Inflategate: Unmasking the Scorekeeper Who Faked NBA History

Summary

Podcast Summary

Pablo Torre Finds Out

Episode: Inflategate: Unmasking the Scorekeeper Who Faked NBA History
Date: February 27, 2024
Host: Pablo Torre (with Tom Haberstroh, Cortez, and guest Alex Rucker)
Podcast Network: Le Batard & Friends / Metal Ark Media

---

Overview: The Truth Behind NBA Stat "Inflation"

This episode dives deep into one of basketball’s most compelling yet overlooked scandals: the era when NBA history was literally inflated by scorekeepers. Amid a modern scoring boom, Pablo Torre and analytics expert Tom Haberstroh investigate a decades-old secret: that at least one official NBA scorekeeper – who later became a high-level league executive – juiced player stats, helping rewrite NBA history for both fun and franchise promotion. Along the way, the episode probes the bigger question: In a sport that reveres its numbers, what happens when the numbers were never real to begin with?

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Modern "Inflation" Era (00:31-04:15)

• NBA today sees an explosion in scoring: “All of the scoring, all of these points… it all feels like an All Star game.” (Pablo, 00:44)
• Historic perspective: Modern seasons have shattered previous high-water marks for scoring; 50-, 60-, even 70-point games are common.
• Two possible reasons: Is it offensive proficiency, or declining defense?
• Cultural reaction: Long-time fans feel disoriented and nostalgic; the modern game “feels like every game is an All Star game.” (Cortez, 03:30)

2. The Jaren Jackson Jr. "Blocks" Conspiracy (04:15-06:49)

• Reddit suspicion: Rumors last season accused a Memphis scorekeeper of inflating Jaren Jackson Jr.’s defensive stats for award purposes.
• Internet investigation: Stat analysts reviewed every block—turns out the numbers were largely fair; maybe “off by two or three blocks, negligent difference.” (Cortez, 05:47)
• Takeaway: That conspiracy was debunked, but it reminded insiders that real scorekeeping conspiracies have happened.

3. The Real Scorekeeper “Scam”: Vancouver Grizzlies (06:49-21:02)

• Call to investigate: Pablo receives a tip about a real historic scandal involving the Memphis/Vancouver Grizzlies and stat inflation.
• Setting the scene: Sloan Sports Analytics Conference is introduced as ground zero for basketball analytics professionals (“dorkapalooza”).
• Message board lore: On the APBRmetrics forum in 2009, a user revealed he’d been an NBA scorekeeper who admitted to “cooking the books.”
  • Confession: “Because I'm a Laker fan, I gave Nick Van Exel like 23 assists one game. If he was vaguely close to a guy making a shot, I found a way to give him an assist.” (14:15)
• Fact-check: Reviewing tape of the famous Van Exel assist game, Tom finds clear “phantom” assists, confirming the confession.
• Scandal’s reach: Tommy Craggs and Deadspin help try to unmask the anonymous scorekeeper, known only as “Alex from the Navy.”

4. Unmasking the Scorekeeper: Enter Alex Rucker (19:53-23:31)

• The media guide breakthrough: Tom locates a 1996-97 Vancouver Grizzlies media guide on eBay. Page 177 lists “Game Caller, Technical: Alex Rucker.”
  • Revelation moment: “It felt like in Usual Suspects when the reveal happens, the Kaiser Sosei moment when he dropped the mug on the floor.” (Tom, 20:23)
• Who is Alex Rucker? (23:17)
  • Rose to be an NBA analytics pioneer.
  • Worked in several franchises, most recently as exec VP of the 76ers.
  • “This is a guy who is that well known, that respected.” (Tom, 22:27)

5. The Scorekeeper Speaks: Alex Rucker’s Confession (23:31-27:22)

• Rucker admits everything: At age 20, he did fudge stats.
  • “I was immature. I handled things in a way that I certainly wouldn’t today… you put a 19, 20 year old in charge of anything and you’re playing with fire.” (Rucker, 23:59)
• How and why it happened: Training for scorekeepers prioritized “entertainment” and encouraged inflating stats to boost local players and market the team.
  • “The NBA is also an entertainment business and it's up to us, in very small part, statisticians, to support and reinforce stars and excitement and fun. And that message was definitely reinforced internally within the Grizzlies.” (Rucker, 25:03)
• Team approval: Rucker was congratulated for games where opponents set statistical records because it guaranteed SportsCenter highlights: “Hey, good job out there, we’re definitely going to be on SportsCenter.” (Tom, 27:36)

6. The Canadian Expansion Teams: Widespread Inflation (27:22-31:06)

• Pattern of stat disparity: Data shows home/road splits for blocks and other stats were massive for the Grizzlies and Raptors in the late 90s (Toronto had 200% inflation at home).
• Expansion teams’ incentives: Desperate to build a fan base and get media attention, teams juiced stats for SportsCenter moments.
• Beyond Canada: Other expansion teams like the New Orleans Pelicans show the same pattern.

7. The League-Wide Problem: Inflation Was “Endemic” (31:06-35:18)

• Systemic issue: Not just expansion teams—home-cooked stats were an open secret across the NBA pre-2000s.
• Technological Revolution: Now, real-time video, oversight, and analytics have mostly ended stat inflation.
  • "There’s so much more scrutiny, oversight, review of it now, where you should have a lot more faith and confidence in the data that’s pumped out now than the data that was pumped out 10, 20, 30, 40 years ago." (Rucker, 34:23)

8. The Impact on Historical Comparisons (36:19-44:49)

• Shock to the record: Comparing 1984 to today, the gap between home and away blocks has vanished—from an extra 1,100 home-team blocks per year to just 61 in 2023.
• Implication: Defensive accolades (All-Defensive Teams, Defensive Player of the Year, etc.) awarded in the 80s and 90s may rest on “inflated” stats.
  • Example – Michael Jordan’s DPOY year (1988): 80% more steals and blocks at home than away.
  • Example – Vince Carter’s rookie year: 55 blocks at home, just 22 on the road.
• Skepticism needed: “It’s good to have a healthy appreciation, a healthy respect, a healthy skepticism of data.” (Rucker, 43:09)
• The myth of objectivity: Even sacred stats are products of human hands and incentives.

