Fostering a Bad Mindset for the Suns

According to Twitter, there was a Scott Foster sighting in Milwaukee this morning, leading to concerns that Foster may ref tonight’s game 6 of the NBA Finals, a possible title game for the Bucks.  That has caused concern for a lot of Phoenix Suns fans.  It should.

Scott Foster should not ref any more games in the NBA Finals.  It doesn’t matter if he makes calls that favor the Bucks; calls against the Suns; calls the game fairly; or calls that actually favor the Suns.  At this point, there are bigger things in play than what Scott Foster does on the court.

The Suns are 0-12 in the last dozen playoff games that Scott Foster has reffed.  At this point, it’s likely that they believe they’re going to lose whenever Foster refs.  When we believe something, we unconsciously do things to help us “live into that belief”.  So, regardless of what Foster does, we’d expect to see the Suns make uncommon turnovers (very bad passes, dribbling of the foot, losing the ball in traffic, etc.)  Much like a statue of some god from an ancient culture that everyone knows brings bad luck, Foster just being on the floor makes it likely that the Suns will play subpar.

I’ve written on beliefs and sports performance before, from the “cursed” Knicks’ orange Christmas uniforms that they wore to an 0-7 record to how the Knicks’ team beliefs about losing the second game of a back-to-back series and not being able to score in the 3^rd quarter (and changing those beliefs) impacted Allan Houston’s ability to score when I helped him become a 2000 NBA All-Star.  The 2^nd link also talks about Dr. Roger Bannister and how, after running a sub-4 minute mile, a feat that was widely known to be humanly impossible, started a flood of sub-4 minute miles by outstanding runners who had always finished above 4 minutes because they thought they had to.

Barring some type of “miraculous” occurrence (see the softball example in the 2^nd link), the chances that the Suns beat the Bucks tonight if Scott Foster refs are very slim.  Of course, it’s possible that the Bucks could play so badly that the Suns win but given a strong game by the Bucks, the Suns are likely out tonight.

This has been a great NBA Finals.  Unless the League Office wants it to end tonight, they should replace Foster with another ref who has better history with the Suns.