Call me crazy but it seems oh so right (Donaghy / officiating)

[threats13]

Donaghy was caught betting on games that he officiated.

People complain that the league is setting up games through the referees.

Now someone tell me why we are blaming Donaghy for what happened.  If you ask me it seems more like the league was telling Donaghy and the rest of the refs to one side games as best they could without making it obvious.  Now if im an NBA referee whats the first thing im doing after receiving this order.  RIGHT TO VEGAS BABY!!! Especially if the league is telling me to do it.  What sucks for Donaghy is he got caught and once he did the NBA put up its guard and blamed him and made it a "scandal".  Next, the NBA has decided to fix the refereeing problem..umm still waiting for that.  I wouldnt put it past David Stern to pull off a trick like this because he is clearly a good for nothing snake (yet the announcers talk him up to be a God for the game). 

Anyone else think that we arent getting the full Donaghy story?  I just dont understand how there could be that big a scandal and nothing done about it.  Simply doesn't make any sense.  Especially when only a few years down the road bang bang you got Celtics Lakers $$$$$ and the inevitable Cavs Lakers $$$$$$$$.

   

[Roy Hobbs]

Donaghy was connected to organized crime, both by his own admission and via the FBI.  That was his motivation for fixing games; it had nothing to do with a directive from the NBA.

[threats13]

ah thats the info i was looking for then

[ChainSmokingLikeDino]

it had always been against the rules for officials to gamble on anything, let alone basketball. granted, most were found to have broken this rule by gambling on non-sports games and so the nba has adapted the rule. i am not sure what the rule is now but prior to donaghy even going to a vegas casino was not allowed.

i can't say this "seems oh so right", seems a little high up on the conspiracy charts.

[Toine43]

Why does everything always come back to "David Stern is a snake who manipulates games"? No one has any evidence of this at all, and it's unfair to make that sort of an accusation without evidence. Saying the NBA has bad refereeing and saying Stern is corrupt are two completely different things, and they're too often lumped together unfairly. Are referees at any other level of basketball any better than the NBA refs anyway? I'm certain they're not.

And for those who blame Stern for being too concerned about making money, he's the freakin' commissioner of the league! It is his job to make sure the NBA makes money.

[CoachCowens]

Why does everything always come back to "David Stern is a snake who manipulates games"? No one has any evidence of this at all, and it's unfair to make that sort of an accusation without evidence. Saying the NBA has bad refereeing and saying Stern is corrupt are two completely different things, and they're too often lumped together unfairly. Are referees at any other level of basketball any better than the NBA refs anyway? I'm certain they're not.

And for those who blame Stern for being too concerned about making money, he's the freakin' commissioner of the league! It is his job to make sure the NBA makes money.

because Stern brings it upon himself by doing little to improve officiating and allows refs with chips on their shoulders like Joey Crawford and Bill Kennedy to do playoff games with teams they have had well publicized run-ins in the past

[vl819]

Why does everything always come back to "David Stern is a snake who manipulates games"? No one has any evidence of this at all, and it's unfair to make that sort of an accusation without evidence. Saying the NBA has bad refereeing and saying Stern is corrupt are two completely different things, and they're too often lumped together unfairly. Are referees at any other level of basketball any better than the NBA refs anyway? I'm certain they're not.

And for those who blame Stern for being too concerned about making money, he's the freakin' commissioner of the league! It is his job to make sure the NBA makes money.

because Stern brings it upon himself by doing little to improve officiating and allows refs with chips on their shoulders like Joey Crawford and Bill Kennedy to do playoff games with teams they have had well publicized run-ins in the past

 
TP

[Toine43]

Why does everything always come back to "David Stern is a snake who manipulates games"? No one has any evidence of this at all, and it's unfair to make that sort of an accusation without evidence. Saying the NBA has bad refereeing and saying Stern is corrupt are two completely different things, and they're too often lumped together unfairly. Are referees at any other level of basketball any better than the NBA refs anyway? I'm certain they're not.

