This Just In...
...NBA games are fixed.
To the surprise of absolutely no one, concrete evidence of the fixing of NBA games has finally come to light in the form of 13-year veteran referee Tim Donaghy.
Donaghy's indictment by the feds for fixing games and point-shaving now means that all three major sports in the U.S. are facing major federal criminal indictments, but this is not to digress. It is entirely possible that this story will get lost in the jet wash that is the Michael Vick disaster in Atlanta and the Bonds nightmare in San Francisco.
In fact, this could be the biggest sports story of the last 100 years.
Think about it: Bonds' ruthless (pun intended) assault on Hank Aaron's home run record will not truly sully baseball or Aaron as much as it will confirm Bonds' own villainy. The 1919 Chicago White Sox scandal was much more damaging to the credibility of baseball than steroids will ever be, because if steroids have any saving grace at all, it is that they allow a player to compete at a level beyond his natural state. In other words, it may seem relative, but it is easier to forgive a man for trying to hit home runs than it is to forgive a man for deliberately giving up home runs. (This, by the way, is why Pete Rose will never see the inside of the Hall of Fame without an admission ticket...his gambling directly affected the credibility of the game in a far more serious manner than Bonds' growing hat size will ever achieve.)
In the NFL, golden boy Paul Hornung of the Green Bay Packers, then the flagship franchise of the league, was suspended by Pete Rozelle for one year because of his own gambling entanglements.
And let us not forget that in the early days of college basketball, CCNY stood as tall a program as Kentucky or Kansas, only to be brought low by a nasty point-shaving scandal.
Now comes Tim Donaghy, a veteran referee, who admits to gambling on NBA games...including games he called.
That last bit bears repeating, because it goes to the heart of credibility: Tim Donaghy bet money on games he could directly affect.
So, for example, let's say he's down a couple grand to the local leg-breaker. He moves his debt to a game he's working, throws some cash in on top, checks the spread, and takes matters into his own hands. If he has the underdog covering the spread, and the favorite gets a little momentum, a quick whistle for traveling or three seconds stops the bleeding and gets the dog back into the game. The favorite has a player getting hot? Get him a couple of quick fouls and get him out of the game. The dog has a guy that can score? Protect him like he was Michael Jordan; anything within six inches of his person puts him on the free throw line. Someone doesn't like a call? Warn 'em, then tee 'em up.
And, because he's a veteran who understands the ebb and flow of a basketball game, he doesn't have to do it all the time; no more than once or twice a quarter, depending on the situation. By game's end, the favorite still won; more importantly, the underdog covered (thanks to his intervention), and he has cleared his debt to the bookie.
Sound implausible?
Not to me, either.
All of us have watched games where the tide inexplicably turns, almost as if it were being, well, manipulated. How many times have I seen a back-breaking three-pointer waived off because there was an offensive foul called under the basket? How many times have I seen the guy that the offense really ran through pick up two quick fouls and land on the bench? If you're a Lakers fan, how many times have you seen Luke Walton catch a couple of touch fouls and take the Lakers offensive continuity with him to the bench? If you're a Pistons fan, how many times do you have to watch Chauncey Billups get whistled in questionable situations before you suspect that the fix is in?
I can go on and on, but the point is clear: how can we trust a game that is rigged?
Say what you will about Bonds, but I promise you that no one is grooving him pitches, especially now. More to the point, nothing about steroids suggests that they will make a guy (or a team) tank that should have won.
Say what you will about Vick, but his problems are his own and his team's. As vile as dogfighting is, it speaks more to personal character than to on-field competition.
But when referees charged with our trust abuse that trust for their own personal ends, all credibility is lost.
And nowhere does NBA credibility come into question more than in the playoffs.
Tim Donaghy was on the court for that controversial Game 3 between San Antonio and Phoenix in this year's playoffs. Without reviewing every call in every situation in that game, I realize that my evidence is circumstantial at best...but then, had Phoenix won that game, it would have turned the tide of the entire series.
But it's tough to win when Amare Stoudemire, the only post player in the Western Conference who can score on Tim Duncan at will, suddenly ends up on the bench in foul trouble...
And the worst part is yet to come. Donaghy, already having received death threats, has begun his series of arias for federal investigators to ponder, and you can make book that names will be named. Let's not forget that NBA officials are hardly paragons of virtue in the first place, having been busted for changing league-paid first-class plane tickets into coach seats and pocketing the rather significant difference...how many of these saints do you suppose might like to lay a couple of grips on a spread that's paying 2:1?
The unraveling of the sweater has officially begun for the NBA, and I'm scared to think of where it might end...
To the surprise of absolutely no one, concrete evidence of the fixing of NBA games has finally come to light in the form of 13-year veteran referee Tim Donaghy.