9. What’s Happening Today? (44:03-45:49)

• Contemporary “inflation” is structural, not statistical: Rules changes (freedom of movement, more threes, less physical defense) are what enable offensive explosions now—not scorekeepers.
  • “I don't think it's taking the form of a statkeeper on the sidelines. I think the manipulation comes in kind of like behind the scenes, like from up top.” (Tom, 44:44)
  • “There's two inflations we're talking about here…” (Tom, 45:18)

10. The Final Irony: The Most Inflated Era (45:18-end)

• Not the modern game, but... The true "most inflated" era was the romanticized Jordan 80s and 90s. “The era that we're most nostalgic about, it's the Jordan era.” (Tom, 45:32)
• Show business: The game was always part entertainment, crafted by human hands—sometimes behind the scorer’s table.
• Summary quote: “What we have found out today is that the human element has always been a part of the thing that we made our careers on, which is you guys need to stop trusting your eyes and start trusting math.” (Pablo, 46:27)

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “The emotions I was going through was: Wait a minute. It's all a lie.”
  – Tom Haberstroh (00:06, and again at 42:18)

• On old-school stat-keeping:
  “If you want the most efficient way to put two points in that basket, start learning how to do these predictive models with camera tracking data. And Alex Rucker was at the forefront.” (Tom, 21:43)

• On motivations for stat inflation:
  “We are supposed to create the most accurate representation we can, but the NBA is also an entertainment business...” (Rucker, 25:03)

• On finding ‘Alex from the Navy’:
  “It felt like in Usual Suspects when the reveal happens, the Kaiser Sosei moment...” (Tom, 20:23)

• On modern numbers:
  “There’s so much more scrutiny, oversight, review of it now, where you should have a lot more faith and confidence in the data...” (Rucker, 34:23)

• On Michael Jordan's ‘stat inflation’:
  “Home and away splits: 165 steals at home, 94 steals away, 84 blocks at home, 47 blocks away—that’s not subtle...” (Pablo, 38:35)

• “Half man, half inflation, right?”
  – Pablo (regarding Vince Carter, 41:01)

• On lessons learned:
  “It’s good to have a healthy appreciation, a healthy respect, a healthy skepticism of data.” (Rucker, 43:09)

---

Important Segment Timestamps

| Timestamp | Segment Summary | |----------------|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 00:31—04:15 | Basketball's Scoring Boom and "All-Star Game" Era | | 04:15—06:49 | The Jaren Jackson "blocks" conspiracy on Reddit, NBA stat accuracy | | 06:49—19:05 | The real Grizzlies scorekeeper controversy; Tom and Pablo set the scene | | 19:53—21:02 | Discovery in the media guide—“Alex from the Navy” revealed as Alex Rucker | | 23:31—27:22 | Alex Rucker confesses and explains the environment that enabled stat fudging | | 27:22—31:06 | Expansion teams and the incentive to inflate stats for media exposure | | 31:06—35:18 | The league-wide issue and how technological evolution has (mostly) ended scorekeeper inflation | | 36:19—44:49 | The impact on historic records and why stats before the 2000s are unreliable | | 44:03—45:49 | Today’s offensive inflation: Rule changes, not cooked stats | | 45:18—end | The 80s and 90s as the real “inflated” era; Reflection on the human element in sports numbers |

---

Flow & Tone

All the hallmarks of Pablo Torre’s style are here: a blend of deadpan humor, pop culture references, and deep reporting. Tom Haberstroh’s analytical rigor and open bafflement ("Wait a minute, it's all a lie") mirror the listener’s journey from nostalgia to skepticism. The discussion is light on technical jargon but rich on context, story, and evidence.

---

Summary for New Listeners

If you’re new to Pablo Torre Finds Out, this episode is a striking blend of investigative sports journalism and storytelling. It unpacks a secret chapter of NBA history where stats were manipulated for entertainment and franchise branding—occasionally by those who later shaped league analytics. The episode bridges scorekeeping’s Wild West era and today’s tech-driven accuracy, ultimately challenging listeners to be skeptical of any “objective” sports number—especially those from the Jordan years. For sports nerds, skeptics, and fans of a good meta-mystery, this is essential listening.

Transcript

[Pablo Torre]

Welcome to Pablo Torre finds out. I am Pablo Torre. And today we're gonna find out what this sound is.

[Tom Haverstrough]

These are the emotions I was going through was. Wait a minute. It's all a lie.

[Pablo Torre]

Right after this ad. You're listening to Giraffe Kings.

[Cortez]

Foreign.

[Pablo Torre]

I want to talk to you about the biggest story in the NBA right now.

[Cortez]

The Miami Heat and what Jimmy Butler did to the New Orleans Pelicans this weekend. Do not try and choke Jimmy Butler. It's not going to go well for you.

[Pablo Torre]

That is not what today's episode is about.

[Cortez]

That looked far less intimidating than I thought.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah, you have a band aid on your pointer finger. Just like limp, gesturing at me. Yes. The story that is the biggest one in basketball right now is a continuation from the story that that was the biggest one in basketball last season, which is that all of this, all of the scoring, all of these points are. It all feels like an All Star game. We need to fix.

[Cortez]

Every game feels like an All Star game. There's. It's like a layup line. Everyone is just getting to the basket. No one is playing defense anymore. Well, except the Miami Heat.

[Pablo Torre]

In the all star game, 200 points were scored by one team. And this feels illustrative of just the way it is that NBA stars right now are just doing whatever they want. And it's actually historical. Right? So, like since the 1960s, last season was the high water mark and this season has already shattered that pace.

[Cortez]

I do want to point out though, in the month of February, the Miami Heat have the number one defensive rating. So while this is a problem, it's true what you're saying. It's not a problem if you're playing the Miami Heat.

[Pablo Torre]

You're telling me that all of these guys who are routinely dropping 50, 60.

[Cortez]

70, not one of them against Miami Heat.

[Pablo Torre]

Okay, I'm not one so far that is accurate.

[Cortez]

Of course it's accurate. You think? Have I ever told a falsehood on this show?

[Pablo Torre]

I cannot begin to summarize all the falsehoods you've told on this show, but what is true here is that Luka Doncic scores 73 points against the Hawks. Lucas splits a double, keeps the dribble alive all the way to the hoop, scoop to the hoop with a ball. 71 and 72. It's so regular now, so expected that I forget when it even happened. That was last month.

[Cortez]

It feels to me a lot like the no hitter in baseball that we just don't care anymore because it's so prolific.

[Pablo Torre]

Embiid had 70. Embiid coast to coast for 70. And he also, by the way, Embiid also had 51. The month before that. Giannis had 64. Giannis is at this finish, history. 64 points for Giannis. It's just. It's endless. Right now as we're talking, someone out there is probably scoring 55.

[Cortez]

Well, there's two camps to it, right? It's like, is there the offense so great that this is what's happening, or is it that no one's playing defense? Right, right. It could be either one or a combo.

