ESPN: Sweat City Picks the Wrong Hero

Search is disabled and I didnt see this in the first 4 or 5 pages, but itf it's been posted, lock it up.

This article is by one half of that moronic morning pizza duo with Woody Paige who doesn't watch any games and yet feel like they're experts on the Rockets.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=bayless/050506

By Skip Bayless
Page 2


Nothing in the NBA this season has been this unbelievable.

Not even Tracy McGrady's 13 points in 35 seconds.

But McGrady's coach has suddenly and stunningly turned into a folk hero in Houston. Yes, the same Jeff Van Gundy who has been mostly viewed by Rockets fans as the dour, sour outsider from New York who would never make them forget about their beloved Rudy T and the two NBA titles his Rockets won.


Van Gundy's Rockets won Game 6 to set up Game 7 in Dallas.

In fact, Van Gundy has gained runaway fan poll support in NBA precincts across the land. Did he win a championship? No, he became the people's choice after blowing a 2-0 series lead by losing two straight playoff games at home to in-state rival Dallas.

The only rings Van Gundy has are the ones under his eyes.

So did he rescue a baby from a burning building or donate half his $5 million salary to cancer research?

No, Van Gundy told reporters that an NBA referee is a longtime friend of his.

That's heroic?

Van Gundy said he and this ref – who isn't working the playoffs – are so tight that the ref called Van Gundy to warn him of what Van Gundy described as almost a league-controlled conspiracy against 7-foot-6 Rockets center Yao Ming.

This ref, said Van Gundy, had read an in-house, online directive sent from Ronnie Nunn, the NBA's director of officials, to the crew officiating the Houston-Dallas series, basically ordering that crew to call certain fouls more closely on Yao.

Van Gundy indicated to reporters that his ref friend implied this order came down as a direct result of all the lobbying Mavericks owner Mark Cuban had done with the league office.

That's a villainous accusation from a head coach.

Fittingly, NBA commissioner David Stern fined Van Gundy $100,000 – twice the old record. Stern vowed that an investigation will begin as soon as the playoffs end for the Rockets – perhaps after Saturday night's Game 7 in Dallas. And Stern warned that if Van Gundy doesn't reveal the identity of his ref friend, he could lose his job.

If Van Gundy does reveal the ref's identity, the ref will be fired and every ref in the league may consider Van Gundy a stool pigeon. The bias against him -- or even the appearance of bias -- could cause Stern as many problems as it does Van Gundy. Those complications alone could make it difficult for Van Gundy to keep his job.

Yet shockingly, most fans in and out of Houston reacted by vilifying ... Stern!

Yao even offered to pay half of Van Gundy's fine. Rockets owner Les Alexander offered to pay all of it. Several fan sites set up pay-the-fine funds.

Jeff Van Folk Hero has suddenly become so popular in Houston that Houston Chronicle columnist Richard Justice marveled in print: "He's a native New Yorker, but at the moment, he couldn't be more of a Texan if he showed up with cream gravy on his tie and a Dan Jenkins novel under his arm."

The Chronicle, a fine old newspaper, lost all objectivity in an editorial that said Stern "should call a time out to the histrionics and let the spotlight return to the basketball court where it belongs. Unlike a lot of the behavioral problems that have marred the NBA's image in recent years, expressing an honest opinion is neither a crime nor a career-ending infraction, and shouldn't be treated as one."

Like just about everyone else, this editorial misses more points than Shaquille O'Neal at the free-throw line.

Yes, Van Gundy expressed an "honest opinion," based on what smells like a dishonest relationship.

If an off-duty ref is so close to Van Gundy that the ref would pick up the phone and warn him about a confidential directive, what has happened the presumably many times this ref has officiated Van Gundy's games? How many phantom fouls has he called on Van Gundy's opponents over the years? How many pivotal sixth fouls?

How many times has this ref looked the other way when Van Gundy's star has committed a foul at a crucial moment? How many points – or even games – has he saved Van Gundy? Should we believe Van Gundy's disclaimer that this ref isn't working the playoffs, that he isn't officiating Houston-Dallas games?

And how many favors has Van Gundy done for his ref friend? How expensive were the favors? If the NBA will soon investigate, the Houston Chronicle should, too.

NBA customers deserve to know.