Donaghy's indictment by the feds for fixing games and point-shaving now means that all three major sports in the U.S. are facing major federal criminal indictments, but this is not to digress. It is entirely possible that this story will get lost in the jet wash that is the Michael Vick disaster in Atlanta and the Bonds nightmare in San Francisco.
In fact, this could be the biggest sports story of the last 100 years.
Think about it: Bonds' ruthless (pun intended) assault on Hank Aaron's home run record will not truly sully baseball or Aaron as much as it will confirm Bonds' own villainy. The 1919 Chicago White Sox scandal was much more damaging to the credibility of baseball than steroids will ever be, because if steroids have any saving grace at all, it is that they allow a player to compete at a level beyond his natural state. In other words, it may seem relative, but it is easier to forgive a man for trying to hit home runs than it is to forgive a man for deliberately giving up home runs. (This, by the way, is why Pete Rose will never see the inside of the Hall of Fame without an admission ticket...his gambling directly affected the credibility of the game in a far more serious manner than Bonds' growing hat size will ever achieve.)
In the NFL, golden boy Paul Hornung of the Green Bay Packers, then the flagship franchise of the league, was suspended by Pete Rozelle for one year because of his own gambling entanglements.
And let us not forget that in the early days of college basketball, CCNY stood as tall a program as Kentucky or Kansas, only to be brought low by a nasty point-shaving scandal.
Now comes Tim Donaghy, a veteran referee, who admits to gambling on NBA games...including games he called.
That last bit bears repeating, because it goes to the heart of credibility: Tim Donaghy bet money on games he could directly affect.
So, for example, let's say he's down a couple grand to the local leg-breaker. He moves his debt to a game he's working, throws some cash in on top, checks the spread, and takes matters into his own hands. If he has the underdog covering the spread, and the favorite gets a little momentum, a quick whistle for traveling or three seconds stops the bleeding and gets the dog back into the game. The favorite has a player getting hot? Get him a couple of quick fouls and get him out of the game. The dog has a guy that can score? Protect him like he was Michael Jordan; anything within six inches of his person puts him on the free throw line. Someone doesn't like a call? Warn 'em, then tee 'em up.
And, because he's a veteran who understands the ebb and flow of a basketball game, he doesn't have to do it all the time; no more than once or twice a quarter, depending on the situation. By game's end, the favorite still won; more importantly, the underdog covered (thanks to his intervention), and he has cleared his debt to the bookie.
Sound implausible?
Not to me, either.
All of us have watched games where the tide inexplicably turns, almost as if it were being, well, manipulated. How many times have I seen a back-breaking three-pointer waived off because there was an offensive foul called under the basket? How many times have I seen the guy that the offense really ran through pick up two quick fouls and land on the bench? If you're a Lakers fan, how many times have you seen Luke Walton catch a couple of touch fouls and take the Lakers offensive continuity with him to the bench? If you're a Pistons fan, how many times do you have to watch Chauncey Billups get whistled in questionable situations before you suspect that the fix is in?
I can go on and on, but the point is clear: how can we trust a game that is rigged?
Say what you will about Bonds, but I promise you that no one is grooving him pitches, especially now. More to the point, nothing about steroids suggests that they will make a guy (or a team) tank that should have won.
Say what you will about Vick, but his problems are his own and his team's. As vile as dogfighting is, it speaks more to personal character than to on-field competition.
But when referees charged with our trust abuse that trust for their own personal ends, all credibility is lost.
And nowhere does NBA credibility come into question more than in the playoffs.
Tim Donaghy was on the court for that controversial Game 3 between San Antonio and Phoenix in this year's playoffs. Without reviewing every call in every situation in that game, I realize that my evidence is circumstantial at best...but then, had Phoenix won that game, it would have turned the tide of the entire series.
But it's tough to win when Amare Stoudemire, the only post player in the Western Conference who can score on Tim Duncan at will, suddenly ends up on the bench in foul trouble...
And the worst part is yet to come. Donaghy, already having received death threats, has begun his series of arias for federal investigators to ponder, and you can make book that names will be named. Let's not forget that NBA officials are hardly paragons of virtue in the first place, having been busted for changing league-paid first-class plane tickets into coach seats and pocketing the rather significant difference...how many of these saints do you suppose might like to lay a couple of grips on a spread that's paying 2:1?
The unraveling of the sweater has officially begun for the NBA, and I'm scared to think of where it might end...
Labels: gambling, NBA, point-shaving, Tim Donaghy
posted by van walker | 7:16 PM
1 Comments:
One of the things I think is really bothersome about this story is how it's all on Donaghy.
Not that what he's accused of doing isn't utterly despicable and could deal the NBA a near-death blow to their credibility as a league, but following America's love affair with the Soprano's swan song and continued glorification of the Mob lifestyle -- how's all this for a nice reminder that while it may look like fun on TV or the movies, the dirty work never stops.
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