People believe what they want ,no matter the evidence. Some people are swayed,others question, some just say it can not be and stay forever unconvinced.
From the Detroit Pistons fans viewpoint, they got jobbed several times. Technical fouls in Detroit ball have plummeted since the Donaghy story came out. Did the Pistons just commit less fouls? Was Rasheed better behaved this season. ? Too much coincidence for me.
Yeah, I think the question is whether it’s the NBA that’s broken, because it won’t make the effort to have competent unbiased referees (either out of laziness or more nefarious reasons), or is that the game of basketball is broken because refereeing has too great an effect, and good refereeing is so difficult at the top level.
I think it’s a little of both: NBA refereeing is the hardest officiating of any sport I can think of (much harder than calling balls and strikes or refereeing Italian soccer players), and more than almost any other sport has a huge impact on how a particular game is played.
On the other hand, the NBA has clearly given the message to its referees that having recognizable superstars score points is more important than a strict interpretation of the rules and impartial application of them. Now that’s a long way from fixing games, but it’s the first small step in that direction. The NBA has also been less than completely transparent about how it evaluates and quality-controls its referees, and the fact that an NBA referee was able to many times deliberately make bad calls without being detected doesn’t give a lot of confidence in those controls.
And finally, it’s not like leagues manipulating officials to favor teams is unknown in top-level professional sports, as Italy’s soccer league proves.
That’s exactly what I was saying. How reliable do you think Tim Donaghy is here?
I think an insider who actually was a long term ref is believable. I think the league that pushed these practices is less believable. They do not even admit the existence of Jordan rules. Any observer knows the stars the league wants to be big gets the calls. That is cheating acceptance all by itself. But as I said before the flaw of basketball is that reffing impacts the game obviously. Most games appreciate refs that stay in the background and let the players decide who wins.
Baseball umps call every pitch,but any fan can see clearly what the calls are. Basketball has phantom calls. Players and fans spinning around and saying “what you talking about Willis”.
Even considering the fact that he is attempting to reduce or avoid jail time after pleading guilty to fixing games - not with the league’s approval, but because of his own gambling? In a story like this you have to consider the motivations of the source. The last time you brought this thread back, Donaghy wasn’t really saying anything new or anything that backed up your theory. He never said games were fixed, just that relationships affected how the games went. It was really nothing and implicated nobody. So now, why is this more explosive allegation just coming out now?
Agreed.
It’s hard to compare basketball to baseball in this regard, but players and fans (especially fans) complain about calls all the time. The difference is that most calls in baseball are clear cut. A guy either makes a catch or he doesn’t, and most pitch calls are pretty clear too. Same goes for out and safe calls. Baseball also has a different standard; they don’t even expect all the umpires to have the same strike zone, so you hear broadcasters and players saying they just want the home plate ump to have the same strike zone throughout any one game. Some basketball games are more physical than others, but I don’t think it works the same way. A foul is supposed to be a foul regardless, and I do think the sport is harder to officiate.
Basketball players also get closer to officials and jaw at them more often than any other athletes in an attempt to get favorable calls. The fact that a player is whining does not mean a bad call was made.
I think a better comparison is with the NFL. They’ve had officiating problems over the years, but I think the NFL has done a better job of addressing the problem, instead of dismissing it out of hand like the NBA does.
The rules of basketball regarding fouls are much harder to understand for fans than the rules of other sports. Interpretation is required on the part of the ref, and that fact makes it much harder to defend against accusations of cheating. I don’t have an opinion on whether or not the NBA tries to fix games, but I do think that NBA refs suffer from the fluid nature of the rules.
Imagine how NFL officiating would look if the majority of calls in a game were for holding. Holding calls are as controversial, influential, and hard to parse when watching replays as NBA foul calls are, but because they are only a part of the overall officiating picture of an NFL game in which many important calls (inbounds or out?, through the uprights or not?) are easily verifiable on replay they don’t get as much attention.
