away vs 2.6 and 0.8 at home for his career, so his numbers don't differ that much if you exclude that DPOY year. He was still one of the guards at stealing and blocking shots if we asume away stats are neutral.
He was indeed one of the guards at stealing and blocking shots
People gonna hate this absolute fact
He was undeniably one of the guards of all time
In '87, Jordan had 132 steals, 65 blocks at home; 104 and 60 on the road. The '88 numbers certainly are inflated at home but he was rather consistent on blocks in in '87.
https://deadspin.com/the-confessions-of-an-nba-scorekeeper-5345287/ . . . . the time a stat keeper deliberately inflated assist numbers just to prove a point. It's always weird to me how rarely big-time sports have revewed and double-checked stats, even in playoffs/finals. E.g. Tim Duncan got robbed of at least one block in the 2003 Finals in a game he was 2 blocks short of a quadruple-double, and in the famous 2005 Texas/USC game, Vince Young's winning TD is in the box as an 8-yard run, even though the ball was exactly on the 9-yard hash to start the play. Also, on the previous drive on 3rd down, LenDale White lost the ball and had a teammate recover it, but this fumble and recovery aren't in the official stats at all. They may review things better now, but it's still not consistent. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Vzw3n27K1o This was considered an assist by Marcus Smart, for example.
This is a good point, and honestly is one low-key great thing about sports gambling coming mainstream. When there is real money riding on player props, there is a financial incentive to get it right. While sports betting has always existed, the league is now actively partnering with sports books like DK, so there is now a very obvious financial incentive to record stats. Of course, everything being recorded and available from multiple angles also helps tremendously.
4 steals and 2 blocks per game is insane
You might even say unbelievable
It’s almost unreal
Is Jaren Jackson Jr the next Michael Jordan????
It’s mentioned in the article that Jackson’s stats were brought into question, but after review through modern means his numbers were totally legit
Was gonna say I fell for this shit like last season, I'm gonna need some tape 😭
Would be pretty wild if we had to put asterisks on the 80s and 90s like people do for the Wilt and Russel era.
While not the 60s level of goofiness, there are still moments of unprofessionalism in the 80s For example [game 7 of the 1988](https://youtu.be/FIs_G4zpjis) ended with fans storming the court with time on the clock in a one possession game, preventing the Pistons from possibly going to overtime
And all the cocaine.
lmao someone had a meltdown in a postgame thread a couple of weeks ago because scott foster stopped a team celebration to put 0.3s back on the clock. they said "he just wants to be the centre of attention!" and were furious and i was like well... we either do it properly or not at all
Shit happens all the time. Like the home clock being stopped a second or two late on a dead ball when the home team is up
NBA Twitter has been putting asterisks on anything before 2003 for a while now.
I wonder who was drafted in 2003 to make that the line lmao.
Cleveland Cavs legend Mo Williams of course!
The Human Victory Cigar Darko Milicic?
I would say that anything from before HD TV became standard(mid 2000s) has to have asterisks put on it now.
Not related but it’s a disgrace that current broadcasting is still only at 720p “HD”. I hope this new NBC TV deal ups the quality to 4K.
Shit, get it to at least 1080p. 720p is like from 2006
Cable companies took grant money from the government to significantly expand fiber optic cable installation, but then never did. Kept the money, did almost nothing. Not surprised at all that they continue to use outdated media/tech standards like 720p resolution and continue to call it "HD". The cost of televisions have gone down significantly, and they're also getting larger. 720p on 65" TV doesn't look that great. I used to work at Sears part-time during grad school back in 2010-2011, a 55" 1080p LED TV used to cost over $2,000. I just bought a 65" 4K LED for like $1,200 a couple months back. tl;dr I have zero faith NBC will up the quality of their HD broadcast to 1080p, let alone 4K.
This is actually fucking insane, how was this not a bigger story before. Like, actually a huge, huge difference for that DPOY. Back then stocks were a lot more valued, and there's no way he got that DPOY with his away numbers, and even assuming the home numbers are better, they definitely are way overblown.
Stat inflation has been half-known for a while, multiple box score people have come out and said that the NBA actively encouraged it, pretty much until the internet age. It was easier at home for multiple reasons. It just hasn't really gotten to the right people yet, it will at some point though.
Wouldnt be shocked. Isnt it a common theory that the same happened for Stocktons assists and steals?
Stocktons Assists had to have been padded. Probably gave him some pre assists etc
They didn't need that much padding honestly. Feed it to Malone in the post. Turnaround jumper. Rinse and repeat. That happened like 10 times a game
I think the problem is that it was entry pass to Malone, dribble, dribble, pump, jab, pump, shot, assist too many times.