What is Stern's No. 1 fear? Games fixed by players, coaches or refs. Now Van Gundy has called into question the very integrity upon which the league teeters.

More than any other sport, the NBA is plagued by suspicions among team insiders and reporters that results are influenced by the league office. Over the years, team officials have routinely told me off the record that the league will make sure a major-market team will hit the lottery or advance to the NBA Finals.

Yet they've never provided a shred of irrefutable evidence of fixed outcomes and I routinely dismiss these whispers as pressure-to-win paranoia.

Yet paranoia alone didn't prompt Van Gundy to become so damningly honest. Panic played a part. At home, Van Gundy's team had blown two 88-82 fourth-quarter leads, and guess who was about to find himself in blame's crosshairs?

Van Gundy, who's as sly and skilled at manipulating the media as he can be at juggling superstar egos.

Obviously, Van Gundy wanted to 1) deflect blame from his coaching while 2) making refs second-guess the fouls they might call on Yao and 3) refocusing his players on this "outrage" instead of their fourth-quarter failures.

But in trying to drive home his point, Van Gundy crossed the line from self-preservation to self-destruction. He played his friend-the-ref card.

Rockets fans ate it up because they were fixated on the "we wuz robbed" message instead of the messenger. Yet consider the message. Do you really believe Stern is going to do any favors for Cuban, who constantly criticizes the league? Does it make one cent's worth of sense that the league would conspire to keep Yao from advancing in the playoffs? China's a pretty big TV market, after all.

Executives or coaches from every team routinely contact the league office to complain about officiating. Yet Cuban made an issue only of Yao's uncalled moving screens, and from what I've seen, Cuban had a point. Yao routinely moves his big body into the path of defenders chasing Rockets shooters.

Result: One moving-screen violation was called on Yao in the Game 3 loss and one in the Game 5 loss. That hardly substantiated the Houston Chronicle's claim that the "pattern of calls" was "radically altered."

Van Gundy has said all season that Yao doesn't get enough calls, while shooting or taking charges, because he's too nice and polite and doesn't complain enough to refs or command their respect. Yet he often plays so politely that he hasn't earned respect. And Cuban asked only that refs watch Yao more closely when he sets screens, which was basically all the memo asked the Houston-Dallas crew to do.

Nothing sinister there.

The revelation of Van Gundy's ref friend was mainly why Stern was as angry as you'll ever see him in public. Well, that and Van Gundy's reaction to Stern's fine and demand that Van Gundy give up his source.

Van Gundy did a stand-up routine for the media, joking that his wife might make him sleep on the porch after losing $100,000 and that he felt like he was "in Watergate or something." More and more fans were won over by the way Van Gundy sarcastically defied the "Cuban-loving, Yao-thwarting" commissioner. Yet Stern heard only a veteran coach who obviously saw absolutely nothing wrong with his "source" and his attack on league integrity.

You could almost see the smoke coming out of Stern's ears.

This is as serious as it gets. And this isn't close to over.

If Van Gundy does reveal the ref's identity, the ref will be fired and every ref in the league may consider Van Gundy a stool pigeon. The bias against him – or even the appearance of bias – could cause Stern as many problems as it does Van Gundy.

Those complications alone could make it difficult for Van Gundy to keep his job.

If he refuses to give up the ref, he will at least face a lengthy suspension without pay and Stern will push to have him fired.

Van Gundy's final option will be to say – sheepishly and contritely – that he made up the part about the ref. That would get him off the hook with Stern. But if Van Gundy says he lied, you can bet commentators in and out of Texas will call for his resignation. Two in Texas have told me they will.

Van Gundy now says he regrets speaking "with great emotion and bringing the ref into it." But the damage has been done.

While Van Gundy is suddenly all the rage in Houston, he shouldn't forget its nickname: Sweat City.

 

I also think this oculd work out favoirably for JVG if he doesnt give up his source and manages to hang onto his job (either litigation or arbitration). The refs gotta have some respect for a man who refused to give up one of their own even at the risk of losing his job,

 

The stupidest part of the entire article was when he said the paper lost its objectivity in an editorial. WTF, the sentence doesn't even make sense

 

Not to mention, Stern's power and influence on owners is probaly slipping since he signed them to that disastrous cable TV deal. Even the dumbest owner knows that you would get more viewers on free TV than Cable.