Ex-referee Tim Donaghy blows whistle on NBA dirty secrets

Strange though, if you give someone alot of FT's to "fix" a game, why would you give it to Shaq opposed to any other player on the LAL roster? Kobe had 11 and Shaq had 17.

 

Calling fouls for Shaq will put opposing big men in foul trouble, making the interior defense softer, giving post players and cutters more high-percentage shots in the paint?

 

There are three benefits to calling phantom fouls: FTs, bailing out a bad shot (whereby FTs is better than nothing), and fouling players out. Divac and Pollard both fouled out.

 

david stern, is that you? lol.

 

i've posted this before and i'll post it again

THE WWF/WCW IS THE SAME THING AS THE NBA

PROS WITH A PRESCRIPTED AGENDA

 

This is such a mess. I hope Stern has a press conference to clear some things up.

As to the Rockets/Mavs in 05, we can be mad if what is said in the sports illustrated article is true, but the Rockets did blow Game 7... Which had more to do with just playing terrible, not fixing.

 

the thing is if the refs didnt have a specific agenda more than likely game 7 is never played. thats what makes me mad.

same with kings lakers game 7. the kings blew it at home but it should have NEVER gotten to that point if the refs were legit in game 6

 

Without passing judgment on the situation whatsoever, I would like to say some things that should leave us with some doubt in these allegations:

Donaghy is, like Stern said, a marked man, with his sentencing approaching. If the feds see that he is "cooperating" (or in this case, throwing everyone under the bus with him), his sentence could be potentially lighter. I'm sure this is what his legal team is pitching to him. Therefore, if he is going to play up his scape-goat defense, he needs to throw specific instances out in which the fix was in. His main components are:

A) Random game of 2004.

"Referee A" speaks with general manager of some team and tells ref B that he will make sure that team wins. Ref B tells Tim and then the refs proceed to call 25 fouls on the opposition, "far fewer than on the other team". What truly is the disparity? Is 25 personal fouls really even that many? Sure it is more than usual, but it doesn't seem excessively high. I could pick a huge foul difference and say the game was fixed very very easily. If they will bring in this "Referee B" (as the govt. has the actual names), then maybe we can get some progress. Until then, this one still has some doubt.

B) Refs to not call tech's on stars

Big shocker here. Stars get calls, workmen don't. Nothing to imply a fix here, just the way of the world and this holds true in other sports as well.

C) Rockets-Mavs 2005

Didn't exactly tell us anything we didn't already know. Cuban b****ed to the league, the league did something about it, and then with Yao not being able to screen and constantly getting fouls piled up, we lost the series. Nothing about a "fix" here, just that refs were in there opinion cracking down on a rule. Yao was probably screening illegally in the first two games, and when given video evidence of such, the league probably felt it had no choice but to get refs to comply. This allegation, although true, does not show me anything I need to see the league wanted the Mavs to take the series. JVG was fined 100,000, but I attribute that more to the fact that Stern is a little baby and hates when anyone insults or questions his precious league.

D) Kings-Lakers Game 6 2002

This is the biggest one here. Ref A is back again (who we know is either Bavetta, Delaney, or Bernhardt) and now with specific instructions to extend the series to a 7th game. The letter describes what we all saw and knew, with the Lakers getting all the calls and the Kings unable to buy a call, even after Bibby got his nose knocked out of place by Kobe. It was a travesity, we all had our suspicions that the game was fixed at the time, and this is just confirmation to what we already knew.

But really, if I'm trying to save my neck here and show the entire league has its problems, why am I NOT picking this game as the true shining argument in my piece? The story is believable, already floating around with suspicion, and this will give the rest of my stories the credibility they need to stay afloat. The officiating was a travesty without question; but so obviously that Donaghy's accusation doesn't change my opinion at all. Give me information about a game that everyone didn't already believe was lopsided Tim.



With out saying anything about who I believe in the whole mess, it is an undeniable fact that Donaghy's story would be one that is very easy to fabricate, and with the general negative attitude towards Stern, the League, and Referees, the public would eat this stuff up. I will reserve judgment for a little while, see what else happens, and then make my decision. This is just my two cents, and feel free to disagree with anything I have said.

