[bigboydan]

Knowing what we know now could you really blame Dantoni going crazy. Just checkout some of these calls he made in this game. Unbelievable.

[JBC77]

Wow....this is unbelievable.

[Dark Horse]

Outrageous. I'm biased, but seeing this again does nothing to change my conviction that the true NBA champions are not the Spurs, but the Phoenix Suns.

[JBC77]

Outrageous. I'm biased, but seeing this again does nothing to change my conviction that the true NBA champions are not the Spurs, but the Phoenix Suns.

Yeah, it was that obvious. Back when I watched it, I just assumed it was a terrible job by the refs.

That series was fixed. It looked liked Tim wasn't the only ref in on it.

[Jay Edgar]

FWIW, the Ginobili call was the only one made by Donaghy.

Still, the nightmare is only beginning.


Seems to me the only way out for the NBA is through -- at some point before the start of next season -- a complete public explanation and confession from Donaghy and a complete videotape report of what calls in what games were made with an ulterior motive. And if there's a resonable prospect that results were affected by those confessed shady calls, then you break out the asterisks, at a minimum.

[compaqDikk]

since he's a point shaver, this cokksucker will be skinned alive by his cellmate

i tried emailing this to T.Donaghy@nba.com but it bounced. fukkers

[Dark Horse]

They were just talking on MSNBC about gamblers reclaiming losses from the NBA because of this.

[JBC77]

By The Associated Press

NBA referee Tim Donaghy, who's being investigated by the FBI for betting on games he worked, had local lawmen at his Florida home Sunday because of threatening phone calls he's received, according to The New York Post.

Three squad cars from the Manatee County Sheriff's Office arrived at Donaghy's home in Bradenton, Fla.

"Our concern is for his safety and his family's safety," Sheriff's Lt. Robert McNealy told the newspaper for a story in Monday's editions. "We are definitely going to share any information we get with the FBI."

Authorities are examining whether the referee made calls to affect the point spread in games on which he or associates had wagered thousands of dollars over the past two seasons. Authorities say the referee had a gambling problem and was approached by low-level mob associates through an acquaintance.

The Daily News reported Sunday, citing unidentified law enforcement sources, that Donaghy will cooperate with authorities and possibly name other officials and players involved in the betting scandal.

On Monday, the newspaper reported that former neighbors of Donaghy's in Pennsylvania say they were approached more than a year ago by a private investigator they believed was hired by the NBA to check into Donaghy's gambling habits.

Kit Antsey, a real estate agent in West Chester, Pa., who helped Donaghy buy a home, told The Daily News a private investigator contacted him 18 months ago and asked him whether Donaghy bet on sports and at an Atlantic City casino.

However, The New York Times reported Monday, citing two unidentified people briefed on the investigation, that the NBA didn't know about Donaghy's betting or whether he affected the outcome of games until after the season.

The Times and The Daily News also reported NBA commissioner David Stern plans to speak publicly about Donaghy this week, maybe as soon as Monday.

[Dark Horse]

Think I should trademark my sig? Not quite the 'threepeat', but a few T-shirts could be sold.

[compaqDikk]

tony parker and eva marriage should anallled

they need to give timothy the death chair, fire ALL refs (guilt by assocition) start new virgin refs from scratch and pay them a teacher's salary

[Jay Edgar]

Think I should trademark my sig? Not quite the 'threepeat', but a few T-shirts could be sold.

That's pretty good, DH. Order up a few and slap an (R) on them. Can't hurt.

[Razz]

I just don't see it. The offensive foul on Stoudemire was atrocious, but nothing else in that video was any different than what you'll see in any other random NBA game. A couple were the right calls (blocking foul on Nash, no call on Bowen), and I don't know what the officials were supposed to do when Bowen committed the offensive foul other than call it. There were only two more fouls called on the Suns than the Spurs despite SA being the more physical team and at home.

As long as players are going to make ridiculous flops every time they get brushed, the officials are going to make mistakes. For me, there were two indelible officiating blunders in the series. The first was the Stoudemire offensive foul. The second was the Ginobili offensive foul in Game 5.