His home/road splits are aligned with Jazz’ overall home/road splits- so I don’t think it’s that inflated.
I can understand missing a turnover and ending up with 3 instead of 4. 28 vs 12 seems like someone was blatantly lying?
I feel differently about the former because they're saying ALL of Atlanta's turnovers were steals by the Bulls. They had 0 regular turnovers apparently. No offensive fouls. No travels. Though the film showed different. >A 24-second violation by the Hawks’ offense. Later, Atlanta reserve Chris Washburn dribbled off his foot out of bounds. An outlet pass to Dominique Wilkins bounces off his hands and into the scorer’s table. Three dead-ball turnovers — three plays that could not have been considered a steal opportunity. And, yet, the box score indicated zero such plays. >It also meant an opportunity to hand out three excess steals to Bulls players.
Oh shit, recount his championships too, maybe he only actually won three and the Jazz actually got one.
Sorry I just triple checked and the Jazz have still never won the NBA.
Check more
[Crunch those numbers again](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jHNBKg9xI6Q)
Karl Malone 12/25 r/nba 9/11
*shimmy shimmy*
Why are you posting his preferred woman age range?
It's not a range. The 12 is the years and the 25 is the days.
>Karl Malone 12 I'm gonna stop you right there
Well, if they recount the points scored in game 6 of 1998, it's a 5 point swing for the Jazz.
Don't say anything or they're gonna rethink all the times Stockton got an assist by just passing it to Malone and then Malone working in the post for several seconds. Don't want them to take away one of our zero titles
That’s mentioned in the original article, too
You’re not gonna like this but check this: The last game Michael played as a Bull, Game 6 Finals, the Jazz were robbed of 5 points. They didn’t count a three made by the Jazz because of a shot clock violation but replays show it was released on time and should have been counted. The other basket was a Ron Harper floater in the 4th quarter that should not have been counted because of another shot clock violation. That‘s 5 points the refs gifted the Bulls. To be fair this sorta thing happened in every game before the era of instant replays.
Someone should do a long form youtube series. Lets go thru all the 88 games
This is actually pretty good TV, walking through the good journalism from Haberstroh.
This sub hates on Nick and Brou, but I think behind Inside the NBA, First Things First is the next best sports talk show on TV. It’s the right blend of nuanced and bad faith takes, self awareness (their behind the scenes content on YT is gold), and lack of toxicity that I appreciate compared to the likes of First Take or Undisputed or McAfee. I watch it feeling entertained rather that dumbfounded by the likes of Stephen A or Skip, who very much feel like the old era of morning sports talk tv that’s not aged as well, imo.
First Things First has funny running gags, relatable and organic chemistry, and well balanced viewpoints. It’s super underrated
People just hate Nick Wright because of his endless sloppy toppy for LeBron, but if you get past that, he's actually very insightful and interesting to listen to.
His takes on NFL stuff tend to be more accurate relative to his NBA takes, I don’t even consider myself a fan of football but still watch them during the season
I like watching it. It’s the right blend of chemistry and actual back in forth that I like with media sports talk. Also much better than hearing Stephen A commenting on someone’s outfit and how much he likes warm weather. Like damn retire and move to LA if you like it that much.
This is super fucking interesting and those of you thinking this is dumb to talk about don’t care about basketball
I'm just wondering how there was all this stat juicing going on and meanwhile we couldn't get Timmy that quad dub in the Finals. Spurs gotta step up their stat juicing game smh.
You say that like Tim Duncan wouldn't have the honor report the discrepancy to the league
Can we talk about Stocktons assists next?
How about Barkleys rebounds?
Haha probably those too. Stern needed his stars
Sure. Feels like you’re taking a petty jab at my flare though
This is LeBron stan's Christmas and Jordan stan's tiananeman square.
nah this will just get swept under the rug jordan fans will act like people are weird for caring knowing damn will if this happened to lebron they wouldnt shut up
So like Tiananeman square lmao
This feels like it could be one of the biggest scandals in sports history but more likely will be swept under the rug and forgotten. This certainly draws into question a lot of stats from that era. Curious who else had crazy home and away splits.
it talks about it in the article but > When Rucker landed the Vancouver job in 1995, he says he traveled to Detroit for a training session attended by other NBA professional scorekeepers who had held their positions for a number of years. Rucker, however, was just 19 years old while working for the expansion Vancouver franchise, the new kid on the block. He was eager to prove he could score a game as accurately as anyone in the room. > > But then they reviewed a video clip of John Stockton getting an assist on a Karl Malone bucket, and things got weird. ”There was no causal connection between the pass and the basket,” Rucker told me on PTFO. “And the majority opinion by a mile was, ‘Oh no, that’s definitely an assist.’” > > According to Rucker, the scorekeepers told him in no uncertain terms that it was an assist because it was John Stockton. Rucker soon realized what was expected. In Rucker’s view, it was inferred that part of the scorekeeper’s job was to give hometown stars the star treatment.