And for those who blame Stern for being too concerned about making money, he's the freakin' commissioner of the league! It is his job to make sure the NBA makes money.

because Stern brings it upon himself by doing little to improve officiating and allows refs with chips on their shoulders like Joey Crawford and Bill Kennedy to do playoff games with teams they have had well publicized run-ins in the past

This is all fine but it still doesn't address the points I made. David Stern by no means runs a flawless association, but that doesn't mean we have to accuse him of manipulating games and caring too much about money that he has every right to care about.

[kgiessler]

The real problem here is that there was a referee that was fixing the games: so games were being fixed.

But, NBA officiating is so bad, that it wasn't even noticed.

It would be nice to think that Stern would have been able to pick up on this, but it just blended in.  Thats right, NBA officiating is so bad, no one can tell if the games are being fixed or not.

[xmuscularghandix]

well the NBA wanted to LA to win the finals, and betting-wise i think that SAC would be the bigger win-out... so if he was working on his own wouldn't there be calls in the Queens favor?

[QuinielaBox]

David Stern has been manipulated by the Mafia. I thought that was widely known. The only thing is that Lee Bron is on some kind of mission to redefine the game of basketball. May be we'd better throw our support behind Chauncey and Lee Bron to preserve Red Auerbach's record of 10 championships and keep the Los Angelos Lakers at 9 championships (Its bad enough they stole Minnesota's Knickname).

[Roy Hobbs]

The real problem here is that there was a referee that was fixing the games: so games were being fixed.

But, NBA officiating is so bad, that it wasn't even noticed.

It would be nice to think that Stern would have been able to pick up on this, but it just blended in.  Thats right, NBA officiating is so bad, no one can tell if the games are being fixed or not.

Yep, I think that's the concern.  Stern deserves legitimate criticism for presiding over a league that has such incompetent refs.  The last two years, the NBA has had to apologize for refs missing calls on deciding plays in the playoffs.  Numerous games are decided by questionable calls.  Certain stars -- i.e., the marketable players -- get way more benefit of the doubt than other players on fouls.  A spokesman for the NBA last season admitted that the league directs its officials to call the games differently in the last minutes of the game than it does throughout.

There are plenty of more examples, as well.  I don't buy into any of the anti-Celtics bias conspiracy theories, but I do know that by and large, officiating in the NBA is terrible and inconsistent.  Stern might not deserve criticism for fixing games, but he does deserve it for allowing the officiating of the sport to become downright arbitrary.

[housecall]

The bad call or should i say the nocall at the end of the Nuggets/Mavs game 3 about sums it up to the type of officiating in the NBA all season throughout the league,inconsistency and just plain bad officiating.I still hold the last Lakers/Celtics home game in my mind with KG fouling out of the game w/approx.5min.to... after being hacked to death in front of the refs.by Pau Gasol late in that game with nocalls. 

[CoachCowens]

Why does everything always come back to "David Stern is a snake who manipulates games"? No one has any evidence of this at all, and it's unfair to make that sort of an accusation without evidence. Saying the NBA has bad refereeing and saying Stern is corrupt are two completely different things, and they're too often lumped together unfairly. Are referees at any other level of basketball any better than the NBA refs anyway? I'm certain they're not.

And for those who blame Stern for being too concerned about making money, he's the freakin' commissioner of the league! It is his job to make sure the NBA makes money.

because Stern brings it upon himself by doing little to improve officiating and allows refs with chips on their shoulders like Joey Crawford and Bill Kennedy to do playoff games with teams they have had well publicized run-ins in the past

This is all fine but it still doesn't address the points I made. David Stern by no means runs a flawless association, but that doesn't mean we have to accuse him of manipulating games and caring too much about money that he has every right to care about.

I wasn't trying to refute your points. I'm just saying he makes it easier for the conspiracy talk to come about by his actions or inactions.

[cdif911]

they should set it up like in hs playoffs - each team gets to put a list together of refs they don't want and that they won't get

then add to it, the bottom 10% of refs are sent to the d-league and the top 10% from the d-league are sent up