Ex-referee Tim Donaghy blows whistle on NBA dirty secrets

Duncan was being an ass, and Crawford is the fairest official the league has. I'm glad the guy cares enough to get mad over it.

 

did we have that few posters back then? i read 5 of those links and i don't think any went to the second page (maybe one barely made it). maybe there were a lot of longer threads on the subject that weren't linked, but it's crazy how much quieter it was back then.

 

I remember telling someone in 02 that game had to be fixed. NBA officiating is bad but I've never seen a game like that. Even LA fans will tell you that much.

 

wow. maybe the league got real mad at crawford for T-ing up Duncan. that does make sense. especially when no one has proof on what duncan said. duncan said that he said one thing, while crawford said that duncan used the f word.

crawford is still a bad referee. he sucks, just plain and simple.

 

Funny those same Laker fans are now crying about refs and fixing in Game 2.

At least the non-Rockets fans can finally know that the 2005 series was as shady as they come.

 

A post from ESPN Boards...

Spoiler

LOL @ the crooked NBA mob don David Stern trying to cover his arse, accusing Tim of being a rogue official. Stephen A. Smith siding with the "Commish" is nothing more than a tool that would sell his ol' decrepit Granny down the river to keep his "job" as an ESPN analyst.

I mean, why else would the crooked Stern, who has labeled Donaghy a "rogue" official want to "sit down with "a rogue" after Tim indicated he would come clean (and name names) regarding this rogue league and the collusion between team owners, league management, referees, and undoubtedly, players themselves.

Now make no mistake about it, Donaghy will receive time for being made the scapegoat (for examples of scapegoat, Google the names of Col. Ollie North and G. Gordon Liddy) of all this, but remember his time will be spent in a FEDERAL prison, not a hole like Rikers Island or the Angola Pen. This means the dude will serve time basically in a country club facility, have his own suite, color TV, access to the Internet, a nice comfy bed, three great meals a day, along with the finest medical and dental care available, something the majority of you ham-n-eggers struggle to have on a daily basis. Stern KNOWS HE has corrupted this sport since he took over as Commish, conspiring with team owners, team management, referees, and players to fix games and playoff series. You can look at that crooked smirk that's etched on his face, along with those beady eyes behind them glasses and know this crook doesn't have an honest bone in his body. Former Deputy Commish Russ Granik was Stern's muscle guy. EVERYBODY gets their pay and hush money under the table at season's end. For proof, one only needs to look at this season alone as startling proof of how crooked this league has become.

How does the (supposedly) best team in basketball (Celtics), who have beaten teams in BOTH conferences, at home AND on the road, all of a sudden "regress" and go seven games against a Hawks team that only made the playoffs by process of elimination? Remember, the Hawks had a LOSING overall record going into the playoffs. And we cannot forget the "Celtics road woes" (yeah, right) throughout these playoffs. Also, how would/could a league begin airing "retro footage" commercials of Celtics/Lakers legends (Russell, Chamberlain, etc.) running onto the court/coming out of the arena tunnels BEFORE said teams won their respective conferences to GET to the finals? Even the crook Stern was mentioning what a possible Celtics/Lakers finals would mean for ratings during the FIRST round of this season's playoffs. And let us all NOT forget about good ol' Joey Crawford, and his supposedly banishment from the league last season. I guess Stern couldn't buy off Crawford, hence....the sudden reinstatement of Crawford. Couldn't have Crawford capped off either because that would have drawn even more scrutiny to this tainted league.

But for any of you naysayers who still don't believe what I've stated here, I guess if somehow, Mr. Donaghy "commits suicide" while awaiting his transfer to the country club facility, then perhaps that will serve as proof of the truth I've listed above. But in all likeliness, that won't happen since the crooked Stern has already paid off Donaghy by way of an overseas account, which will be drawing interest all the while Tim is serving out his time. When he leaves the country club facility Mr. Donaghy will be a very very rich man, his silence bought off, and things will remain hunky-dorey in the good ol' NBA. And in conclusion, even the crooked Stern and his co-horts have singled out each and every one of you in laughing at all of you. How, you ask? It's all in that classic one sentence ad . . .

"NBA Action. It's FANtastic.

Oh yeah, in case you were wondering where the payoff money that is passed under the table to team owners, management, referees, and players themselves comes from, it comes from all of you who have purchased NBA merchandise, tickets to games, and for the majority of you, your parents who spent their hard-earned money taking you kids to games, so remember that when you question your parents as to why you had to rely on cheap frozen dinners and pork-n-beans as staples in your food diets.

 

http://www.sacbee.com/100/story/297829.html

Basically says that Bavetta was the only one in game 6 who didn't make bad calls...and Donaghy says there were two company men fixing the calls and this paper specifically calls out the other two....

Bavetta isn't a bad official.

 

why the hell do these refs stay around so long anyway?

Jack Nies,Bavetta, Crawford, Bennett Salvatore etc etc...

the good thing is it keeps me from feeling old cause those guys were around when I was a kid.

 

Come on, you know that Duncan snickering behind an official's back while off the court and on the bench is not remotely a technical-able offense. I don't care for Duncan and the Spurs but an official just can't apply that kind of a standard.