But Game 3 will continue to be blown out of proportion because one of the officials had a wager on the game, though that bet was likely over, as there were 63 FTs attempted in this game, well over the series average.

[JBC77]

At the 6 minute mark on the first video, Nash gets slapped silly all over his arms, the ref is 5 feet away with his eyes directly on Nash. No call.

That looks like more than a bad call to me.

[Willie Bee]

they need to give timothy the death chair, fire ALL refs (guilt by assocition) start new virgin refs from scratch and pay them a teacher's salary

Oh yeah, that'll work. Cut their salaries so they're even more vulnerable or tempted to take the payola

[JBC77]

I think there were many people on the right side of those games.

[isetcap]

I agree with Razz. That video clip is representative of just about EVERY night in the NBA.

[Bill Dozer]

By The Associated Press

The Daily News reported Sunday, citing unidentified law enforcement sources, that Donaghy will cooperate with authorities and possibly name other officials and players involved in the betting scandal.

Wow... Is this the worst thing to ever happen to American sports?

Simmons ESPN today

[Willie Bee]

Wow... Is this the worst thing to ever happen to American sports?

Naw, the Red Sox selling Ruth to the Yankees is still #1. I mean, you know Harry Frazee had Yankee futures to make a deal like that

[JBC77]

Commissioner's culpability
By Adrian Wojnarowski, Yahoo! Sports
July 22, 2007

LAS VEGAS – So the commissioner comes down out of his Olympic Tower office this week for a midtown Manhattan press conference where assuredly he'll purse his lips, raise his index finger and insist how he'll make sure this Tim Donaghy nightmare never, ever happens again to the National Basketball Association.

Only, the more that comes out on Donaghy's past, on his spiral into an FBI mafia sting, the more you wonder about the competence of the commissioner's league to police anything. Here's the thing: If the NBA once did bring Donaghy to New York with concerns about his gambling, as the ref's hometown Philadelphia Inquirer reported, then Stern and his staff were enablers in an apparent rogue ref becoming vulnerable to the mob. The Inquirer's unnamed source says that the league had no reason to believe he was betting on basketball games or point shaving, so they let him return to work.

To think that the league would give a pass to a referee immersed in gambling is beyond belief – never mind one with the violent and irrational behavior that is now surfacing about Donaghy. Even if the league's collective bargaining agreement protected his job under these circumstances, you'd have to believe the NBA would've gone on full alert to monitor Donaghy's activities.

And even if the league had no idea about any of this, if it never called him in, how could some friends and associates be so aware of his gambling problems but miss the tentacles of NBA security? Before Stern starts spinning his story, he needs to be prepared to tell everyone what the league knew about Donaghy's life, his activities, and when it knew it.

Sooner than later, Stern and his underlings need to be accountable for this scandal. Until the FBI makes its arrests, until the Feds lay out the case against Donaghy and his mob co-conspirators, no one can be sure that he wasn't blowing a dirty whistle in Game 3 of the Suns-Spurs series in the Western Conference semifinals. Go back to that game on May 12, see Donaghy's work and your stomach sinks. Perhaps the Feds know precisely which of the apparent 10 to 20 games were tainted across these past two seasons, or perhaps, they're counting on Donaghy and the mob to give them up.

Until further notice, the de facto championship series between San Antonio and Phoenix is tantamount to tainted.

Donaghy made one of the worst calls of the playoffs (a phantom, delayed foul on Manu Ginobili in a key late third-quarter run that awarded the Spurs three free throws), and he was part of an officiating crew that sent Suns star Amare Stoudemire to the bench with foul trouble, leaving him available for only 21 minutes in the game. Beyond that, there were plenty of missed calls, and dubious whistles. That game hangs over the league like an anvil now.

San Antonio was giving four points on the betting line and won 108-101. Those three Ginobili free throws pushed the Spurs to a six-point lead late in the third, and Phoenix never recovered. As it turns out, that is the last game Donaghy will ever officiate in the NBA.