But 90% of the calls in an NBA game are foul calls, and the rules change depending on players’ position on the court (perimeter or in the post…hand checking or no hand checking?), position relative to each other (posted up or face-on), posture (hands straight up or inclined forward?), etc.
I pity the guy who has to make those calls all night, and I don’t know many people who can recite the actual rules on the subject.
If it was some league wide conspiracy then it really wouldn’t matter which refs were refing each game. I think some players know some refs are better than others. I think they are all horrible, but the biggest problem is you could basically call a foul on every single play of every game ever by current rules so its pretty much completely up to the refs to decide how a game is going to be called regardless of the rules which don’t help at all.
Some of the players involved in the games he said were fixed ,agree that the games were weird. They fined someone 100,000 bucks for saying the game stunk. Ask Mark Cuban what he thinks. But if you bitch it costs money. lots of money. that is how the league clamps down on ref debate.
One of the games he brought up had the Lakers getting to the foul line 27 times in the 4th quarter. After the game Kings fans were screaming about a fix. It faded slowly until Donaghy says it was a league mandate to see a game 7 was played.
Just watched ESPNs legal analyst. he says that what Donaghy says was told to prosecutors 11 months ago. Everything he says has been investigated because lying to the feds is a big crime. He is subject to prosecution . NBA threatened a suit for Donaghy for 1 mill. That spurred more info to come out. The NBA has a reason to lie. It will be hard to make the stink of the 2002 game go away.
As does the witness, who, uh, already admitted to getting involved with organized crime to mess with the outcome of games he was working. I know he’s in trouble if he’s found to be lying, but regardless I don’t find him all that trustworthy.
Although I agree on his credibility, I would just like to point out that a few years ago just about everyone was saying the same thing about Jose Canseco. We all remember how that turned out, right? Just saying…
Canseco was selling a book, not trying to avoid jail. While Canseco mostly wrote the truth, he still has credibility issues: he implied he had evidence Alex Rodriguez was on steroids before writing his second book, which turned out to be nothing. And he either lied in print when he said Clemens was at his much-hyped party, or he lied to the government later when he said Clemens wasn’t there. And he allegedly tried to blackmail Magglio Ordonez. So… mainly right about steroids, still scum who shouldn’t be trusted without knowing his angle.
He has a reason not to. he is talking to the FBI . They are checking out what he says, he will face punishment if he lies. That enhances his credibility.
You’re right. Nobody who knows the consequences would lie to the government, knowing the consequences- just ask Marion Jones, Barry Bonds, Rafael Palmeiro, Roger Clemens…
What happened to them? Ask Jones what she thinks now. The others may wind up there too. They are risking their freedom and reputations.
…so do you understand what I’m saying or not? The risk of jail was not enough to prevent them from lying about their activities. Jones has been convicted, Bonds faces 15 counts of perjury, Clemens is supposedly being investigated and Palmeiro was threatened with investigation. Donaghy could go to jail for lying, but he’s going to jail anyway. He’s hoping to get out of it and I do think it’s conceivable he’s lying about it. Has he provided any details about other fixed games, I wonder, or did he just throw out two series that were already controversial and thus better targets?
I’d say the primary difference is that all of your people were asked point blank about their own personal involvement in illegal activities, and denied doing it.
Donaghy was asked about his involvement in illegal activities, admitted to it and plead guilty to the charges, then offered up this fixing the playoffs idea, which is completely unrelated to his felony charges.
It doesn’t mean that he isn’t just as full of it as they were, but the level of benefit he could get out of it has to pale in comparison to a great athlete denying steroid use.
It’s not meant to be an exact comparison, just a rebuttal to gonzomax’s comment that Donaghy must be telling the truth because he knows he could go to jail if he lies to the FBI, but the NBA “has reason to lie.” Both parties have reason to lie.
Of course, “asked” means “was charged with a crime” here. The playoff fixing thing is not related to his gambling charges, but is meant to bolster his claim that he is working with the government. So there is plainly a self-interest factor here, and we’ll see how reliable his testimony is.
This article sums things up in a way that is much smarter and more thorough than I could hope to be.