 

Read this and tell me that:
http://proxy.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/020606

Near the bottom of the page. The header is "Question: What was the most disturbing subplot of the playoffs?"

 

He was laughing and stamping his feet. If it were Rasheed Wallace or Ron Artest, I don't think Crawford's judgment would be questioned quite so much.

 

Doesn't really do anything for me. I saw most of those games, and outside of the Lakers/Kings one nothing really stuck out for me. Maybe the Lakers/Blazers, but Portland played like a bunch of sissies down the stretch.

Most of those games Simmons just says "They got all the calls"...okay. Or that a horrible call was made...by some other official. And it's freaking Bill Simmons. Not exactly the most trustworthy or level headed source...especially since he tries to lump a lame Celtics game in his little conspiracy crap too.

 

I remember EVERY ONE of those games. Bashing Simmons because he writes for entertainment is dumb. He makes legitimate points.

We just found out that refs were specifically directed not to eject star players. Hmmmmmm... wonder why Stern came down on Crawford so hard.

 

I still don't see any actual evidence, my Simmons criticism nonwithstanding. At least his name attached to a controversial call, something.

 

I'm not sure why these comments are so surprising for some -- we've all noticed strange things happen in key games over the years.

Here is the Simmons blurb...
________

Question: What was the most disturbing subplot of the playoffs?

Answer: The officiating, also the most disturbing subplot of the past four playoffs. If you examine the last four NBA playoff campaigns, during every situation where the league definitively "needed" one of the two teams involved to win -- either to A) change the momentum of a series so it didn't end prematurely, B) keep an attractive, big-market team alive in a series, or C) advance an attractive, big-market team to another round -- the officiating appeared to be slanted towards the team that needed that game. I use the phrase "appeared to be," because reviewing an official's performance is purely subjective. Maybe I'm dead-wrong.

These were just the games that jump out in my mind (again, I could be wrong):

# 1999, Knicks-Pacers, Game 3 ... LJ sinks a game-winning four-pointer (called a continuation foul by referee Jess Kersey even though LJ was fouled a full second before he released the ball).

# 1999, Knicks-Pacers, Game 6 ... Knicks last chance to close out Indy before the series shifts back to Indiana for Game 7 ... they get every call.

# 1999, Spurs-Knicks, Game 3 ... down 2-0, the Knicks get every call in their first home game and win their only game of the series.

# 2000, Knicks-Heat, Game 7 ... Knicks advance to the conference finals ... falling out of bounds, Latrell Sprewell awarded a timeout by referee Bennett Salvatore with 2.1 seconds left even though none of the Knicks called for one ... Sprewell admits after the game that he hadn't called a timeout ... the Miami players chase the referees off the court after the game, yelling that they had been robbed ... after the game, Jamal Mashburn tells reporters, "They had three officials in their pocket" and Tim Hardaway refers to referee Dick Bavetta as "Knick Bavetta."

# 2000, Lakers-Blazers, Game 7 ... LA shoots 21 more free throws and rallies back from a 17-point deficit in the final seven minutes ... Shaq plays an illegal defense down the stretch, undaunted ... Rasheed Wallace absolutely gets manhandled down the stretch, yet doesn't get a single call ... up by four with 25 seconds left, Shaq body-blocks Steve Smith out of bounds and the refs don't make the call (the most egregious non-call in recent memory).

# 2002, Celtics-Nets, Game 4 ... Celts up 2-1 ... the Nets are inexplicably allowed to push and shove Kenny Anderson and Pierce while they dribble the ball ... a number of head-scratchers go against Boston, including three offensive charges down the stretch ... four different "bull-(bleep)" chants during the game.

# 2002, Lakers-Kings, Game 6 ... LA needs a win to stay alive ... from an officiating standpoint, the most one-sided game of the past decade ... at least six dubious calls against the Kings in the fourth quarter alone ... LA averaged 22 free throws a game during the first five games of the series, then attempted 27 freebies in the fourth quarter alone of Game 6 ... rumors that David Stern wanted to pull a Vince McMahon and declare himself "The special guest referee" for this game prove unfounded.

(By the way, I would feel remiss if I didn't share this information: Dick Bavetta was assigned to every one of the above games. That's an absolute fact. You can look it up. Doesn't mean anything ... I just felt the need to pass that along. It sure looks bad, doesn't it? Maybe the league could do a favor for Bavetta and not assign him to Game 3 of the Finals, especially if the Lakers jump to a 2-0 lead over New Jersey. You wouldn't want to rile up those conspiracy theorists or anything. Ummmm ...)

 

I don't care if these allegations are true or not because the officiating has been so terrible for the last 5 seasons or so that this is really just icing on the cake. I've already lost a lot of interest in consistently watching basketball. It's too frustrating when there is no consistent method. All too often it appears that games are rigged or being influenced- now we have another data point - and from the inside at that.

Consider me beyond jaded.

 

On ABC right now. Incredible.

 

Rockets / Mavs series...

Van Gundy...

Stern...

...

 

On at halftime. Wow, that's pretty pathetic.

 

I'd be so pissed if I was adleman. **** stern.