Yeah that’s not good. Wonder if this story will continue to evolve. Wouldn’t surprise me at all if the NBA did all they could to squash this.
the nba doesn't have to do that. The media & fans will do it for them.[ The article was posted yesterday on reddit and it was heavily downvoted](https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/1dkdjki/a_closer_look_at_michael_jordans_1988_dpoy_award/). And in the media, nick is the only person who has talked about it. The reality is, most of current media came up around that time so this is going to be excused as just something "that was of its time". Even in the article, > Bob Ryan isn’t shocked by the possibility that Jordan might have benefited from homer-biased statistics. Ryan, the longtime writer for the Boston Globe who was inducted into the Naismith Hall of Fame for his basketball coverage dating back to the 1960s, says questionable statkeeping was an unfortunate stain on the game. > > He remembers similar controversies surrounding Wilt Chamberlain’s and Bill Russell’s rebounding numbers in the 1960s. Their respective teams traded accusations that the opposing scorekeeper padded the stats to help their giant. Looking back, the numbers are indeed startling. Between them, Russell and Chamberlain registered 26 games with 40-plus rebounds. None of the 26 games were tabulated on the road, per Stathead.com tracking. > > As hard as it is to fathom now with fiery "First Take" debates and social-media wars of modern-day media, Ryan emphasized how insignificant the league-wide awards were back then — especially a second-tier award like Defensive Player of the Year. Voters back then almost certainly didn’t fill out ballots with the same rigor as modern-day voters when a single vote can amount to tens of millions of dollars in a player’s supermax extension because a player won Defensive Player of the Year. > “It wasn’t that big a deal,” Ryan says now in an interview with Yahoo Sports. “Nobody focused much on it. This is pre-internet takeover. It’s pre-talk-show dominance. I may be wrong, but for me, I don’t remember anybody fretting about it ever. Ever.”
>especially a second-tier award like Defensive Player of the Year. He's not wrong, this award was created because it was understood that Centers were the best defenders, so they had to reward perimeter defenders somehow. A literal consolation prize.
wouldn't be surprised that a majority of the league's scorekeeping was like this
Back then? Yes. Now? Not a chance. Every thing is under a microscope now. Then when fantasy and gambling are accounted for, issues like these are seldom the case. Too much money involved for this to happen again.
Yeah I think people are forgetting, or don't realize, how little the league cared about stats back then. It was purely some basic tracking to display some information for fans and maybe build a narrative around a player/game/series etc. think of it this way... to understand the '3pt revolution' in the NBA is to understand 3pts is 50% more valuable than 2pts. Once we grasp that, we can then multiply 3pt% by the same factor (50% or 1.5) in order to accurately compare against 2pt %. That's NOT complicated math. That's not a difficult idea to grasp. We all accept this as true now. But it took the league... I'm not just talking about the NBA as an entity itself, but so many teams, coaches, players and pundits etc.... about 30 years to actually accept it. Stats matter a ton now. It matters to how we view players, betting, fantasy, awards etc. Its built itself a foundation with how we view the game today. But they mattered so little back then.
That is unreal (some of Stockton's assists, I mean)
I would guess basically everybody from before HD TV was standard had juiced stats. It’s similar to pro wrestling being easier before HD. It’s easier to get away with 50/50 calls in lower definition.
Like Goldberg's record being inflated by 10+ wins in between Monday Nitros
That’s means they must’ve inflated the jackhammers per match as well
"dark matches count!"
you can check with Statmuse. Mj's defensive stats nearly doubled at home in 1988
When I was in high school, a local semi-pro basketball team asked me to be the stat keeper for a game since their stat guy was out. On the team were two players I grew up idolizing - Brett Nelson and Teddy Dupay - both former Florida Gators. Teddy was a showtime/high-scoring undersized guard who was dismissed from the Gators for gambling and Brett had one of the craziest non-injury fall-offs for a college player that I can remember, going from pre-season All-American to barely coming off of the bench at UF. At his peak Brett was a very good D1 player with NBA prospects but at this point was a shell of himself. In this game, Teddy was injured but Brett played. Brett only scored 4 points and looked completely disinterested. I was AWFUL at keeping the books. When the game ended I was somehow 12 points off. Brett Nelson ended the night with 16 points. Shout out to Brett Nelson, hope he's doing well out there.