[Pablo Torre]

Look, I grew up in the 90s, loving basketball. Back then, the modern game makes me feel like a Fox News talking head complaining about, like, rising prices in our grocery stores and gas and inflation. It feels like I am shaking my fist at how all these numbers are way too big and how all of this spending, all of these, all these scores are out of control.

[Cortez]

You're right. This is the oldest I felt as a sports fan. This is the most like old man I've ever felt with a take. Because there was a period where I was really excited about, like, the Pacers. They were putting up all these points, and I was like, man, that's pretty cool. And now, like, I really hate it. I don't like the idea that.

[Pablo Torre]

Seriously?

[Cortez]

Well, yeah, it feels like every game is like an All Star game. Like, people are just getting to the basket with layups. Like, in all seriousness, part of what makes the Heat special is that defense is that, like, choke choking of the team when. When the moments get big late in the fourth quarter and you can't score.

[Pablo Torre]

I am not. I just want everybody to know, of course Cortez is wearing his Heat culture hat. He's in his home whites at the moment. But I want to bring back a story that I've been thinking about from last season, because last season was also, you know, super inflated, allegedly. And the explanation in the case of one very notable conspiracy was that this was actually an inside job to continue to sound more like a cable news, political talking head. Right. It was The Jaron Jackson Jr. Story. The Blocks.

[Tom Haverstrough]

Yeah, I always appreciate a good conspiracy.

[Pablo Torre]

And when it crosses over to the.

[Tom Haverstrough]

NBA, it's even better. So when I was alerted to this Reddit thread alleging some, quote unquote, fraudulent numbers for defensive player of the year, Jaren Jackson Jr. I decided to take the case. Admassive6666 Very accurately pointed out that Jackson's home and away splits are very curious, as he seems to average twice as many blocks and steals at home than on the road.

[Cortez]

You have the numbers?

[Pablo Torre]

Yes. So, okay, at home. And this is from a Reddit user whose username was ad massive6666. You reported that at home in Memphis, Jaren Jackson Jr. Has 66 blocks in 16 home games versus 35 in 16 road games. This was an 89 increase in Memphis at the point at which he posted this.

[Cortez]

And the theory was, like, the scorekeeper is cooking the books and, like, favoring him in this manner.

[Pablo Torre]

Right? Yes. The home grizzly scorekeeper was inflating Jaren Jackson Jr's defensive stats. He was a defensive player of the year last season.

[Cortez]

Seems reasonable.

[Pablo Torre]

The NBA Internet couldn't stop talking about this. It went everywhere. And finally this actually got placed under the microscope of the stat nerds. And so everybody, Kevin o', Connor, Kirk Goldsberry, all of these guys, all these dorks who I know, they actually watched every single block in there, like, okay, so actually, this isn't real.

[Cortez]

Right?

[Pablo Torre]

They. They debunked it. There was no scorekeeper inflation.

[Cortez]

I think they were off maybe by two or three blocks. Like, it was really negligent. The difference that they found. I mean, it was. It was true what the scorekeeper saw.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah. And so Darren Jackson Jr. Like, addressed this himself. Got asked about it locally on Memphis radio. And I bring all of this up now in this era of unprecedented statistical inflation this season, because I recently got a call, Cortez, and you know how much I love getting calls.

[Cortez]

You're an old man in that sense. I do appreciate how much you love a phone call.

[Pablo Torre]

Hate it when it's Le Batard. Love it when it's someone with a tip. And the tip I got from somebody that we both know and respect was that as much as that grizzly scorekeeper scammer scandal from last season was fake, was debunked, was a fabrication. There was an actual bonafide scorekeeper scammer scandal involving the Grizzlies from another time that actually is incredibly important for us to understand in the present tense.

[Cortez]

So they were scamming. They just weren't doing it, like, recently. They were doing it in another era.

[Pablo Torre]

So at the risk of sounding like everything, I hate a conspiracist who is, you know, getting hopped up on Internet rumors. This one is an Internet conspiracy that turned out to be incredibly real. And we gotta get to the guy who broke the story. After the break.

[Cortez]

Foreign.

[Pablo Torre]

To have you in the flesh at this desk with revelations to present to me.

[Tom Haverstrough]

Happy to be here, Pablo.

[Pablo Torre]

You being A protagonist of this story matters because this story begins really in my. In my life at the Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, which we just call Sloan.

[Tom Haverstrough]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

As if people know what that is.

[Tom Haverstrough]

Typically, it's very embarrassing when you're at, like, a cocktail party or you're at an event and you're just like, yeah, I'm going to Sloan next weekend. Or I just got back from Sloan, and people are like, what are you talking about?

[Pablo Torre]

Right. In our defense, Sloan became a thing that got mentioned in season nine of the Office. Hey, so Wade wants to send people to the Sloan Conference. We gotta compile a list of our target clients. Already on it. But in reality, what this is is a giant nerd fest.

[Tom Haverstrough]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

Where the celebrities there in the VIP room, which is very well guarded, by the way. Those celebrities include people like you because. Because we'll get to the. The big names in sports. But, like, you made your career on numbers. Right. Like, I. Forgive me for simplifying your life, but I have always considered you like basketball analytics expert Tom Haberstrough.

[Tom Haverstrough]

I grew up loving basketball, playing basketball, baseball, football, and just loving the math side of the game, and then kind of broke into ESPN being a stats researcher. The biggest break I could ever imagine is at 25 years old, I'm going down to Miami to cover LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh in 2010 at a time when their analytics wasn't a word.

[Pablo Torre]

So you were, like, putting these historical performances into statistical context as a. As a matter of the beat that you were on. Right.

[Tom Haverstrough]

Like when Skip Bayless is saying, oh, LeBron doesn't have a clutch gene, I actually go into the data and I say, like, actually, here's what the data says. He's much more efficient than Dwayne Wade and Kobe Bryant and Ray Allen. And I was covering the. The team. The biggest team in sports, with an analytical lens using statistics to tell stories.

[Pablo Torre]

Right. And so when we go to Sloan, which is a thing that started at an MIT lecture hall, by the way. Right. That has since bloomed, mutated into something that takes over, like, the largest convention centers in Bost. As it will this Friday, actually, what we're doing is going to a place where you, Tom Haverstrough, are something of a celebrity. And both of us have, you know, moderated panels at Sloan, which is. What a brag. This is the panel I'm moderating because, as Charles Barkley put it, I couldn't get girls in high school. So thank you.

