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Sports is full of actual corruption and conspiracies like many endeavors. I have no familiarity with NBA and any theories but conspiracies happen constantly.
Including fixing matches. Football (aka soccer) that I have some more familiarity is notoriously corrupt.
Generally this happens too! Mechanics do deliberately do shoddy work and charge people more. Certainly not all mechanics, all of the time, but it happens. Which is why it is so important to find an honorable mechanic, or at least to know enough to not be taken easily advantage of.
Someone who always assumes best would be wrong plenty of time, and same as someone who always assumes people are acting nefariously.
With sports there is also a certain type of people who always assume that their team loses because everyone is conspiring against them which is of course an incorrect way to see reality.
Conspiracies and bad behavior and plots to screw others over, is a constant of history. It is a bad idea to always assume best, or worse, I would say. Unrestrained anti-conspiratorial thinking is extremely irrational. Except it is often pushed by people who actually do support people shutting up about corruption and side with people who a) are screwing over others and support the faction that is accused of wrongdoing b) might be screwing over others and still support the faction. The priority being to shut down any dissent.
You actually do need to be vigilant against being screwed over and to organize to keep down people doing so. Easier said than done when it comes to various institutions that the corrupt have captured control. Even then, how far and openly they push things can be controlled to an extend through backlash.
Honorable behavior can't be taken for granted but requires both having a community of moral, honorable people, but also everlasting vigilance against those willing to behave in the more dishonorable manner. Suspicions can have a protective effect when they combine with some control mechanism to test for wrongdoers, catch them and punish them. The absence of people willing to put 2 and 2 together and call corruption out, and try to stop things then will of course lead into things getting even worse. The healthy instinct is to worry about people who want to cover up for Epstein network, rather than worry about people who care. Even less high on the food chain, we see rapists like the former school coach Jerry Sandusky who benefited from other members of the stuff of his school, helping cover things up.
Of course, that is one thing, and there are some people who believe they saw big foot, pyramids build by aliens, and have a more fantastical way of seeing the world that is less about being antagonistic towards criminals, or bad people coordinating. These people aren't really useful at opposing corruption and conspiracies, but also their way of viewing the world is not going to lead to purges of innocents falsely accused. I find the fearmongering about conspiracies it self suspicious and the whole conspiracy theory as bad word tm, has probably been pushed by intelligence agencies and influential non governmental organizations that would rather not be opposed. Ironically, there is too much unjustifiable paranoia about the harm of people not trusting authorities, and not enough fear about the dangers of people being too conformist towards authorities. The issue being that paranoia towards the problems of nonconformism can lead authorities to double down on stupid, wrong and even disastrous decisions and also allow the corrupt, criminals and bad actors with more sinister agendas, to take advantage. Not to mention that it can lead to persecuting people for not buying into what a) could be false b) actually is false.
One other example of this is accusations of Russians bombing Nordstream not getting the label of engaging in "conspiracy theory" and being "conspiracy theorists" but those who accused the USA of doing so, getting the label. Establishments, and even some rival establishments of different countries have always lied to their people, whether through false flag attacks, false pretexts, or one sided narrative of how geopolitical issues are presented. And really all sort of issues. In Roman history they deified emperors which is of course was a lie. So part of the conspiracy issue is about establishment narratives and following them as one is told, or dissenting from them. To an extend the conspiracy theory label is thrown for people who oppose George Soros activities for another example and the whole issue relates with dissenting from a politically correct discourse that deliberately avoids criticizing the favored narrative.
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