Donaghy: 2002 NBA Playoffs series fixed

And I believe that Bingo was his name-o.

 

The NBA is the only team sport where you can do this easily.

Want to turn around a franchise? Pick the frozen envelope and give them Patrick Ewing.

Stern has been doing this for years.

 

The NBA has a huge problem. There is now reason to credibly believe that officials intentionally slant the way they call games -- for whatever reason.

Look what Simmons wrote 2 days ago:

And sure enough, Salvatore was one of the refs last night. If the highest-profile web site in the country predicts the NBA will run a blatant homer ref onto the court to help even the series, and then that prediction plays out, isn't it cause for concern?

 

I hope this destroys the NBA and Stern.

I get the sense that the story is kind of being buried, or at least isn't getting the attention it should.

This has the potential to be the biggest sports story in decades.

 

There is a serious conflict of interest with ESPN and this story.

Hopefully 60 Minutes will run with it since CBS does not seem to have any dog in this fight anymore.

 

I really don't think anything historically will be changed either ... but let's put or Laker fanboi sweater down here for a second, can we? That Game 6 stands out to just about everyone who watched it -- Laker fans included -- as a joke, especially in the fourth quarter. Now I'm not saying it cost the Kings a series, the choked away G7 as well. But to act like the officiating wasn't really a big deal by showing us how free throws in Game 5 had a plus 10 to the Kings is a bit out there. And by doing that, we're acting like the NBA isn't a ridiculous excuse for a professional sports league, one that would clearly NOT be beyond any sort of wrongdoing like this.

 

For years the players have been the whooping boys for everything wrong with the league instead of the people who ran the back office operations.

I made a post in here several months ago about a friend of mines who put the NBA's HR department together as recently as four years ago. They're a screwed up organization from the top on down, but the head man always used his players as the fall guys and writers, analysts and everyone else ate that garbage up.

I hope that axe falls on Stern this time around. He's severely screwed up the league with all of his mistakes.

 

The '02 Lakers/Kings jokebook solidified the prejudicies of tens of thousands of dedicated, involved devotees regarding their attitudes about just how deep Stern's office's involvement is, and has been, in the officiating posture displayed in individual games.

You know they handpick each game's officials.

I refuse to nitpick re the '06 Mavs. They played defense for shit. But those Kings were superior to those Lakers, and had the rug snatched out from under them, because it was the packed-in-cotton LakeShow we're talking about.

 

I agree. I think basketball is the team sport where officials have the best opportunity to manipulate outcomes, because more than the others, their job is almost as much to regulate the game as it is to strictly officiate it by black and white rules.

Fouls technically occur on nearly every possession in NBA games. They can't call everything, that's accepted. So the refs determine which will and won't be called, and what level of physicality will be tolerated. And the good ones maintain consistent guidelines so the players know the unwritten code.

But this gives them enormous discretion compared to other sports' officials to determine at what pace and level of physicality the game will played, and to subtely influence the outcome of games in ways undetectable in box scores.

 

Houseboy talk, from The Worldwide Leader's NBA Houseboy.