[Tom Haverstrough]

Welcome to Basketball 100 panel. We're supposed to look into the future and tell everybody what it's going to look like in 25 years. So good luck with that.

[Pablo Torre]

At a certain point, to be a kid in America who loves sports went from I want to be an athlete to I want to be a general manager. And this is like the power center where that stuff actually seems possible because you see the people who count as, like, heroes and idols to. Yeah. To sports nerds.

[Tom Haverstrough]

Yeah. Well, there's Daryl Morey is the head of Dorkapalooza, which I think Bill Simmons coined, is that he is dork Elvis of Dorkapalooza, which is the Loan Conference. I'm not so sure how Daryl feels about that nickname. It fits, but he is the face of it.

[Pablo Torre]

The guy who claimed, famously, that, empirically speaking, James Harden is a better scorer than Michael Jordan.

[Tom Haverstrough]

If you look to data at the time, once he had the ball in his hands. And it's still true to this day.

[Pablo Torre]

And I get a lot of.

[Tom Haverstrough]

Because, you know, someone asked me, who's a better scorer, him or Michael Jordan, and it's just factual that James Harden is a better scorer than Michael Jordan.

[Pablo Torre]

Based on the math. Based on literally, like, you give.

[Tom Haverstrough]

You give James Harden the ball, and before you're giving.

[Pablo Torre]

Giving up the ball, how many points do you generate, which is how you should measure offense. James Harden is by far number one. So obviously, he's now running the Sixers.

[Tom Haverstrough]

Yeah, running the Sixers. And then there's Alex Rucker, who is a stats nerd who rose in the front office of the Toronto Raptors, who figured out, like, sport view data and camera tracking and how to arrange the defensive players optimally, and Rose to become the executive VP of basketball operations for an NBA team.

[Alex Rucker]

Now, I used to kind of oversee analytics and the research and development, the data scientists, the computer geeks, if you will. And so now I oversee all the departments within basketball operations.

[Pablo Torre]

And then, of course, like, there's. I mean, Mr. Moneyball himself.

[Tom Haverstrough]

My God.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah.

[Tom Haverstrough]

And he's at Sloan.

[Pablo Torre]

Yes. Billy Beane himself shows up. The game is really smart. In fact, I would say that baseball has become one of the most intelligent industries in the world, in my opinion. And you see it now in with the use of analytics, the people running baseball teams are much different than when I started. I think it's a compliment to the intelligence of the game. And so this conference now, as it's gotten more and more expensive and more exclusive and hard to get into, it's very clearly part business school, part Silicon Valley, big tech, and Also, if we're being just very honest about ourselves and each other, it's also part, you know, Internet forum come to life.

[Tom Haverstrough]

Yes, Internet forum come to life. The reason why we're sitting here today, Pablo, is because of an Internet Forum. Back in 2009. It all starts here in the APBR.

[Pablo Torre]

Metrics forum, which I did not know about until you called me up, like, deeply excited to explain what this is.

[Tom Haverstrough]

This is a meeting of the minds. It is the NBA Reddit, before NBA Reddit existed. So I used to be in this forum all the time. Every day I would check in to kind of like, see what's going to be happening in the future. Like, it was a glimpse into. This is where the industry is going.

[Pablo Torre]

Yes.

[Tom Haverstrough]

This is how to optimize the game. What's the most efficient way to score basketball? Here's a study.

[Pablo Torre]

Before Sloan, you guys were doing this on this message board.

[Tom Haverstrough]

And then One night, Tuesday, July 14, 2009, someone posted the headline scorekeeper story with a bomb. The revelation in this that a poster had heard from a friend tell him a story about his experience as a stat keeper in the NBA. He's a stat keeper from 1997. The Vancouver Grizzlies, okay, this is peak Jordan era. I'm 11 years old, I'm reading this forum, and this scorekeeper is saying he was cooking the books for the Vancouver Grizzlies. I remember vividly Pablo sitting at my island kitchen table watching SportsCenter and Nick the Quick. Nick Van Exel.

[Pablo Torre]

Yes. In the Laker game where he has.

[Tom Haverstrough]

Like a zillion assists, 23 assists, and this guy, this is what he said. Because I'm a Laker fan, I gave Nick Van Exel like 23 assists one game. If he was vaguely close to a guy making a shot, I found a way to give him an assist.

[Pablo Torre]

So immediately I want to just start fact checking this. Right. So when you look at this game, when you go back into the archive, Tom, and you go and see this game now with fresh eyes, what does it actually look like?

[Tom Haverstrough]

If you watch the film, the very first assist that Nick Van Exel has, it's not even on the screen. So the Vancouver Grizzlies just make a shot. Sharif Abdur Rahim, the star young player, makes a shot. Eldon Campbell takes the ball out and passes it to Nick Van Exel. Ostensibly, but we don't actually see it on film because we cut away to Sharif Abdur Rahim. And then suddenly, on the left side court, Eddie Jones is dribbling up and Takes five, dribbles on the left side and then pulls up for a pump fake three pointer way after the fact of maybe there was a Nick Van Axel Phantom pass. We. We don't see it. It's not on the tape. When you look at the box score, I couldn't believe it. But the time stamp of that play is reflected in the box score. And it says Van Exel assists.

[Pablo Torre]

That feels like an assist by neither the letter or the spirit of the law.

[Tom Haverstrough]

Yeah, yeah. And so there were 23 of these. Now, to be fair, there were legit assists here in this game. The idea isn't that he didn't have a good game, Nick Van Axel, it's that it wasn't a 15 assist game. It was a 23 assist game. And the key is you're More interested in 23 assists.

[Pablo Torre]

That's the only reason I remember it.

[Tom Haverstrough]

So I remember this moment. And now I'm learning it's all a lie.

[Pablo Torre]

So I should say maybe this is obvious. This is an enormous problem for the integrity of, like, the NBA itself. And so where does this story go from here?

[Tom Haverstrough]

It doesn't get contained in that Internet forum. Tommy Craggs at Deadspin picks it up. This is Deadspin we're talking about. At the peak of its powers. Craggs gets on the phone and talks to the Stackkeeper. But all I can think about is, who is this guy? And in the story, all we know is his name is Alex and he works in the Navy. And we also know that he worked for the Vancouver Grizzlies in the late 90s.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah. What I'm laughing at already is just the idea that this is your message board. Tom, you're a poster on this, on this nerd forum. And here's a guy who is basically taunting you, guy who worships numbers, saying, by the way, turns out you can't actually trust the thing that you wanted to make your career around.

[Tom Haverstrough]

Yeah. And so, like, part of me is just like, I need to know if this person's real. There's a mystery figure here.

