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The NBA ref scandal is tangentially related to Cleveland sports and so it falls under the purview of the Disappointment Zone.

Here is one of the better, shorter takes I’ve read on the subject, from The Sports Economist. The blog post references the Price-Wolfers study about racial bias in NBA refereeing. You might have heard of it from the strong, vocal cries of foul! wrong! ridiculous! emanating from the NBA Commissioner’s Office. The NBA reassured its fans that it monitors its refs closely and would certainly detect any racial bias.

Well, the NBA didn’t detect a referee influencing games for the mob.

You should read the whole thing, which runs about five sentences longer than what’s below.

Of course, the whole reason the field of inferential statistics has been developed is to help discover relationships that cannot be identified through casual (or even intense) direct observation. While there may be valid arguments why Price and Wolfers are wrong, the NBA’s claim that “We can’t see it with our naked eyes” was always ignorant in the extreme…. If the naked eye can’t even pick up a guy trying to throw games for the mob, how can there be any hope, aside from well-designed statistical experiements like that of Price and Wolfers, of discovering subtle (and almost certainly, subconcious) racial bias in the NBA?

Bentley passes physical

The AP is reporting that LeCharles Bentley passed his physical today and has been cleared to play football. Bentley will still need to pass the team physical, but he is confident he’ll get clearance.

A few months ago Bentley was close to dying. Now he is trying to play professional football. His chances of making a meaningful contribution remain incredibly slim — there is a reason Savage has been quite on the subject — but at this point you have to figure playing football is the icing on the cake.

In other NFL News: Emmitt Smith is stupid.