 

the nba is fixed and only worried about money and for the next 4seasons it'll be lakers/celts

there i said it

 

The fight isn't veiled, what's veiled is that you won't admit you favor baseball for whatever reason and your stance of impartiality is a pretext, so as a consequence I just think your expresions of "Why is baseballl getting the once over and basketball ain't to the same degree" rings hollow. I just don't think you're that impartial and I have said that.

LOok at the end of the day I don't care, if you prefer baseball or football that is fine. But you do prefer one and not the other, at least from the persona you present here, from my observations.

I don't care that you do, , and I don't hate you for it or even remotely dislike you or your online persona because of it. I have my own personal preferences as well (College FB, NBA, European football, Boxing are probably my favorites).

As to your specific questions with regard to media exposure, I haven't done the research to see if spygate was front page NYT one, or just sports page one, but I don't think it proves much if it does given the general lack of interest in the Knicks that I have experienced.

Suffice it to say, if Donaghy's allegations are not just sheeps in wolves clothing/pleading than you are definitely right that more media coverage is warranted...........and I have no doubt that, if so, it will be forthcoming and the game may even cease to exist as we know it.

Speaking more generally (or more specifically), the thing I have a problem with is your implication that baseball is somehow being unfairly targeted.

My own/your own biases aside, from 30 or so years of reading sports media covereage, it's apparent to me by now that quite frequently, and quite understnadably, given the nature of the event, roles are assigned to coaches, players, individual sports, etc. In the continual morality play that is sports journalism, the role of villain is frequently assigned to the NBA and/or its athletes, in fact that role has been driven home ad nauseum in the last 15 years or so. (as an aside, which will probably distract the discussion even though I kind of think it's irrelevant to this specific point, much of this, IMO, is due to race. See, e.g., Texas Western vs. Kentucky, Bird v. Magic, basically the entire prism of the basketball is absolutely affected by race, if conscious or subconsicous, positive or negative, so be it, but it's there, and I acknowledge it.)

So the implication that the NBA is an ignored den of iniquity while MLB/NFL is targeted is just plain absurd to me. NBA's reputation has never been great, and to an extent the vultures have always been waiting to pounce, and they have in this instance, commemsurate with the situation.

 

I'd agree it's getting close to this level.

 

that's what i've been thinking. for all i (or anyone at this point) knows, tim donaghy is making the most truthful statements of all time right now. and maybe he has a list of incidents and these are the only 2 getting talked about. but if i was going to lie, game 6 would definitely be the first game i'd bring up. like you said, everyone already believes it (and it's hard not to) so who is really going to be able to prove you wrong? it's an easy choice. and with a little research, you could find that jvg got a huge fine and specifically mentioned hearing something from a league official (in a game donaghy almost got to ref) and build something around that fairly easily (although again as you said, telling the refs to look at certain things isn't abnormal). so while donaghy might be telling the truth, he either needs someone else to corroborate this, or some lesser known examples that aren't easy to build a story around. maybe he's got those, but for now it's hard to give him the benefit of the doubt.

 

Well Sacremento Kings fans are pissed off.


Donaghy's claim reopens an old wound for Sacramento Kings fans
Whether or not they believe the disgraced referee's claim about the officiating in the 2002 Lakers-Kings playoff series, one thing is certain for Sacramento fans: losing Game 6 still hurts.
By Eric Bailey, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
June 12, 2008
SACRAMENTO -- In this town that bleeds Kings purple and black, it was the sort of news that hurts and heals all at once, proof of what the collective basketball fan-base has believed for half a dozen years.

We was robbed.

Game 6 of the 2002 NBA Western Conference finals between the Lakers and Kings long has been considered an officiating debacle in these parts.

But allegations from a disgraced former referee that the officials essentially threw the game to Los Angeles -- by sending the Lakers to the free-throw line 27 times in the fourth quarter -- has hit a nerve in this government town where folks go unabashedly loopy over their beloved basketball team.

Fans have smothered sports talk radio shows with an avalanche of angry phone calls. They've compared NBA officiating to the artifice of big-time wrestling. They've talked trash about the Lakers, the league and its referees.