[Pablo Torre]

Yes.

[Tom Haverstrough]

And for 13 years, this story was dead until the Jaren Jackson Jr. Story happens.

[Pablo Torre]

Right? So, okay, so this, this Jaren Jackson alleged conspiracy on Reddit, another Internet forum story ends up being debunked, but it rekindles in your brain the actual conspiracy that you believe to be a lot deeper than people may on the surface realize.

[Tom Haverstrough]

Right. And so it dawns on me like, I need to go to the Internet to find my answer of who Alex is. But I'm going about it the wrong way. I'm going about it on Google. I should have been going to ebay.

[Pablo Torre]

So when you called me saying that you went to ebay and you found something, I was personally a little worried for just your sanity.

[Tom Haverstrough]

Yeah, yeah. But you know what is on ebay? A lot of old documents. One of which is what's called a.

[Pablo Torre]

Media guide for the kids who don't appreciate the institution of the media guide. Back in our day, they used to print directories and send them out to media members.

[Tom Haverstrough]

Yeah, like, hey, what are the statistics from last year? There's no basketball reference. You need to open up the media guide.

[Pablo Torre]

A physical book.

[Tom Haverstrough]

A book to look at. Oh, this person was the 13th pick in the 1992 draft.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah. Here's the phone number for the assistant PR person.

[Tom Haverstrough]

That is where I needed to go. I needed to find Pablo. The 199697 Vancouver Grizzlies media Guide.

[Pablo Torre]

How in demand was this lost artifact? What if literally no one but you, Tom Haberstrough, even gives the beginning of a about this?

[Tom Haverstrough]

There is one person who is not only giving a but willing to sell that to anybody who wanted it for $5.

[Pablo Torre]

Tom, you've been dangling this reveal in front of me for so long. This right here, it's like a. Basically a clip art. A clipart cover, very glossy.

[Tom Haverstrough]

Look at this bear paw right here.

[Pablo Torre]

A bear paw over an IBM mouse.

[Tom Haverstrough]

This is so 1997.

[Pablo Torre]

Look at this, Brian. Big country Reeves in the middle, holding a basketball with two giant paws, as it were.

[Tom Haverstrough]

We got Sharif Abdurrahim, number three. Very excited Sharif, by the way.

[Pablo Torre]

And a literal map of the NBA, in case you didn't know where the Indiana Pacers were located.

[Tom Haverstrough]

So I wanted you to do something.

[Pablo Torre]

Yes.

[Tom Haverstrough]

Okay. I want you to open up the page.

[Pablo Torre]

Real. I've never held this before in my life.

[Tom Haverstrough]

How does it feel?

[Pablo Torre]

Oh, it's weighty.

[Tom Haverstrough]

I want you to open up to page 177. What does it say?

[Pablo Torre]

Vancouver Grizzlies, Courtside Crew. Italics, tea lettering, San Serif font. Yeah.

[Tom Haverstrough]

Okay, lower on down. Yeah, there is a title there. Game Caller, slash technical. The name next to that is Alex. Yes, Alex Rucker. I'm telling you, Pablo, it felt like in Usual Suspects when the reveal happens, the Kaiser Sosei moment when he dropped the mug on the floor.

[Pablo Torre]

The media guide falls to the floor. In my mind's eye, at your home.

[Tom Haverstrough]

And immediately.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah, this voice plays.

[Alex Rucker]

I used to kind of oversee analytics and the research and development. The data scientists the computer geeks, if you will. And so now I oversee all the departments within basketball operations.

[Pablo Torre]

In some ways, this was like an inside job on a number of levels. Like he's an. This is an analytics guy.

[Tom Haverstrough]

He should know full well about the sanctity of stats.

[Pablo Torre]

So what do you do with this information now that you know who Alex from the Navy actually is?

[Tom Haverstrough]

I call him.

[Pablo Torre]

I want to make sure that people out there who don't know Alex Rucker intuitively. Tom. Yeah. Understand why this name means something. Who is Alex Rucker?

[Tom Haverstrough]

So Alex Rucker is one of the most well known figures in the NBA analytics movement. He was a pioneer of the Sport View data. Sport View is the camera tracking data where we can now see where everyone is on the floor, how fast they're going.

[Pablo Torre]

The revolution was around the accuracy of, of what was being recorded.

[Tom Haverstrough]

If you want the most efficient way to put two points in that basket, start learning how to do these predictive models with camera tracking data. And Alex Rucker was at the forefront. And not to say he was the only one, but this is one of the more well known characters in this space.

[Pablo Torre]

Yes. And he used that to then, and I remember this intimately, to then follow his former boss, Brian Colangelo. He of the very normal collars, find a new slant to the Philadelphia 76ers, replacing Sam Hinkey, of course, of the process, fame, and my own personal neuroses. Al Trucker was the VP of analytics and strategy, the executive VP of basketball operations.

[Tom Haverstrough]

In 2020, he's running the 76ers alongside Elton Brand, the GM of the team. This is a guy who is that well known, that respected.

[Pablo Torre]

There were headlines.

[Tom Haverstrough]

The Philadelphia Inquirer had the headline, Sixers team of NBA stats gurus is taking analytics to the next level.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah.

[Tom Haverstrough]

And a big picture of Alex. Then Daryl Mori comes in and he takes over for basketball operations for the Philadelphia 76.

[Pablo Torre]

Just always incestuous.

[Tom Haverstrough]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

The slowness of everything.

[Tom Haverstrough]

Here comes dork Elvis.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah. You know, yeah, Big footing, the previous guy. But that's. By the way, that's where I left Alex Rucker in my. In my brain. I didn't think about him until this story.

[Tom Haverstrough]

And until I picked up that media guide. I hadn't really thought about Alex Rucker. But I had to confirm. I had to go straight to the source. I don't know how long we'll go, but you let me know if there's a heart out that you need to be gone for.

[Alex Rucker]

Nah, man.

[Tom Haverstrough]

And then we'll roll. Happy to chat all right. 3, 2, 1.

[Pablo Torre]

So when you make this zoom call, it turns out, which I imagine is fairly uncomfortable for Ale. What does he say when you confront him with the evidence that actually he might be the scammer who selectively edited NBA history?

[Tom Haverstrough]

Well, he owned up to it. First off, like, pretty quickly he owned that was me. But here's why that happened. He was 20, Pablo, 20 years old, running the stats for a professional NBA team.

[Alex Rucker]

I was immature. I handled things in a way that I certainly wouldn't today. But no, that's just a part of my life journey.

