I really don't buy the big market argument either. The Knicks keep sucking and San Antonio keeps winning championships (and they play the "boringest" brand of basketball there is). However, I think you're misrepresenting the Cuban angle a little bit. Cuban didn't influence the refs -- he contacted the league, and according to Donaghy, the directive to change the way Yao was officiated came down from the league. That's why he says he didn't need to "fix" games to win bets ... all he needed to know what the league supervisors were instructing them to do, and factor in the biases he knew about each official, and he could come up with a winning formula. Cuban's relationship with the refs had absolutely nothing to do with it, considering that he never communicated directly with them.
You're right...I'm sure the NBA did a Google search of this beforehand and determined because of the 600,000 more people in the general vicinity of Dallas they were hellbent on giving the series to the Mavericks. All the while ignoring the 1 Billion people in China and elsewhere in the US who would have been more interested to see the Rockets.
A bigger reason why Stern would rather have the Mavs advance over Houston is the fact that JVG made those statements. No way was Adolt Hitstern was going to let the man that exposed the inner goings advance to the 2nd round.
First of all, Donaghy also make reference to personal relationships between refs and the players/coaches/owners factoring into his bets. It wasn't just me making that up. Posters in this thread also used that as an explanation. I don't think its out of line to refute that by assuming refs probably had a pretty terrible personal relationship with the Mavs because of their owner's relentless criticism. As for the point about the league providing "things to look out for," I've already commented that I view that as just part of the game. This is the reason players yell out refs, coaches get thrown out, and owners/gms send videos to the league office. They do it in the hope to influence the way the game is called to gain a competitive advantage. If the evidence they provide is sound, then I believe the League has a duty to try to correct it. The NFL gives refs things to look for all the time, especially in regards to dirty play, so it's not like this is something only confined to the NBA. So that being said, we still need to dig deeper. Why would the NBA decide to issue the directive to look closer at Yao? Is it because they just wanted to appease Mark Cuban? What does the NBA gain by making Mark Cuban happy? Or is it because they did see some problems in the way Yao was officiated? Until someone can come up with a rational explanation why the NBA would stand to benefit from sending the directive down to the refs, I'm going to assume the league did agree there was some problems in the way refs were officiating Yao, particularly with respect to moving screens. My opinion on what happened, is that I think the refs took this too far, and looked at Yao too closely. I think that sucks. Still, this is a far cry from the "fixing" other people have been suggesting.
Also, this paragraph speaks more to Donaghy just being very sly in respect to his betting along with his insider knowledge. I really don't see anything damning at the league office level, which a lot of people are trying to suggest. Please for the love of God nobody buy this little weasel's book.
Game 5 was the worst officiated game I have seen in the history of the NBA. The refs made at least 4 horrible calls in the endgame that all killed the Rockets. The out-of-bounds play was just the icing on a cake that was already poisoned. Although I don't know if Game 5 was a conspiracy, at the very least I think the refs who handled that game should have been fined, demoted, or the like. Little-league games are officiated better than that. Games 3 and 4 were where the real conspiracy action existed. Teams should not be allowed to petition the league to change the reffing during the playoffs. It was obvious that the refs changed the way the game was called. That's simply not the way a fair game is played. It's like the series started out as basketball but then they said, "Oh by the way the next game will be teeball."
You can't make a completely useless and untalented team like the Knicks win a championship. How was that gonna happen?
Vindicated? Hardly... Dunking on Bradley was great and all. It got a nice ESPN highlight and consideration for a top playoff dunk of the decade, but stuff like that doesn't mean anything if your team doesn't get it done when it counts.
So why in your opinion did the league decide to blatantly organize this conspiracy against the Rockets after the first two games? What was in it for the league?
Only problem with this is most people claim it was games 3 and 4 when the refs really started changing the way they officiated Yao. Didn't Van Gundy only make his comments after Game 4?
Oh god, now the "Stern and refs are part of evvvillll conspiracy people" invoke Godwin's. And how did JVG expose the inner goings of refereeing? He whined about the refs, got fined about it. Hardly a rare occurence. What did he do that was so freakin' special?
The NBA benefitted by extending the series. It's not so much a "fix" that is in place but merely drawing attention to a specific player on a specific move. Referees are humans and when there is selective attention, it seems to dominate the focus of that specific players' actions. Yao was under a microscope even if the NBA didn't specifically state this. Maybe he didn't receive his insider information until after game 4
I agree with all of this, but isn't this something JVG already told us four years ago? What new has Donaghy said that confirms the series was "tainted" as the OP suggests.
Houston is like 10th in media market size based if I remember correctly. Dallas is definitely higher than Houston.
Is everything in the world that simple in your head? First of all, there are so many variables in the dark here we don't know about, that it's just useless trying to logically think through why this and why that unless we had more info. Second, the logic that the NBA is scared to call unfavorable fouls on Yao in fear of losing his Chinese fans is just naive on so many levels. Did you ever think that Chinese fans follow the NBA for other reasons besides Yao and the Rockets? Did you ever think that even if Chinese fans did see through the unfavorable calls on Yao, they'd still be watching the games anyway? Or how about the fact that even if the NBA did lose Chinese viewers, the effect is too marginal to even stress over it (compared to whatever benefits that would come out of it, anyway).