And they've bemoaned what might have been. In the collected opinion of the majority, a fairly officiated Game 6 (won by the Lakers, 106-102) would have ended with the Kings -- not the cursed Lakers -- going on to the NBA Finals and presumably throttling the New Jersey Nets to become NBA champs. The Lakers, after beating the Kings in Game 7 in Sacramento, 112-106, in overtime, swept the Nets in four.

"This is validation that what we were witnessing was a travesty," said Greg Miller, a fan since attending the Kings' first game in Sacramento nearly a quarter century ago. "My feeling back in 2002 was one of disgust. Now to be dragged back and have to relive that stuff is pretty difficult."

Grant Napear, the Kings' radio and TV play-by-play man the last two decades, still labels Game 6 "arguably the worst officiated playoff game in NBA history."

During his afternoon sports-talk show on KHTK-AM 1140, Napear fielded call after call from disgusted fans itching to vent after he broke the news: Former referee Tim Donaghy, facing prison for gambling on the NBA, had insinuated that the pivotal Kings-Lakers game had been fixed.

"It has opened up an old wound that just had started to heal a bit," Napear said. "A lot of fans believe the outcome of that game was all preplanned. That's got to be a concern for the league. Perception can become reality."

But the broadcast veteran doesn't buy into conspiracy theories about NBA officiating.

"My own opinion is we've got to be careful," he said. "We're dealing with a convicted felon here in Donaghy. It would be easy for him to pick out Game 6 and suggest it was fixed. That's an easy target."

Even fans who don't necessarily buy Donaghy's allegations say the news confirmed long-held feelings about the 2002 series and that most pivotal of games.

Bill DeBlonk, a real estate agent and 23-year season ticket holder, has every turn in that series etched in his memory.

Robert Horry's ice-water arteries in Game 4, hitting the game-winner at the buzzer. The Kings leading 3-2 heading into Game 6, but seemingly never having a chance. Shaquille O'Neal plowing like a semi-truck past Vlade Divac and Scot Pollard before the two King centers fouled out. Kobe Bryant smashing Mike Bibby in the final seconds, bloodying Bibby's nose but not getting called for a foul.

"What can you say about it -- it was a debacle, it was ridiculous," DeBlonk said. "To hang on and still be bitter about it isn't worth the negative energy."

But, he added, "You know deep down in your heart that the next time it comes around and we're playing the Lakers with a championship on the line, we've got to lead by 20 to win by five."

Even without corroborating evidence, the allegations offer Sacramento's devout fans a vintage opportunity to grumble anew, this time in a national spotlight.

"There's no smoking gun. We'll never really know," said Rick Elliott, a season-ticket holder for 22 years. "It might not have been fixed, but it was one of the worst officiated games I've ever seen.

"And now," he added, "everyone in Sacramento can say, 'Hey, I told you so.' "

http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-sacto12-2008jun12,0,6183177.story

 

I thought Max's implication was not that baseball was being unfairly targeted, but that the NBA was being unfairly NOT targeted due to the perception that it is an inferior league.

But I could be wrong.

 

Well it was on the front page of the Daily News I just saw. So much for the code of silence.

 

If this were what I was saying, this would be a discussion we could have. But it's not. And honestly, it's tiresome having you throw assumptions on me when I ask questions. Your way too interesting a poster to throw you on ignore in other topics...but I'm kinda sorta gonna apply it right here to this discussion, because I'm interested in the subject, but not interested in having the discussion you want to have based on your assumptions about what I believe or what I'm trying to say. It keeps happening and it's just tired.

 

I"ll break my own rule immediately and say, this is getting lots of attention...more than I expected. There.

 

If the NBA is rigged, it's got to get a lot better at it​

http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-heisler12-2008jun12,0,4516364,print.column

............................................... Just how this ongoing conspiracy theory attaches itself specifically to the NBA -- and only the NBA -- has never been explained.

NFL officials are part-timers who can call holding on any play.
Baseball umpires have personal strike zones.
College basketball is almost as hard to officiate as the NBA game and, as its history of point-shaving scandals shows, easier to corrupt​

All have ongoing conflict with officials . . . but only in the NBA is it perceived as part of a wider conspiracy.
Every baseball team has umpiring crews it hates. Managers kick the ground, remove the bases and get ejected, but the next day everyone starts over without any talk of a plot.

