Donaghy says the league fixed 2002 playoff series

[Finkelskyhook]

Stern needs to take action.

No, the owners need to take action -- because Stern works for them.  Whether they like it or not, there's a serious perception problem out there that they need to address.

I found Stern's smugness last night aggravating.

Someone needs to tell this idiot that his league has a significant problem on its hands.  Jose Canseco wasn't exactly the most trustworthy of sources, but lo and behold, he was right.

The 'where there's smoke, there's fire' thing applies here.

Prediction:
Some lawyer looking to give himself some national headlines files a class action lawsuit against the NBA over all this -- on behalf of Sacramento or Dallas fans.

I agree with what you said.  A lot of this is up to the owners.  They're not going to want to touch too much with record attendance.

Even though I didn't like the result last night, there were some subtleties in the officiating I liked.  The traveling calls, for instance.  The game, in the second half, was physical without every single play getting blown for a foul.

The problem with the NBA goes way beyond the officiating.  When a team is rewarded for not competing, there is a major problem with the integrity of the game.  The lottery system does nothing to address the problem.  The officiating just adds to the problems.  But the whole premise in a competitive environment that those who choose to lay down, tank, lose on purpose, or whatever term you want to apply to it, are rewarded in nearly direct proportion to how badly they compete, the whole system is screwed up.    It mirrors the welfare system.  We can see how great that works.  I don't know if Stern and the owners are pandering to the current culture.  But these games are getting harder and harder to watch.  I actually liked the Lakers introductions last night.  None of the rabid hoopla.  It made me harken back to when the game was officiated fairly and evenly.  

[BballTim]

Big C's fan here, but not always interested in other teams once the C's are out of the playoffs. But, for some reason I was watching that Lakers-Kings series and, even though I had no rooting or betting interest, it was shocking how blatantly the refs stole two games from the Kings.
And last night was just a 48 minute make-up call, IMO. Maybe Pierce and Garnett failed to show up because subconsciously they realized they weren't going to be allowed to win that game no matter what. Yes, I'm cynical. After all, there are some places in the world where even the presidency can be stolen, so why doubt that sporting events can be fixed?

  I thought Hillary conceded...

[Redz]

Big C's fan here, but not always interested in other teams once the C's are out of the playoffs. But, for some reason I was watching that Lakers-Kings series and, even though I had no rooting or betting interest, it was shocking how blatantly the refs stole two games from the Kings.
And last night was just a 48 minute make-up call, IMO. Maybe Pierce and Garnett failed to show up because subconsciously they realized they weren't going to be allowed to win that game no matter what. Yes, I'm cynical. After all, there are some places in the world where even the presidency can be stolen, so why doubt that sporting events can be fixed?

  I thought Hillary conceded...

I know you're making a joke, but let's end it here and not let this slip into politics- which is off limits for discussion. - Redz

[BballTim]

Big C's fan here, but not always interested in other teams once the C's are out of the playoffs. But, for some reason I was watching that Lakers-Kings series and, even though I had no rooting or betting interest, it was shocking how blatantly the refs stole two games from the Kings.
And last night was just a 48 minute make-up call, IMO. Maybe Pierce and Garnett failed to show up because subconsciously they realized they weren't going to be allowed to win that game no matter what. Yes, I'm cynical. After all, there are some places in the world where even the presidency can be stolen, so why doubt that sporting events can be fixed?

  I thought Hillary conceded...

I know you're making a joke, but let's end it here and not let this slip into politics- which is off limits for discussion. - Redz

  No problem on my end. I don't like the political comments, I just couldn't resist.

[FallGuy]

I'm not claiming that any of what has been brought forth is true or not but it leaves a very bad taste in my mouth when I couple it all together with the way Stern handled the entire Donaghy situation when it arose.

He was very quiet at first and once he did start to react he seemed to do everything in his power to ensure that people believed that this was a solitary incident. When reporters questioned him regarding the possibility of needing to look into the entire officiating situation he seem put off by it. At least that is what I retained about the aftermath.

But I am a business owner. If it came to light that someone in my accounting area was doing illegal things and then accused others of doing the same, I would put business to a halt and call into question every employee and transaction that occured in that area. I would bring in a separate CPA with forensic experience to see if anything was arry.

I would never in my life go and make a public statement that it was an isolated incident, that the culprit was lying and that no further action was going to be taken.

Unless of course I had something to hide and didn't want other people to find out.

Donaghy's statements do seem to call into question quite a bit of strange happenings in the NBA since the decline of their television ratings and subjucation of the NBA to the third most popular sports league in America.

And the fact that the statements are being released during a time when the national media is calling into question the league's officiating and possible motives behind a poorly refereed game can not be just a coincidence. Someone knew sooner or later that a game might look awfully shady this postseason because of the obvious perks to the league to having Boston face LA in a seven game series.

Now this info is released at the perfect time to make it appear credible.

Big surprise.