Looking back, you wonder how that end didn't come sooner for Donaghy. But then again, the league always seemed to be cutting breaks to its refs, forever fostering a sense of entitlement. One of Michael Jordan's women targeted official Eddie Rush as the matchmaker who introduced her to him. Bob Delaney had real-life NBA stars appearing at his summer referees academy in Florida, a favor that you would think a player would realistically figure could curry him favor later.

So yes, when Donaghy saw that he could survive charges of terrorizing neighbors and chasing a mailman down the street in his car while making wild threats, he probably started out figuring that a few bets on the golf course with buddies, and then, a few on, say, football games, couldn't come back to hurt him. Maybe the league called him on that gambling, and still, he survived again.

Listen, people aren't perfect. They're flawed. They make mistakes. No one is asking an official to live an unblemished existence. But is it too much to ask that they don't put themselves in positions where there could be the appearance of impropriety?

Perhaps the talent pool of quality officials made the league less likely to cast those considered competent aside. "If the NBA was charted on the refs it's bringing into the league, you'd see a bunch of two-star-rated recruits," an NBA coach told me last season. "I haven't seen many blue chippers coming through the door. If they were a college program, they'd get fired for bringing in all these bad classes."

For the longest time, the NBA had suffered crises of credibility with its officials. Much of the public, including people within the league, believed the games were controlled on some levels, that officials on the floor carried out agendas beyond making the right calls. The refs have been seen as league pawns so that big-market teams could stay alive in the playoffs for television purposes, or used to keep superstars on the floor. There have long been conspiracy theories and that's so much of the reason the NBA will struggle to overcome this scandal. Truth be told, everyone wanted to believe there was a Tim Donaghy out there.

And always, Stern delivered a smug dismissal, challenging you to bring him proof. Those are wild accusations, he would say. Bring me evidence. Now, Stern has lost the moral authority to talk that way ever again. His arrogance about the league's officials always bothered people, and now, it comes back to haunt him.

This isn't the time for defiance out of the commissioner, nor cocksure promises about the future that he can't keep anyway. For the good of the league now, and maybe for his own ultimate survival, he needs to deliver a humbled concession that the NBA could've done more to stop Tim Donaghy. He's the CEO, the emperor of the sport. Above all else, Stern needs to say that, "This one's on me."

[Jay Edgar]

Wow... Is this the worst thing to ever happen to American sports?

Simmons ESPN today

I suppose anything could happen eventually, but that Daily News story has nothing behind it. It's journalistic malpractice.

The story teases that Donaghy "might possibly name other officials or players" and is completely irresponsible.

What the Daily News story actually says below the sensational lede is

"Investigators do not yet know if the NBA gambling scandal extends beyond Donaghy,"and

"Who knows what he'll say if he comes in," a law enforcement source said.

What's apparently known is that Donaghy -- who could barely coexist with any other professional, let alone conspire with them -- was stupid and desperate enough to agree to "work off" a gambling debt, mainly by giving some Philly lowlfies advance copies of the NBA official assignment sheet, and also by picking a side (or a total) on selected games he was working, while the lowlifes followed along.

It's an enormous nightmare for the NBA. But the idea that this hothead Donaghy, who everyone thought was an a-hole, was part of an inside conspiracy is still hard to buy. For me at least.

[Jay Edgar]

Thanks JBC77.

That Wojnarowski column is the best take on it that I've seen.
(Unlike Simmons, he does not undercut himself with baseless conspiracy innuendo).

Revealing the impotence of the NBA's "security" efforts, and exposing Stern at his most arrogant and wrong. That's the big damage.

[compaqDikk]

give all the zebras lie detector tests. have dr. phil adminstrate them

[isetcap]

I suppose anything could happen eventually, but that Daily News story has nothing behind it. It's journalistic malpractice.

The story teases that Donaghy "might possibly name other officials or players" and is completely irresponsible.

