OPINION

By Jon Campbell

updated 1:53 p.m. ET July 24, 2007

If you're looking for the best official in the NBA, speaking from a betting statistics point of view, your search would end at Dick Bavetta.

You know Dick Bavetta. He was the senior citizen who raced Charles Barkley for charity during this past season’s All-Star Weekend in Las Vegas. He gave Sir Charles that drooly kiss when it was all over and made us all wish he’d settled for a post-race handshake.

Well this past season, the 67-year-old taught his colleagues a lesson in officiating when the teams he refereed went a perfect .500 against the spread (40-40-2) and posted a 41-41 over/under record.

He is Commissioner David Stern’s grey-shirted dream.

Only two other officials came close enough to the .500 mark in both home ATS and over/under records to merit mentioning: Marc Davis (31-33-5 ATS, 34-34-1 O/U) and Bill Kennedy (36-36-0 ATS, 35-36-1 O/U).

To me that makes this old guy Bavetta pretty impressive. Even last year his home ATS record was 41-43 and his over/under record wasn’t overly lopsided by NBA standards at 46-37.

But do you know what?

If you wanted to, if you really wanted to, you could make a case that Bavetta was fixing games based on the numbers alone.

For example, nobody saw more personal fouls in the games he reffed over the past two years (6714) and nobody’s crew had a higher personal foul-per-game average (48) than Bavetta.

Nobody saw more free-throw attempts in the games in which he officiated (7737) either, and nobody saw more foul-outs (78).

And if you want the most convincing evidence of all, just ask a Utah Jazz fan if they remember Game 6 of the NBA Finals back in 1998 — then run. 

Bavetta disallowed a Howard Eisley three-pointer at the end of the first half that Bavetta mistakenly waved off because he thought time had expired. The image of Michael Jordan hitting the winning shot over Byron Russell to give the Bulls a one-point victory has now been branded into every NBA fan’s memory.

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But does all that make Bavetta a game-fixer?

I doubt it. 

Our newest celebrity NBA referee, Tim Donaghy, is the only official to average more foul-outs per game than Bavetta with a .580 mark over the past two seasons and that has led some to jump the gun and point the guilty finger before any verdicts have been passed.

The theory behind this is that if you want to control a game as an official, you do it by calling fouls. In particular, if you want a game to go over the posted total, more fouls would do a bankroll good. More free throws equals more free points and more time on the clock is stopped.

Donaghy’s fouls are high therefore he’s guilty, goes the logic. 

I’m not saying Donaghy is innocent — there are a few things in his numbers that make me raise my eyebrows and I’ll get into that in a bit — but if you’re looking for the magic trend that you can point to and say with 100 percent certainty this guy should be dragged out in shackles, bypass the courtroom and go straight to jail, you won’t find it.

MSNBC video Stern: Referees face 'extensive security checks' July 24: NBA Commissioner David Stern explains the security checks referees are subjected to by the league. MSNBC

The Las Vegas oddsmakers we spoke with recently said there wasn’t anything in the numbers to tip them off and nobody in our Covers.com newsroom picked up on anything illegal either.

You can blame the NBA for that. There are so many inconsistencies in the betting statistics for NBA officials that the only consistency is inconsistency.

Twelve of the 60 NBA officials (20 percent) from last season recorded home team ATS records that had a differential of at least 10 games, whether it was in favor of the home team’s record or the other way around. Compare that to the fact only four of the 30 teams in the NBA had ATS records with differentials in the double-digits: Toronto, New Orleans, Sacramento and Minnesota. Only one other team had a differential of nine games (Denver) and every other team had a differential of seven or lower.

In short, if you want to bet on a single team every game all season your chances of making a big profit are slim. Bet on a single official every game and your chances increase significantly.

In one official’s case, Jess Kersey, the visiting team went 42-18-1 against the number in games he officiated – a difference of 24 games in favor of the visitor. That’s too many, even if we are talking about betting statistics here.

I’m not saying Kersey has done anything illegal, I’m just saying the NBA needs to make adjustments so the fans, players, and yeah, the bettors, can know what to expect. The variance from one referee to another has become so great that many bettors don’t even bother with the NBA anymore and we’re seeing players and coaches get more fed up with NBA officiating every year.

I ditched betting on the NBA a long time ago other than the occasional mini wager here and there. I don’t watch for fun either; it’s too frustrating watching fingernail fouls or a ref with a grudge decide a basketball game and I’m far from the only one who bitches about it. 

To respond to that, the NBA cracked down on technical fouls this season. Now they tee-up guys if you smirk on the bench or do anything but shake his hand for making such a fantastic call. The message has become clear: no smirking. No criticism.  

But Stern claims differently. He claimed last year the NBA has ''the best officials, the best-monitored officials, the best-developed officials in all of sports.” He claims refs are reviewed after nearly every game. Then how did a little thing like Tim Donaghy’s point-shaving scandal happen in this league?

If what Stern says is true, the NBA would have been the first one to catch on to Donaghy’s alleged scandal, if it in fact happened. They are after all, the only ones who hold the exact stats for each official’s fouls on a game-by-game, quarter-by-quarter basis.

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