[Pablo Torre]

Right.

[Alex Rucker]

Like, you know, I. It's funny as you kind of reach adulthood, to the extent that I've reached it, it's like every time I'll sit here and think back to how I was two or three years ago, and I always look back like, man, like, why did I do that? Why did I think that? And hopefully I continue on an arc of becoming, you know, a continually better person and refining who I am and, you know, having an impact on others in a positive and loving way. With all due respect, you put a 19, 20 year old in charge of anything and you're playing with fire, so.

[Pablo Torre]

So the very basic fact that a 19, 20 year old was in charge of these sacred numbers that we came to revere as just historical fact is already, like, jarring to me. How does somebody that young get the idea to even, like, do this, to get away with this?

[Tom Haverstrough]

He gets the idea to do this almost immediately upon arrival in Vancouver when.

[Alex Rucker]

I first got the role. I'm bringing the computers home, I'm practicing by myself. I'm trying to develop these skills so that I can do the best I can once get, you know, the first jump ball happens. My job is to create the most accurate, you know, historical record of what occurred in a game. And I learned very quickly that that was not the prevailing viewpoint. And I went to the training in Detroit. Part of this training is they would show us video clips. You know, they show us Stockton to Malone clip, and you know, there's a discussion and I'm like, there's, you know, that wasn't an assist, it was a pass. And then, you know, Malone dribbled a couple times, pump fake, pump fake. And then, you know, made a tough shot. And that's great, but like, that's to me, not. I didn't. There's no real connection. There's no causal connection between the pass and the basket. And the majority opinion by mile was, oh, no, that's definitely an assist. I was like, what? Like, oh, that's John Stockton. Like, yeah, I understand, but so I left there clearly understanding that, you know, yes, we are supposed to create the most accurate representation we can, but the NBA is also an entertainment business and it's up to us, in very small part, statisticians to support and reinforce stars and excitement and fun. And that message was definitely reinforced internally within the Grizzlies.

[Pablo Torre]

So what he says to you there, Tom, is. Is to me like, pretty important, right? This message was definitely reinforced internally within the Grizzlies. So the team itself was actually in favor of this happening.

[Tom Haverstrough]

It wasn't just Alex Rucker, lone actor here. This was something endemic. This was something understood that you grease the wheels or you, you pump up the stats for your guys. When he says, yeah, John Stockton, the assertion right there is like, we need John Stockton to be a star. So we're making that in a. Yes, but the Keith here is. This is the Vancouver Grizzlies, right? They're the new expansion team. They're in Canada. People don't know there's a team in Vancouver.

[Pablo Torre]

Right.

[Tom Haverstrough]

So how does a stack keeper market the team or have a role in marketing the team? Well, it's that. It's. What if Sharif Abdurrahim has 10 boards instead of nine boards? Because 10 will get you on SportsCenter? So how do you do that? You cook the books.

[Pablo Torre]

So the Nick Van Exel thing with that phantom assist, that wasn't even on screen. How did the Grizzlies feel about that? Because that's the opposing player.

[Tom Haverstrough]

He was actually congratulated after the game. Think about that.

[Pablo Torre]

By his employers.

[Tom Haverstrough]

By his employers saying, hey, good job out there. We're definitely going to be on SportsCenter.

[Pablo Torre]

Now that's incredible.

[Tom Haverstrough]

Like, that's how you market the team. Tom Haberstrough in a. In a kitchen in Connecticut is now.

[Pablo Torre]

Gonna see that teal Vancouver Grizzlies bear the claws.

[Tom Haverstrough]

There's Bryant Reeves. That's where he ended up in the NBA on the Vancouver Grizzlies. So that's part of how they marketed the team was through the stack keeper.

[Pablo Torre]

So when you adults grown up, Tommy, look at the numbers, right? And you see Shrif Abdur Rahim stats. How obvious is it that this was actually materially happening?

[Tom Haverstrough]

This was. This was pretty heartbreaking because when you look at what Alex is alleging and then you look at the numbers on basketball reference and you search or you. You filter for his best block games, what I found out that was in Sharif Abdur Rahim's first two seasons with the Grizzlies, he registered three plus blocks. At least three blocks in 13 games. In all 13 games, he was playing at home. Okay, two plus blocks.

[Pablo Torre]

Not exactly subtle so far.

[Tom Haverstrough]

Yeah. How about multiple blocks? Okay. In those first two seasons, he had 38 games in which he had two plus blocks. 32 of them were at home.

[Pablo Torre]

So the invisible hand of Alex from the Navy Alex Rucker is pulling is pretty obvious in retrospect. Yeah.

[Tom Haverstrough]

And he, in so many words with Deadspin, he admitted that, like, a lot of the blocks and steals and assists, like, you could fudge a little bit. And Bryant Reeves and Sharif Abdur Rahim were part of that fudgery.

[Pablo Torre]

The Fudgery as an incentive for specifically a team desperate for attention. How obvious was this to you when you look at the record beyond Vancouver?

[Tom Haverstrough]

Yeah. So I looked at the data of just which teams saw a large disparity between their home blocks and their away blocks.

[Pablo Torre]

Yes, exactly.

[Tom Haverstrough]

Okay, So I went from 1984 now to the present. That's when blocks started getting charted in the NBA. Officially 1984. We had a thousand teams in NBA history that we have their block home away block record. The top four teams in disparity from home and away were the Toronto Raptors, the Toronto Raptors, and the Toronto Raptors. In this time period, three of the top four. 200% inflation at home. The Toronto Raptors in 97, 98, 99, 2000.

[Pablo Torre]

Like this era, the other expansion team in Canada. The thing that's almost offensive about this, though, is how unsubtle the expansion teams were doing this. Like, yeah, the Canadian teams wanted people to know that they existed, which meant they needed to be on Sports center, like a top 10 plays highlight reel. And so they were juicing the statistics that involved this element of human subjectivity.

[Tom Haverstrough]

That's right. And the expansion teams, the Raptors and the Grizzlies, like, we know about them. But also, I've looked into the Pelicans, too. When New Orleans got their team and renamed it the Pelicans, they had huge block home away disparities too, of course. And so I'm like, all right, well, then this is an expansion story.

[Pablo Torre]

Yes.

[Tom Haverstrough]

This is just like these new teams need to market. And how do you do that? You kind of, you know, twist the knobs a little bit.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah, an incredible fraud on its own.

[Tom Haverstrough]

But then I figured out that this was much more widespread than just the expansion teams. This was everywhere. And I had the data to back that up.

