A Problem With No Solution

In the halftime analysis of Rondo-Miller Gate, the TNT crew got the call from last night's game right, while the NBA didn't. "He hit a guy in the head and made him bleed," as Chuck Barkley said, and it just had the Chuckster's be-all and end-all air of simple fact.

But there's more, really. I'd also like to point out the hopelessly arbitrary nature of this, for the record, by having you imagine how the play would have been called if:

1) Miller's the guard, and Rondo's the big man.

2) Miller goes to the ground and stays there for five minutes, apparently concussed.

3) The play occurs in Boston, with the game conditions reversed (i.e., Rondo driving to tie, Miller fouling), and

4) It's an elimination game, rather than a Game 5.

(No, seriously, think what it means if this is how Game 7 goes down. Great googly moogly. I hope I didn't just call the shot.)

You see the problem; all of these changes don't really make a difference in the play, but they dramatically change the likelihood of the flagrant foul being called.

That's because, on some level, the flagrant foul call is completely arbitrary and judgmental, and yet, it has a huge impact on the game. No other sport has this kind of physical issue that impairs the judgment of the referee; if a small or big pitcher hits someone with a pitch, the batter takes first base. If a small market NFL team's cornerback gets tangled up with one from a large market on a game-changing pass interference call / no-call, the NFL doesn't lose tens of millions of dollars in lost ratings if the call goes to the non-plus market.

There is, of course, no way to "fix" this situation; it's just the nature of the beast in basketball, a non-contact sport where the best teams use contact to win. It's also going to come up only when the games are being watched the most, which is to say, close games among big market teams. Hopefully, that situation continues, because it's just a better problem to have, since it means we'll continue to have great playoffs. Anyway, moving on.