ESPN released an investigative report on Donaghy... Some things that were not too public previously: http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/25980368/how-former-ref-tim-donaghy-conspired-fix-nba-games
so Stern blackmailed, threatened and colluded to swipe this under the rug and not allow the other corrupted refs to be investigated. What else is new? Just wait for free betting to be allowed as Silver is planning. There will be massive corruption. Not only by refs but maybe even by players.
This is where the NBPA needs to make sure they are going to get a nice cut of any revenue generated by sports betting on basketball. It would be, IMO, fairly easy for a veteran making the minimum but is also playing significant minutes for a team to be paid off six figures a game to have an "off-night".
Great article. Hate that the NBA had a chance to clean the house and simply brushed everything under the rug.
also he was never convicted of fixing games because that isn't illegal. he was convicted for just gambling.
Hate to say it but the NBA's success was built upon sweeping things under the rug. Stern ruled the league with an iron fist and no one was brave enough to fight against him.
Warriors Game 6 and Game 7 I could have sworn Donaghy was officiating those games. I'll never get over those for as long as I live.
They did the same thing after MJ's father was murdered. Stern, Silver, and the NBA are not going to allow ANYTHING to get in the way of their vision. They want the NBA to be the biggest sport in the world.
I hate to say it but in my opinion the league as a whole is not entirely on the up and up. The meddling by the league on certain issues, the officials and some of the draft lottery stuff just doesn’t leave me certain that we are getting fair competition sometimes. The league is too stuck on the entertainment part and not enough on the competitive element.
Yup. All it takes is a player like Matt Barnes to be compromised. A player that has played a long time, never got the big payday and has a lot of financial obligations. Someone like that Matt Barnes was getting started minutes on elite teams while making pennies compared to other players.
Here's the funny part; if we are to believe in the idea that certain mob bosses, once their bank accounts are fattened enough, are ready to go "legit" then the NBA is a perfect analogy. Stern built the NBA up over his tenure as the commish because there wasn't the same level of reporting, news, or data that could have been printed or publicized as it is now. So now with so much data, media, etc. running rampant, it's the perfect time for the NBA to legitimize it's operations/businesses. Much like how a mob boss might get out of organized crime with all of his money to open up a bunch of Planet Fitnesses.
Well... https://www.businessinsider.com/david-stern-really-does-know-where-the-bodies-are-buried-2011-3 Stern told the room he knows where "the bodies are buried" in the NBA, witnesses recounted, because he had buried some of them himself. "It was shocking," Chicago Bulls star Derrick Rose(notes) told Yahoo! Sports. "I was taking off my gear, and when he said that, I just stopped and thought, 'Whoa …' "I couldn't believe that he said it."
How does this even work? Gambling is an independent transaction from an NBA game - how can they even get access to that money (why would Vegas pay them?), and if it's anything significant, it would just push people back to online sportbooks/etc.
I guess what I was trying to say is that whatever partnership/sponsorship the NBA cuts with a gambling entity the NBAPA better be sure they get at least half of that pie. I think there's a deal with MGM Grand?
