NBA Refutes Tim Donaghy's Claim That Referees Bet on Blazers Rockets Game 1

They should clean house on refs. I'm tired of this crap.

Tim is legit. He broke many of friendships to get his word out. It's legit.

 

The fact that NBA refuted Tom's statement makes me wonder if what he said was legit

 

Maybe his allegations will make the NBA give us some calls in game 4? The game 1 calls were horrendous, that's for sure. We got jobbed, should be up 2-1

 

He stated the obvious, anybody could've said that and we all witnessed Foster before so nothing new there. Raptors vs. Nets is also not that far fetched, though I haven't seen game 2 & 3.

 

It's just too easy to bet on games. Call your good friend x to place a bet for $50,000. A few bad calls easily swings a game and bam 50K in the bank. About 1/3 of their salary.

 

If you read what he actually said, it's nowhere close to "insider info". It's some guy (who happens to be Tim Donaghy) watching the game and noticing that the officiating sucks, and attaching a controversial but ultimately arbitrary and baseless claim to it.

 

Not baseless. He made a living off of it, and is calling it how he sees it.

Either its real or the refs are that bad. I'd like to think someone is prideful enough to not suck so bad at their job.

 

Find me better basketball refs anywhere in the world. If you can't then nba refs are by definition the best available.

 

The only thing that still irks me is that several other refs who were all in the league at the time of Donaghy are still employed. He didn't throw anybody else under the bus, but I can't imagine he was the only referee to be tempted or corrupted.

The NBA also let several refs off the hook for the tax evasion scandal.

They'd rather stick with 80+ year old Dick Bavetta and blind Bennett Salvatorre than recruit/hire/train a whole new crop. These refs KNOW the NBA needs them... and thus they could be easily tempted/corrupted with the assurance of job security no matter what.

 

Scott Foster was and is still suspected of having been involved with the Donaghy gambling ring back in the day. Donaghy made countless phone calls to Foster right before and/or right after calling his bookie and/or before/after games, ALLEGEDLY. I will always believe that Foster was somehow involved.

 

Probably cant, there are good crews out there.

It just seems weird that a team who notoriously shoots 8 free throws less than us a game in the regular season is shooting 3 more than us in this series. Weird.

 

I don't have a doubt in the world that the NBA fixes some games / series but .... had the Rockets not missed 14 FT's ....

 

Free Throw Attempts per game

Houston
31.1 FTA 71.2% Reg. Season
30.7 FTA 75% Playoffs

Portland
23.5 FTA 81.5%
31.3 FTA 81.9%

Rockets are getting slightly less calls. Portland's free throw attempts per game is up a staggering 33.19% thus far. Something is not right with this picture.

 

Game 2 was the one where I could clearly see two refs going to war. I dunno which was for whom, but I remember having that thought many times.

It would just go bad call one way, second ref calls a make up call to atone for it, then bad call the other way, first ref then calls make up call in the opposite direction, rinse and repeat. And it was always one ref for the Blazers and one for the Rockets. Weird

 

Pretty much anyone in the Euroleague. I used to get pissed about calls in Europe until I started actively following the Rockets. Then the NBA refs gave me perspective.

Yes, the rules are different and the playstyle is different and don't get me wrong, there's plenty of bull**** going on there as well, but it pales in comparison to the amount of obvious calls that NBA refs botch and the consistency with which they just plain suck day in, day out.

 

This whole "convicted felon" thing doesn't discredit his comments at all. It's actually irrelevant.

I'm sure he has more of an intel on the referee world than anyone else.

It's like asking a thief for advice on how to catch a robber. Just because they are a thief doesn't mean they don't know what's up.

Catch me if you can is a story like that.

 

I mostly believe him because he said the Rockets-Mavs series was fixed which confirmed what we all knew.