The NBA asked for this problem. The officiating this year has been in no way better than last year (save perhaps that Joey Crawford didn't T-up Tim Duncan for crossing his legs improperly on the bench).

The question is -

will the public, the media, and those inside the league that have concerns stay focused enough to see this through to some improvement?

Or will it slip below the radar again this offseason?

I'm not optimistic.

[celticmaestro]

donaghy may be telling the truth. but it's been said before this and by him saying it now he thinks people will support him.

the fact of the matter is this - tim donaghy is a despicable, dishonest person and he should go down for a long time. him trying to throw as many people under the bus as he can just sums the scumbag up.

having said that, if he can prove it, that's a different story.

[FallGuy]

donaghy may be telling the truth. but it's been said before this and by him saying it now he thinks people will support him.

the fact of the matter is this - tim donaghy is a despicable, dishonest person and he should go down for a long time. him trying to throw as many people under the bus as he can just sums the scumbag up.

having said that, if he can prove it, that's a different story.

He's scum. No doubt.

But like with Jose Canseco, he may be the scum who is just turning on the light switch and showing us what we all suspected - our house is a mess.

After all, we know we haven't done the cleaning that we should have. We've let it go far too long.

And now the place is loaded with cockroaches.

Or so it seems.


FG/.

[RickyD Fan]

Would not be surprised at all if it were true...

[FallGuy]

Would not be surprised at all if it were true...

Neither would Scot Pollard - apparently:

"In addition, a foul was called against Mike Bibby of the Kings after he was shoved and elbowed by Kobe Bryant, denying the Kings an opportunity to try for a tying basket. Also in that game, Kings centers Vlade Divac and Scot Pollard fouled out, and Kings coach Rick Adelman was highly critical of the officiating afterward.

"My first thought [upon hearing Donaghy's allegation] was: I knew it," Pollard said Tuesday night. "I'm not going to say there was a conspiracy. I just think something wasn't right. It was unfair. We didn't have a chance to win that game.""

[DutchHoops]

I've always found NBA reffing a bit dodgy compared to european bbal reffing/officiating.
The travelling has ALWAYS been called very different. American players coming over here for a season or two have always had a bit of trouble in that department, they get called on almost every possesion until they adapt.
I stil can't get used to it. And now in the Finals every once in a while the call when someone inches his pivot foot. After game 2 last night, where C's were outcalled on travelling, and the ridiculous no-call on Radmanovic in the final minutes of game 2 i was very tempted to compile a video. If the refs were consistent, games would last forever as they would be whislting every 2 seconds.
As for the Donaghy situation, Stern has to take some serious steps to keep our game credible. The online betting industry has created (cheating-) opportunities like never before, and in Europe for instance in the minor soccer leagues chinese criminal organizations have recently been caught influencing everybody and everything they could lay their long E-tentacles on. It's as global as the commisionar could only dream of.

[the_Bird]

Somebody outside of and independant of the league needs to look into this.  The League can't investigate itself.  Stern can't investigate himself.  It's a farce.  It needed to be done a year ago when the Donahey stuff first came to the fore, you needed someone from outside the league to come in and see how deeply gambling interests had gotten into the League.  Stern has too much power over those who do try and make noise; how much has Cuban paid in fines?  Even if Stern wasn't wielding that power, you can't even rightly expect the owners to make too much noise - if it IS proven that the League is fixed, the value of their franchises is going to plummet.

I wouldn't be shocked in the least if we see Congress start poking their noses into the league's business, seeing what might be being covered up.

[FallGuy]

Here's the Donaghy letter if anyone wants to read it:

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2008/0611081nba1.html

[the_Bird]

Who were the refs in that game 6?

[BballTim]

I've always found NBA reffing a bit dodgy compared to european bbal reffing/officiating.
The travelling has ALWAYS been called very different. American players coming over here for a season or two have always had a bit of trouble in that department, they get called on almost every possesion until they adapt.

  The problem isn't what gets called, it's whether it gets called consistently. I don't necessarily want every single travel or palming violation or ticky-tack foul called. I'd just like to see traveling and palming and fouls called the same way on all of the players.

[nickagneta]

Did you catch Breen's interview with Jeff Van Gundy about his participation in the entire 2005 Yao Ming part of the allegations. He did everything in his powers to say that they were not true without going back and completely contradicting everything he claimed back then.

He said an NBA official told him the referees were going to be watching Yao more closely not an official NBA referee.

He said he wanted his claims to stand separate from Donaghy's claims because he didn't want to give Donaghy's claims any credence.

And he then stood by his statements. Strange stuff. ABC tried like hell to walk a razor sharp line there. With JVG being a part of the story and a commentator on the network obviously ABC had to get a comment from Van Gundy. Not doing so would have given Donaghy's story more credibility.

So they did get a comment from Jeff and then went out of their way to by as ambigious as possible so as to not become part of the story and to not anger their client.