Tim Donaghy the ex-NBA referee who was sent to prison for betting on the NBA games, recently wrote a tell-all book. The NBA is trying to keep it from being released. Some of the excerpts of his book have been published on www.deadspin.com.
If you watch NBA basketball I think you will notice that what Donaghy is saying is the same thing fans have been thinking for years. A lot of these games are fixed and the Refs make sure that the superstars get the favorable calls.
Below are a couple of the excerpts from the book and also a link to deadspin.com so you can read more of Donaghy’s writings. It is fascinating reading.
Excerpts from the book.
•The 2002 Western Conference Finals between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Sacramento Kings presents a stunning example of game and series manipulation at its ugliest. As the teams prepared for Game 6 at the Staples Center, Sacramento had a 3–2 lead in the series. The referees assigned to work Game 6 were Dick Bavetta, Bob Delaney, and Ted Bernhardt.
As soon as the referees for the game were chosen, the rest of us knew immediately that there would be a Game 7. A prolonged series was good for the league, good for the networks, and good for the game. Oh, and one more thing: it was great for the big-market, star-studded Los Angeles Lakers.
In the pregame meeting prior to Game 6, the league office sent down word that certain calls — calls that would have benefitted the Lakers — were being missed by the referees. This was the type of not-so-subtle information that I and other referees were left to interpret. After receiving the dispatch, Bavetta openly talked about the fact that the league wanted a Game 7.
“If we give the benefit of the calls to the team that’s down in the series, nobody’s going to complain. The series will be even at three apiece, and then the better team can win Game 7,” Bavetta stated.
As history shows, Sacramento lost Game 6 in a wild come-from-behind thriller that saw the Lakers repeatedly sent to the foul line by the referees. For other NBA referees watching the game on television, it was a shameful performance by Bavetta’s crew, one of the most poorly officiated games of all time.
•If Kobe Bryant had two fouls in the first or second quarter and went to the bench, one referee would tell the other two, “Kobe’s got two fouls. Let’s make sure that if we call a foul on him, it’s an obvious foul, because otherwise he’s gonna go back to the bench. If he is involved in a play where a foul is called, give the foul to another player.”
Similarly, when games got physically rough, we would huddle up and agree to tighten the game up. So we started calling fouls on guys who didn’t really matter — “ticky-tack” or “touch” fouls where one player just touched another but didn’t really impede his progress.
Under regular circumstances these wouldn’t be fouls, but after a skirmish we wanted to regain control. We would never call these types of fouls on superstars, just on the average players who didn’t have star status. It was important to keep the stars on the floor.
To read more click on this link to go to deadspin.com
Tim Donaghy the ex-NBA referee who was sent to prison for betting on the NBA games, recently wrote a tell-all book. If you watch NBA basketball I think you will notice that what Donaghy is saying is the same thing fans have been thinking for years.">
Tim Donaghy the ex-NBA referee who was sent to prison for betting on the NBA games, recently wrote a tell-all book. If you watch NBA basketball I think you will notice that what Donaghy is saying is the same thing fans have been thinking for years.">
Tim Donaghy the ex-NBA referee who was sent to prison for betting on the NBA games, recently wrote a tell-all book. If you watch NBA basketball I think you will notice that what Donaghy is saying is the same thing fans have been thinking for years.">
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