[Pablo Torre]

Before we get deeper into Your numbers, which I am legitimately concerned about. What is Alex Rucker doing now? Like when you call him up and you zoom with them, where is he?

[Tom Haverstrough]

It turns out he's out of the NBA completely. He is the CEO of a boys and girls club in Texas, Gainesville, Texas.

[Pablo Torre]

But I do feel obliged to mention that one thing Alex Rucker never fudged, it seems, was his own military resume. Because after leaving the Grizzlies and messing with all the statistics, he did graduate from law school and he did become an actual United States naval aviator for more than like a decade. The dude really was Alex from the Navy. And so when he is watching the NBA game, as this guy who is molding, I presume, with, with in good faith the, the futures of the youth of Gainesville, Texas, what is he thinking about basketball?

[Tom Haverstrough]

I didn't know how he was going to interpret this scoring era because like we're talking about inflation and luka doncic scoring 73, embiid 70. All these crazy, like there's, I've never.

[Pablo Torre]

Seen this before, Tom. Just this egregious.

[Tom Haverstrough]

There are halftime scores that would be final scores 20 years ago, no question. And so here I wanted to ask Alex Rucker, who was one of the architects of this fudgery inflation in the late 90s, and I want to ask him like, what does he think about today's NBA?

[Alex Rucker]

Is it bad for the league that. What is it? There's a four 70 point performances in two years when it used to be one a decade? No, I mean, I mean if it was happening every game, I might be concerned, but it's like this is a natural byproduct of a higher pace and a much higher efficiency and just frankly a better quality of offensive gameplay. And if, you know, if I'm sitting down and we're sitting around, you know, living room just chatting about it, to me, this is the best basketball we have ever seen.

[Pablo Torre]

So what Alex Rucker is saying is that he is A, a fan of the modern game and B, does not suspect that anyone like him is cooking the books to get the numbers to the historic highs they are now.

[Tom Haverstrough]

And initially I was thinking like, oh, this guy is going to identify. This is scamming to like it wasn't.

[Pablo Torre]

Just me back in the day.

[Tom Haverstrough]

This is happening right now. And he said the opposite.

[Pablo Torre]

And he's saying also that the era of a stat scammer, a stat keeper scammer, it seems to be done. Like he's saying that don't even worry about someone like me doing Something like what I did, every play from a game is immediately seen by all of these eyeballs across the world as if we're all fact checking the game in real time now.

[Tom Haverstrough]

And so he thinks it's clean now.

[Alex Rucker]

There's so much more scrutiny, oversight, review of it now, where you should have a lot more faith and confidence in the data that's pumped out now than the data that was pumped out 10, 20, 30, 40 years ago. You know, in the 90s, ironically, it's probably in the low 90s is my guess. Right. Like if you look at a stat sheet, among the non points stats, probably 90% ish accurate, maybe higher. And now I would guess that it's north of 95.

[Pablo Torre]

I want to translate this estimation that Alex Rucker is doing for us, right, because he's saying like back in the day when he was stat keeping, it was like, you know, I don't know, a B plus, a minus. At best, 90ish percent accurate, but now it's an A plus, it's north of 95. He's not worried at all. But in the historical basketball record, Tom, as the numbers guy, what does that gap actually look like in your understanding?

[Tom Haverstrough]

So he described it as assists were being given out like candy, like in the 90s when he was around. I think blocks were highly subjective. And the data bears out that when we go back to 1984, when blocks were first introduced into the box score, there is a 25% gap between the home block rate and the away block rate. Okay, what does that mean? That means for every three blocks, there's another fourth that are that's given to the home team.

[Pablo Torre]

But like an extra freebie block for every three you get is literally like the difference between an all defensive team nomination.

[Tom Haverstrough]

Potentially that's a huge gap between the two. But when you look at the numbers now, okay, the number of blocks for the home team this year, 4087. Okay. The number of blocks for the away team is 4026. So that's a gap of 61 blocks. It's basically equal.

[Pablo Torre]

Right?

[Tom Haverstrough]

You want to know what 84 was? The gap between home and away blocks.

[Pablo Torre]

1102 exponentially larger than the 61 block difference today.

[Tom Haverstrough]

And when we look at the 97, 98 season, it's still over a thousand, man. So what does that look like in a graph? You can see in 1984 on the left there, there's a pretty big gap between the home team block rate 5.8 per game or per 48 minutes and the away team is 4.7. But as we go through time, it starts to shrink. That gap continues to fade away until you get to now where it's just about gone.

[Pablo Torre]

So what is undeniable is that the difference between home and road in terms of blocks has basically converged into nothing when it comes to the difference between being away and getting your friendly neighborhood scorekeeper to cook your books for you.

[Tom Haverstrough]

And this kind of matters because when I think about my childhood, right, I think about like, take LeBron, okay, LeBron versus MJ, right? This is the most radioactive debate amongst maybe in sports, right?

[Pablo Torre]

Yes. We're reciting numbers like we are making arguments about, you know, my dad could beat up your dad.

[Tom Haverstrough]

Yes, yes. And in the context of Michael Jordan, LeBron, this is really important. A lot of times we say LeBron didn't win Deepoy defensively of the year. Michael Jordan did in 1988.

[Pablo Torre]

Yes. This is an enormous plank in the Michael Jordan political campaign.

[Tom Haverstrough]

So I had this moment of like, I mean, I had Jordan posters in my room, right. And I'm like, wait, the, the 88 depoy can't be a lie. Please don't. When I pulled up basketball reference, this is what I saw in his stat line. Home and away splits, 165 steals at home, 94 steals away, 84 blocks on at home, 47 blocks about half away. And that's pretty bad, 80%.

[Pablo Torre]

When it comes to like how obvious that gap is, it's huge.

[Tom Haverstrough]

And like maybe that's random variation, right? But we can't know for sure. But what we have here is Alex Rucker saying in that era it was endemic that stat keepers for their home team were juicing the stats.

[Pablo Torre]

I remember Alex Rucker saying, the NBA is entertainment too. And they were, they were trying actively to create to boost their stars, the John Stockton's of the world. So why would Michael Jordan be exempt from the same training that literally the scorekeepers were given to make the sport more popular?

[Tom Haverstrough]

It's possible Michael Jordan was just really good at blocks at home. Like, it's possible that he was 80% better at home at blocking shots.

[Pablo Torre]

And Benny the bull around was somehow this inspirational. Yeah. Phenomenon for him defensively.

[Tom Haverstrough]

Yes. And hearing the music coming out onto.

[Pablo Torre]

The floor just made him Alan Parsons project, made him that much of a.

