Donaghy says the league fixed 2002 playoff series

[Roy Hobbs]

Ex-NBA referee Tim Donaghy told the feds two refs fixed the outcome of one playoff series - and that officials were told not to eject star players from games for fear of hurting ticket sales.

The bombshell allegations are contained in a court document filed Tuesday by Donaghy's lawyer. It describes the “inner workings" of the NBA in which top league executives used referees to manipulate games.

Donaghy, who pleaded guilty in Brooklyn Federal Court to charges of betting on games he officiated, told FBI agents “league officials would tell referees that they should withhold calling technical fouls on certain star players because doing so hurt ticket sales and television ratings," the document said.

Donaghy claims he was told that two refs who were “company men” acting in the interest of the NBA conspired to extend a playoff series in 2002 to a seventh game.

The referees allegedly ignored flagrant fouls committed by the team that needed to win. They also reportedly called "made-up fouls" against the other team which led to the ejection of two of their players. The team favored by the refs won that night and the next game to win the series.

Link.

Wow.  I wonder if there are any facts backing this up.  2002 playoff series that went to seven games?  It's Lakers-Kings, right?

Here's an excerpt from Game 6 of that series:

The Kings were whistled for 31 fouls — seven more than the Lakers. Backup center Scot Pollard fouled out, then Divac fouled out in the final three minutes.

"I knew before the game I'm going to be out," Divac said. "My turn. Shaq (fouled out) up there, I (fouled out) right here."
...
"Our big guys get 20 fouls and Shaq gets four. Obviously, they got the game called the way they wanted to get it called," Adelman said. "Our guys played their tail off and they still had a chance to win."

So, the ejections thing due to "make up calls" plays out, too.

This is just hearsay and gossip right now, but would it surprise anybody in the least if it were true?

[rondohondo]

I find it hard to believe a scumbag like Donaghy if you have heard some of the stories about him throughout his life. It's one thing to have a few corrupt referee's dealing with the Mob and stuff like that , but he is claiming that the NBA orchestrated who they wanted to win that series and how far they wanted it to go. I just don't see the NBA doing this as many conspiracy theorists believe.

[Mean Gerald Green]

Yes it was the Lakers-Kings series, where virtually every call was in favor of the Lakers.

No one should be shocked by any of this because we've all been talking about it for years. It's not like they did a very good job disguising it.

The NBA needs to fire virtually every official and just start over from scratch to remove any question of whether or not games are fixed.

[Donoghus]

If any game speaks to the conspriacy theorists and those who are just skeptical of NBA referees, it is Game 6 of the 2002 Western Conference Finals.

This is serious allegation from a shady character who is looking to save his own skin.  It should be taken with a grain of salt but that game definitely had the feel of odd happenings.

[lon3lytoaster]

This is just hearsay and gossip right now, but would it surprise anybody in the least if it were true?

Absolutely not. No surprises there at all. The NBA is probably the most crooked league in the world outside of the WWE, which everyone knows is fake and scripted in the first place.

I can even see Stern's stumbling excuse for an explanation right now... "Just more false worse from a criminal trying to avoid jail-time." Except Donaghy already pleaded guilty, David.

[SaCaCh]

So, the ejections thing due to "make up calls" plays out, too.

This is just hearsay and gossip right now, but would it surprise anybody in the least if it were true?

It would be strange after seeing just how strange NBA games are called and coming up with all the conspiracy theories that finally it might actually be true!!!...how could anyone ever trust another NBA game again??? Stern would have to go if any of this were true.

[hpantazo]

if the nba wants these allegations to go away, then they should start by calling a fair game tonight to allow the celtics to whoop the lakers and go up 3-0, thus shutting up all the non nba fans who keep telling me that it's fixed, the home team will win every game.

[kgiessler]

I am not in the least bit surprised that its true.

I didn't become a hardcore fan until the years when the C's weren't so good.  As a new fan, whenever they got a bad call, or a bad break, I chalked it up to the same thing that everyone else said: young, inexperienced, and sucky teams are going to get the bad end of a call.

But this year, everything changed in terms of the team dynamic.  However, I kept on seeing bad calls.  I soon realized that the reason the NBA has poor officiating is because they choose to have poor officiating (I have stated this many times here).  The have the financial resources, technology, and manpower to improve their officiating.  However, they don't.  This can only mean that they want to have poor officiating, and whatever their motivation is to do that, its not respectable.

My theory has been that it was solely to keep games close, and thus interesting.  After all, most viewers tune in during the fourth quarter to see if its a close game, and many shut a game off if its a big point differential.  Heck, people in the arenas even leave if the game isn't close.  I never imagined that they would try to determine the outcome of the games.  But, with a ref that felt confident enough in the outcomes of games to bet on them, and with a classic LA vs Boston finals this year, after two highly unlikely trades to get that to happen, at this point nothing would surprise me.  The only thing I really wonder is just how deep the influence on games propagates through the league.

I take solace in the fact that I know there is nothing the refs can do to make a spectacular shot go down or a pass thread the needle.  I still like watching basketball, and I'm really glad I get to watch my favorite players for a few more games, but I haven't taken the scoreboard too seriously for several months now.  I know when a team plays bad, or good, and to me watching good basketball is enough.

[MattD]

...he is claiming that the NBA orchestrated who they wanted to win that series and how far they wanted it to go.

No -- he is saying that the referees decided amongst themselves to do what they could to extend the series to seven games, based on their own belief of what was best for the league.  He didn't say anything about league orchestration of the series, or about the officials orchestrating the winner of the 7th game.

Which is not to say that the allegations as they are, are not serious and troubling enough.  And if it happened in one case, who's to say it hasn't happened in others?  But it's important to be clear about what is being said here.

