I kind of agree with you blue... but... IMO it's worse in the NBA... I really think there is a league wide conspiracy to at least control things such as the market... And why not??? It's certainly profitable!...

For instance... David Stern was talking about how there hasn't been a 7 game finals in some 20 years for last years playoffs... all of the sudden WOW look at that... a seven game series that was HORRIBLY officiated... Personally I think Lebron was made to get close and not make it... The calls certainly went his way the WHOLE series.. However, the final two games were much more evenly officiated. I don't say that crap as a Pistons fan. Anyone that thinks I do... I would LOVE to sit down, watch a televised game, and discuss the controversial calls...

Additionally... Basketball, much more so than football, is controlled by tempo and rythm. Refs in football could kind of couter that by creating a 3rd in long (hard to convert) or a taking away a big play/TD with a call. Still, though the Lions don't get calls and seem to be the subject of many calls reviewed and even condemned by the NFL, I think the NBA moreso than the NFL has a problem with officiating... Personally I see it as a league wide conspiracy... and I'm not typically a conspiracy theorist...

Sounds good, Wjb. I definitely agree that the officiating the NBA is too conspicuous, especially so, for some reason, in the playoffs of late. It really kills the game, IMO. And I know there is developing a groundswell of popular conspiracy theory that David Stern is exactly the kind of contriving dictator-commissioner to overstep every line in pursuit of better the the only one that matters--the one at the bottom. However, I think the opposite.
I think Stern is too smart to cut out the fundamental integrity of the game for the sake of bettering a few bottom lines up front. He knows it will ruin the sport. Instead, he grows his business by broadening the consumer market for his product (developing the only somewhat successful womens' league and globalizing the sport more proficiently than any other of the 4 major American sports) and cutting out the inefficiencies (setting that ultra-controversial age-floor for NBA players) to thereby minimize the extras that get in the way of his true assets: the greatest individual athletes in the world. His is a game of superstars more than any of the other 4 major American sports, it is true. I don't think, though, that this necesarily means that there is a top-down policy of rule-rigging for stars.
Like in baseball, where a Clemens grows accustomed to getting that enlarged strike zone, good players are given a little more latitude at times to make use of their athleticism to give the league what it really wants: its fans will be entertained by the athleticism and grace of these gladiators they adore.

Unfortunately, refs and officials can get in the way of the true entertainment aspect of the sports we love when they inject the strictures of petty rules into the most critical of contests, which already feature the gladiators who have advanced to this stage of competition precisely because they have consistently performed--within the rules--at a higher level than all the rest throughout the long season. This is why I have an expectation that officials will ease the strictness of their officiation once the playoffs begin. These teams know that winning requires hustle and execution--not cheating. If cheating starts to occur, by all means, blow the whistle. But until then, let these champion-gladiators entertain us. May the best team win despite trevails caused by the increased effort of all involved. And may the best athletes amaze us by rising above the chafe and seizing the day.