[Tom Haverstrough]

Better defense, bringing more springy or anticipating the shots better. And there's, there's some theory that like this isn't stackkeeper bias. This is like the opponent is worse on the road and so therefore easier to block. But why wouldn't that be true right now?

[Pablo Torre]

That's the thing is your big picture analysis that shows that individually, maybe all of these things can make it very noisy. Yes. And hard to isolate why this is happening. But the big picture makes it pretty clear that this difference has vanished.

[Tom Haverstrough]

And it also brings in my other childhood hero, Vince Carter. Like watching him at North Carolina completely enchanted me. He was high flying, could shoot, the way he moved, it was beautiful. And what team did he join?

[Pablo Torre]

The Toronto Raptors. He made basketball in Canada a thing.

[Tom Haverstrough]

At what time, what era was this? The late 90s. And so of course I look so what?

[Pablo Torre]

Wait, so, okay, okay. What is on the Vince Carter resume that now looks quite different in the light of day?

[Tom Haverstrough]

His rookie season he averaged 1.5 blocks, which by the way, for a guard, that's insane.

[Pablo Torre]

That's a lot.

[Tom Haverstrough]

That's a lot. He wins rookie of the Year. But then you look at the splits. 55 blocks at home, 22 on the road. Not good. Doesn't make me feel good.

[Pablo Torre]

Those thirsty Canadian scorekeepers.

[Tom Haverstrough]

Dad, man, not Vince Carter too.

[Pablo Torre]

Half man, half inflation, right?

[Tom Haverstrough]

And the 60s were too. Like 60s had 130 possessions a game in Wilt's era, like the Oscar Robertson era had.

[Pablo Torre]

Now you're coming for Wilt and Oscar.

[Tom Haverstrough]

What I'm coming for, Pablo, is everybody, everybody. And I think going through this, it makes me appreciate that like maybe the 60s era, wilt 100 points and the Oscar Robertson. We can't even fact check that. Cause there's no film.

[Pablo Torre]

It is worth noting, by the way, how hard it is to even get film of games from the late 1990s, let alone the 60s. Like that Ben Exel clip from 97 that we showed you earlier in the episode that came to us because of a young NBA fan in Latvia named Rinislats. And Rinis runs a site called lamarmatic.com and what he had told Tom is that he had gotten his Van Exel video from an underground Internet marketplace where people trade digitized VHS tapes of old NBA games. That is what it takes to fact check statistics from the 1990s.

[Tom Haverstrough]

The deeper we go in NBA history, it feels like the more we don't know.

[Pablo Torre]

What else are you trying to ruin here, Todd?

[Tom Haverstrough]

I'm just saying this is. These are the emotions I was going through was. Wait a minute. It's all a lie.

[Pablo Torre]

I mean, this is the part where it gets uncomfortable for us.

[Tom Haverstrough]

I mean we gotta go there, right? Like we gotta talk about what this all means.

[Pablo Torre]

Tom, we have made Careers zagging away from the zig of the eye test. Right. Trust the numbers.

[Tom Haverstrough]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

It's the thing in our civilization that stands as proof of objectivity. Sports and specifically statistics. It's not, it's not an artistic subjective review because there's definitionally a scoreboard.

[Tom Haverstrough]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

And these numbers, we have something that is the closest thing to truth.

[Tom Haverstrough]

We thought.

[Pablo Torre]

We thought.

[Tom Haverstrough]

This is one thing Alex Rucker mentioned to me and it stuck with me in my head is it's good to have a healthy appreciation, a healthy respect, a healthy skepticism of data.

[Pablo Torre]

Right. If the incentives are to make the game popular by giving people what they want, which is points, and we lose the ability to both interview the people who were, as Alex Rucker was self admittedly guilty of juicing the game themselves. And also we lose the ability to even look at the tape, as you put it. It just feels like we are obligated to ask more questions about the things that we consider historical. Quote, unquote fact.

[Tom Haverstrough]

Right. Statistical record. It's. Now we have to revisit it. Look, is today's NBA objectively pure? Pablo, like is this, is this the purest form of basketball?

[Pablo Torre]

Because we now have the statistical controls on the scorekeepers to fact check them in real time.

[Tom Haverstrough]

Is the human element removed from the game?

[Pablo Torre]

What do you think?

[Tom Haverstrough]

I think the human element is appearing in a different form. The NBA knows because they've done this with focus groups. They tell the viewers to dial up how much enjoyment you're getting out of watching a game.

[Pablo Torre]

Right.

[Tom Haverstrough]

People are dialing it up, their enjoyment when there's high scoring, more scoring. Right. So is there manipulation in today's NBA game? I don't think it's taking the form of a stackkeeper on the sidelines. I think the manipulation comes in kind of like behind the scenes, like from up top.

[Pablo Torre]

Right. Like the league office deciding we want faster paced games that are more open.

[Tom Haverstrough]

We're going to introduce freedom of movement rules so that Steph Curry can break free and get shots off. So Pablo, what I found out today is that there's two inflations we're talking about here, right? There's the inflation of, hey, there's so many, so many points being scored now the games are 150 to 152 and, and Luka Doncic is 73. That's a certain type of inflation. And so there's that like where the league is prioritizing certain parts of the game that they want to see.

[Pablo Torre]

But the title of the most inflated era in NBA history. Which is what so many people are declaring the modern game to be. Who deserves that title? Now that we've done our investigation, the.

[Tom Haverstrough]

Era that we're most nostalgic about, it's the Jordan era.

[Pablo Torre]

It's our childhoods bad.

[Tom Haverstrough]

The Alan Parsons Project. The Bulls. Just the. The Dream Team 80s and the 90s. Magic Larry, that's the pure league. Right back when men were men and.

[Pablo Torre]

Were earning every point at every block except for when a guy in a media guide tells you, actually, I was boosting, literally inflating the numbers because this whole thing has been show business in a way that was quite real. What we have found out today is that the human element has always been a part of the thing that we made our careers on, which is you guys need to stop trusting your eyes and start trusting math.

[Tom Haverstrough]

Start trusting the data till the data is impure.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah. Tom Haberstrough, thank you for ruining everything that we hold dear.

[Tom Haverstrough]

I'm sorry. Oh man, I just need to take a bath after that one. Speaking of impure, I just need to clean myself up.

[Pablo Torre]

And this cardigan has never been sweatier for more Tom Haverstrough. By the way, tomthefinder.com is his substack. You'll find high level data driven insights and analyses. But for now, this has been Pablo Torre finds out a Metal arc media production and we'll talk to you next time.