The bit about technical fouls isn't surprising at all, and depends greatly on the wording.  If officials were told by the league, "don't let your own emotions get the better of you such that you eject the star players, who the fans come to see and who often decide the games, over trivial matters," well, this would not be shocking or even necessarily a bad thing.

[rondohondo]

...he is claiming that the NBA orchestrated who they wanted to win that series and how far they wanted it to go.

No -- he is saying that the referees decided amongst themselves to do what they could to extend the series to seven games, based on their own belief of what was best for the league.  He didn't say anything about league orchestration of the series, or about the officials orchestrating the winner of the 7th game.

What are you talking about thats exactly what Donaghy is insinuating.

The bombshell allegations are contained in a court document filed Tuesday by Donaghy's lawyer. It describes the “inner workings" of the NBA in which top league executives used referees to manipulate games.

[bdm860]

The thing that makes me question these conspiracy theories is how come we wouldn't see the most marketable teams winning more often?  No way is San Antonio the preferred team for the NBA over Phoenix as we saw in both this year's and last year's playoffs.  Also wouldn't you expect Houston to get out of the first round if the NBA was fixing games to promote certain teams? Due to the global reach of the NBA no duo is probably more marketable than Yao/T-Mac.  And San Antonio would just never win, let alone a San Antonio/Detroit Finals, if the NBA was really pushing for certain teams.  And the Kings representing the West and most likely winning the Finals in '02 would be great for the NBA with all the international players on the Kings.  The ratings in Europe would have skyrocketed and that would be exactly what Stern would want. 

[MattD]

...he is claiming that the NBA orchestrated who they wanted to win that series and how far they wanted it to go.

No -- he is saying that the referees decided amongst themselves to do what they could to extend the series to seven games, based on their own belief of what was best for the league.  He didn't say anything about league orchestration of the series, or about the officials orchestrating the winner of the 7th game.

What are you talking about thats exactly what Donaghy is insinuating.

The bombshell allegations are contained in a court document filed Tuesday by Donaghy's lawyer. It describes the “inner workings" of the NBA in which top league executives used referees to manipulate games.

Read the whole thing and look at what Donaghy said, not at how the journalist chose to summarize it.

[Roy Hobbs]

More:

Jeff Van Gundy ultimately backed off comments that a referee told him officials had targeted Yao Ming in the Houston Rockets' 2005 first-round playoff series against the Dallas Mavericks. Maybe Van Gundy was right after all.

A letter sent to the sentencing court on behalf of convicted former referee Tim Donaghy outlines just such a plan. ...

The letter alleging referees altered games mentions only the year 2005, but the circumstances make it apparent that it is referring to the Rockets-Mavs series.

"Team 3 lost the first two games in the series and Team 3's owner complained to NBA officials," the letter says. "Team 3's owner alleged that referees were letting a Team 4 player get away with illegal screens. NBA Executive Y told Referee Supervisor Z that the referees for that game were to enforce the screening rules strictly against that Team 4 player. Referee Supervisor Z informed the referees about his instructions. As an alternate referee for that game, Tim also received these instructions."

Mavs owner Mark Cuban complained after his team lost the first two games of the series, and Dallas went on to beat Houston in seven games. Van Gundy said that a working referee had told him about the league's plan. Donaghy's letter claims that Supervisor Z contacted the coach. Van Gundy was fined $100,000.

Looking at box scores from the series, however, the only game in which Yao fouled out was Game 1. He did average 4.4 fouls per game in the series.

Link.

[CoachBo]

This is huge and the timing couldn't be worse for the Lakers, since some - this means you, Bob Ryan - were conceding tonights game already.

[bdm860]

More:

Jeff Van Gundy ultimately backed off comments that a referee told him officials had targeted Yao Ming in the Houston Rockets' 2005 first-round playoff series against the Dallas Mavericks. Maybe Van Gundy was right after all.

A letter sent to the sentencing court on behalf of convicted former referee Tim Donaghy outlines just such a plan. ...

The letter alleging referees altered games mentions only the year 2005, but the circumstances make it apparent that it is referring to the Rockets-Mavs series.

"Team 3 lost the first two games in the series and Team 3's owner complained to NBA officials," the letter says. "Team 3's owner alleged that referees were letting a Team 4 player get away with illegal screens. NBA Executive Y told Referee Supervisor Z that the referees for that game were to enforce the screening rules strictly against that Team 4 player. Referee Supervisor Z informed the referees about his instructions. As an alternate referee for that game, Tim also received these instructions."

Mavs owner Mark Cuban complained after his team lost the first two games of the series, and Dallas went on to beat Houston in seven games. Van Gundy said that a working referee had told him about the league's plan. Donaghy's letter claims that Supervisor Z contacted the coach. Van Gundy was fined $100,000.

Looking at box scores from the series, however, the only game in which Yao fouled out was Game 1. He did average 4.4 fouls per game in the series.

Link.

I remember this when it came out a few years ago, and I heard it spun a bunch of different ways, but I see nothing wrong with this one.  Say Kobe palmed the ball on every single play, and Danny or Wyc called the league and complained, and after reviewing the games the Referee Supervisor thought that the refs weren't making the right calls and instructed the refs working the games that this is the NBA's view on palming, make sure you watch for this because we don't think it has been called the right way, especially in regards to Kobe.  I think this is absolutely the right thing to do, and that's how I believe the Houston/Dallas situation went down.  Mark Cuban said Yao was setting illegal screens, the NBA reviewed and agreed, so they instructed the refs to be on the lookout for illegal screens from Yao because the refs hadn't been calling it like they should have.  This does not come off as shady to me at all, only when some angry anti-NBA writer spins it that way does it sound bad.