What the Daily News story actually says below the sensational lede is

"Investigators do not yet know if the NBA gambling scandal extends beyond Donaghy,"and

"Who knows what he'll say if he comes in," a law enforcement source said.

Donaghy COULD name several people in the NBA and he also COULD name George Bush and Hillary Clinton. I agree that this is low-grade journalism at its lowest. This is how thoughts/theories get planted as seeds of truth in small little eager minds.

[bigboydan]

Wow... Is this the worst thing to ever happen to American sports?

I still say the 1951 basketball scandal was either equal or worse, because it included players.

[Seattle Slew]

Even the color man knows something is up with those blown calls, but Mike Breen sounding like David Stern on every call. Want to retract that, Mr. Breen?

[isetcap]

Even the color man knows something is up with those blown calls, but Mike Breen sounding like David Stern on every call. Want to retract that, Mr. Breen?

Mike Breen is absolutely in love with the Spurs, as is every other middle-aged muck who appreciates "solid fundamental play" like a nice layup over flashy athleticism like dunking on someone's head. The NBA inanely incentivizes the Spurs style of play because the NBA is run by middle-aged mucks like Mike Breen. If Jordan was calling the shots in this league then teams like the Spurs would not be winning championships and the Seattle Supersonics would already be the Las Vegas Blackjacks.

[Bill Dozer]

I still say the 1951 basketball scandal was either equal or worse, because it included players.

One team losing on purpose? Nah, the Celtics did that just last year. This ref issue raises questions about the integrity of all major US sports and could have an economical impact.

[isetcap]

One team losing on purpose? Nah, the Celtics did that just last year. This ref issue raises questions about the integrity of all major US sports and could have an economical impact.

Absolutely will have an economic impact, especially if there is additional NBA involvement. This is why all the major leagues are hand in hand against betting in this country, and will fight together to make sure the ultimate perception of this event is that it is one individual alone.

[jjgold]

I think Spurs should be stripped of title or series replayed

[bigboydan]

You have to think Mark Cuban is thinking if the Mavs got cheated by refs after losing to the Warriors in round one.

[isetcap]

You have to think Mark Cuban is thinking if the Mavs got cheated by refs after losing to the Warriors in round one.

Yes, he got cheated when the Warriors completely dismantled them game after game. The officials were using spells to slow Dallas defenders and telekinesis to direct all those 3-pointers into the basket.

Maybe only YOU have to think about it.

[Jay Edgar]

Cuban stepped up and hit a home run with his public statement. We'll see how Stern fares.

Cuban:
Every company of any size has had a problem(s) that its CEO and stakeholders have lost sleep over. Its the law of big numbers. If enough things go on, something is going to go wrong.

Products get recalled or are tampered with. There are workplace disasters. There is corruption. No industry is immune. Churches, consumer products, law enforcement, cars, planes, trains and plenty more. No profession is immune. From the CEO who misrepresents corporate numbers or events at the expense of shareholders, to the doorman who tips himself from the cover charge at the expense of the club owner, people of every profession make bad decisions.

Shit happens. Bad Shit happens. When it does, there are two options. Cry over it and do nothing or recognize the problem and do the best you possibly can to not only fix it, but make the entire organization stronger..

As bad as the allegations facing the NBA today are, its also an opportunity to face every allegation that has ever been directed towards the NBA and its officials and pre empt them from ever occuring in the future.

Calamity can be a catalyst for significant change.

There are any number of examples in the business world where calamity led to better management, better communications, greater transparency and even better products. As the proverb goes, Necessity is the Mother of Invention.

The NBA took a hit today. Behind that hit is a catalyst and opportunity for significant change that could make the NBA stronger than it ever has been. Its a chance to proactively put in place people, processes and transparency that will forever silence those who will question the NBA's integrity.

I have complete confidence that David Stern and Adam Silver will do just that and the NBA and our officiating will be all the stronger for it.

[JBC77]

Well, one thing is for sure. When this is all said and done it will make for one hell of an HBO series. Maybe a full length feature film. Tim might actually get a pay day out of this yet.