Many baseball bettors have tracked umpires for years, believing that the men in blue can have a big effect on the game, particularly in relation to totals. The assumption is that that umpires with big strike zones make it easy for pitchers, which should lead to more unders, while an umpire with a smaller strike zone will favor hitters, making the game more likely to go over the total.

In theory, the premise sounds good, but in real life doesn't quite work out that way, as I've shown in Baseball Betting - Umpires and Their Effect on Baseball Totals and later 2013 Baseball Umpires Report.


Now, an increasing number of bettors are starting to focus on NBA officials and how they might have an impact on the final score of the game. Do they call a lot of fouls? Do they tend to favor the home team? Do their games tend to go over or under the total?

The first thing to remember is that basketball is different than baseball in that there are three officials working each game, as opposed to one person calling balls and strikes in a particular game, which should make it more difficult for one person to influence the outcome.

2013-14 NBA Officials

There are more officials who have a tendency for their games to go over the total than there are those whose games go under the total. We'll look at some of the biggest differences next.

Over Officials and Record

Eric Lewis 38-12

Gary Zielinski 31-20

Michael Smith 30-17

Tom Washington 30-18-1

Mark Lindsay 30-19

Ed Malloy 29-19

Bill Spooner 27-16

David Jones 27-17

Bennett Salvatore 19-10

Under Officials and Record

 Tre Maddox 11-24

Ron Garretson 15-28-1

Rodney Mott 18-28

Scott Twardoski 16-26

Courtney Kirkland 21-28

Obviously, Eric Lewis' totals record of 38-12 is going to jump out at you. Upon closer examination, Lewis' games have averaged 203.66 points and there have been an average of 42.52 fouls called in each game.

Compare Lewis' numbers with those of Tre Maddox, who has been the biggest under referee so far at 11-24. In the games Maddox calls, there have been an average of 42.23 fouls called and an average score of 201.37 points, which really isn't that different from Lewis, but the difference in results have been drastic.

Home and Away Officials

Now, we'll take a look at a few of the officials who display strong tendencies towards the home team or the visitors. The majority of differences tend to favor the visitor.

Home Officials

Sean Corbin 30-17

James Williams 23-14-1

Away Officials

Tony Brown 13-32-1

Eli Roe 15-26-1

Karl Lane 15-25

Scott Foster 16-32

Steve Anderson 12-22

Jason Phillips 17-29-1

Kevin Scott 19-32

Conclusion

As with baseball umpires, the law of averages say that any time you have a large group involved in what should be a 50-50 proposition there are going to be variances from the norm. If you flipped a coin 50 times and then repeated that process 60 times, you would see some occurrences of 32 heads and 18 tails or 33 tails and 17 heads.

In the case of Eric Lewis, in the previous three seasons he was 100-98 in totals, while Tre Maddox, our biggest under referee of 2013-14, was a strong 36-14 in overs last season.

Tony Brown, who has seen the road team go 32-13-1 in his games this year, saw the home teams go 38-31-1 in his games last year, while the biggest home referee this season, Sean Corbin, saw the home team go 26-37-2 last season.

Just with baseball, the year-to-year consistency is not there, making me believe there is little to the premise.