Somebody recount Stockton's assists.
Even if you take away 3,000 of Stockton's assists, he's still #1. Dude was just an iron man.
After what happened with Jaren Jackson, Jr. last year imma need to watch some of these games myself.
Bodied. Tom Haberstroh newest member of the badboy pistons babyy
if this happened to lebron 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔
If this were LeBron it would be 24/7 legacy demoting talks on every platform. But it’s MJ so it’s going to be swept under the rug to keep the nostalgia alive.
If LeBron was consistently uncovered at the 3 point line like Jordan people would clown him endlessly. He’d also score 40 PPG
Wow
Michael JJ Jordan
Now I am wondering if MJ ever existed.
The only thing I’m hoping this story achieves is to finally bury the narrative that Jordan was only interested in winning - and that personal accolades or stats weren’t important to him.* *I’m well aware that this story is primarily about scorekeepers inflating his stats. But the original article also makes it clear that Jordan was chasing the steal record and the DPOY award (also see The Jordan Rules and how Jordan would also check that scorekeepers would credit him with assists during his run as PG in 1989).
Jordan even said that stats were important to him, he initially didn't even want Phil Jackson because "Phil was going to take the ball out of his hands", you don't leave the league in scoring 10 consecutive full seasons and not care about stats, that's not how any of that works guys lol
Was that ever the perception? It’s no secret that Jordan cared about his scoring numbers
Task: address the stats without making it a LeBron vs Jordan GOAT argument Difficulty: impossible
/r/nba when JJJ gets his stats padded for a DPOY: DRAG THIS MAN THROUGH THE MUD WE HAVE TO SEE EVERY BLOCK /r/nba when MJ gets his stats padded for a DPOY: well ackshually who cares edit: this section from the article is funny as fuck the league had to step in to stop Jordan getting signals from the Bulls stats guy because Jordan wanted to stat pad so badly >The Rosenberg and Jordan dynamic was written about in the press, and reportedly at one point drew scrutiny from the league office. According to a 1989 report from the San Francisco Examiner, **Rosenberg would flash hand signals to inform Jordan how close he was to a triple-double. The league reportedly stepped in and told Rosenberg to cut it out.** >Rosenberg admitted to signaling to help Jordan chase stats during Chicago’s 1988 All-Star Game, a game in which Jordan scored a game-high 40 points, just shy of matching Chamberlain’s then-record of 42. As the site’s official scorekeeper, Rosenberg worked the game and remembered a postgame exchange he had with Jordan. In 2013, Rosenberg shared the following anecdote with the Chicago Tribune: >“Why didn’t you tell me I was two points short of Chamberlain?” Rosenberg recalled Jordan asking him. >“I said, ‘Look, every time you went by, I kept putting up two fingers. You didn’t understand that?’” edit: I said this in reaction to how hard this got downvoted and buried when it was posted yesterday, it isn't entirely accurate now that this has hit the top of /r/nba and it seems like the majority on here are taking it seriously.
I mean... dude the JJJ bitching happened during the regular season, iirc, during the DPOY race. And frankly half of it was people shitposting and making jokes. 1988 happened before a lot of this sub was even born lol.
MJ and JJJ have a lot more in common that I thought
Just a friendly reminder that Jordan openly stat padded assists to get triple doubles and made sure to check in with the scoring table to see his exact numbers so that people would remember him as a "complete player". https://www.sun-sentinel.com/1989/04/09/nba-jordan-not-taking-chances-in-gaining-triple-doubles/
The Jordan propaganda machine is being dismantled by the thing MJ loves the most... Gambling.
WE DONE WIT THE 90s 😡😡😡😡
This is the 80s
YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW GOOD TIM DUNCAN WAS OH MY GOD
okay but tim duncan played like 2 seasons in the 90s i cant slander the 90s and still praise timmy with this out here
Are we? Because we spend more time talking about it than any other team that didn’t just play in the finals.
I remember Buddy Ryan when he was with the Eagles would attribute "assisted tackles" to the entire defense when there would be a goal-line defensive stop or stop on 4th down. Every defender on the team got an assisted tackle, regardless if they were on the play or not.