The skepticism with which the NBA is perceived stems from the league's image as a perennial mutt.

In the '50s it was derided as a "YMCA league," in the '60s as "bush."

In the '70s, it was the league that was obliged to try to market predominantly African American players to white fans.

Then after race declined as an issue in the NBA's golden age with Magic Johnson and Larry Bird in the '80s and its zenith with Michael Jordan in the '90s, along came hip-hop, the Internet and worldwide tabloid journalism.​

The assumption is always that the NBA is endangered and has to get the best matchup. ................. Worse, it's assumed by all participants, coaches, players, etc., who never stop working the referees . . . even as they insist, as Lakers Coach Phil Jackson and Celtics Coach Doc Rivers did Wednesday, the system is totally honest.

Actually, the NBA has long been on solid footing, now getting $925 million in annual rights fees from its network partners to baseball's $670 million.

The most famous urban myth is the "frozen envelope" in the first NBA lottery in 1985, supposedly enabling Commissioner David Stern to deliver Patrick Ewing to the hometown New York Knicks.

Amid annual speculation that young stars would be sent to glamour teams, David Robinson then went to San Antonio, Shaquille O'Neal to Orlando, Tim Duncan to San Antonio, Yao Ming to Houston, LeBron James to Cleveland and Greg Oden to Portland.​

The Knicks, the league's tattered flagship franchise, never again drew a pick higher than No. 5.

The NBA actually bends over backward to avoid even the appearance of doing anything wrong . . . amid ever-increasing accusations it's fixing everything.

Let's put it this way: If it is fixing anything, it's doing a really lousy job.​

Small-market teams from San Antonio, Utah and Indiana have appeared in seven of the last 12 Finals along with crowd-pleasers such as the Detroit Pistons (twice), New Jersey Nets (twice) and Cleveland Cavaliers.

Meanwhile, the league was proving its impartiality by taking draconian action against glamour teams​

In 1997 with the Knicks leading their second-round series with Miami, 3-2, Stern suspended so many of them after the Heat's P.J. Brown tackled Charlie Ward, they had to sit out in shifts to have enough players for Games 6 and 7.

Four Knicks -- Ewing, Allen Houston, John Starks and Larry Johnson -- were suspended just for leaving the bench.

The Knicks lost.

Not to suggest the learning curve isn't all you could hope for, all around, but it just happened again last spring.

The Phoenix Suns, who had just won in San Antonio to tie their second-round series, 2-2, saw Amare Stoudemire and Boris Diaw suspended for leaving the bench during a "fight" that was actually just players milling around after the Spurs' Robert Horry hip-checked Steve Nash into the scorer's table.

The high-scoring Suns, the most entertaining team in the NBA, then lost Game 5 at home, got their players back and lost Game 6 in San Antonio.

It's hard for me to imagine the league rigging a matchup. On the other hand, I'm not in the business of assuming what can happen but of trying to learn what did.

What I can't believe is that the NBA could fix something like that and get away with it. Legal whizzes that these guys are, they're not that slick.

We hear a lot about what goes on in the office . . . like it wasn't Stern who suspended Stoudemire and Diaw but NBA vice president Stu Jackson, after which Stern noted that people were always telling him not to micromanage everything and look what happened. Or that second-guessing of the referees after Game 4 of the Lakers-Spurs series this season came from Stern, not Jackson, part of the new "transparency."

Now we're in the throes of the usual lemmings rush into the sea after Donaghy's latest allegations of referees manipulating Game 6 of the 2002 Lakers-Kings playoffs series in the Lakers' favor, or as ESPN.com headlines had it, "Season Shaken . . . Finals Shadow . . . League is inviting suspicion."

Of course, if Donaghy doesn't have something more tangible than a Lakers-Sacramento box score from 2002 and a directive to watch moving screens in the Dallas-San Antonio series in 2005, this could go away as fast as it did last summer.

I still love this game, even if it's hard to watch while waiting for the sky to fall.

mark.heisler@latimes.com

 

I keep hearing the word rigged. It doesn't appear to me that the allegations are that it's rigged to direct an outcome over the course of a series other than to extend the series to provide more games and more revenue.

 

beep beep beep beep