Blown Call: How Tim Donaghy Could Kill the NBA

For Love of the Game
It's 5:00 AM. You hear the familar constant drum of a leather ball reacting with a dusty wood floor. Bounce. Swish. Bounce. Swish.

A skinny, pale-faced kid's hair flops back and forth with every vibration. His placid face reeks of a mixture of bliss and contentment. It's a chilly morning, a morning of understanding.

The game is simple- a man, a ball, a hoop. In a life that's so chaotic, basketball always remains as a symbol of purity and consistency.

On this autumn morning, a young Larry Bird is up early, shooting his daily 1,000 shots. The only concern for Bird is one thing- being the best. "I don't know if I practiced more than anybody, but I sure practiced enough. I still wonder if somebody - somewhere - was practicing more than me."

Larry was one of the few remaining selfless players who seemed to understand the "team more important than self" concept. Professional basketball's attendance was rising, along with the all important TV ratings. The Finals' matchups were riveting; the players were role models for kids across the globe.  

But wait... take a step back and look at the stats. Since the 1975 NBA Season, (34 NBA seasons) there have been a total of FIVE 4-0 sweeps in the NBA Finals. Sixteen series' went to at least six games. Coincidence? Or a product of the mettling hand of the Association? Ex-NBA Referee Tim Donaghy broke the unspoken Golden Rule by leaking the NBA's dirty little secrets.

July 20, 2007- NBA D-Day
I grew up watching Isiah, Magic and Jordan change the face (and culture) of professional basketball in America. Long gone were the days of "four passes before you shoot". The fantastic teams of the '60s, the Bob Cousy's and the Oscar Robertson's- all apparitions of the past. The NBA slowly transitioned into a product of American culture- an ever growing need for constant entertainment.

The intial news broke that there was an ongoing FBI investigation into a "dirty referee" gambling on professional basketball games. Blindly taken by surprise, the NBA responded quickly by repetitively stating it was an "isolated incident". The story sizzled for a few weeks but lost some of its flash when Donaghy was sentenced to 15 months in prison for two felony charges of conspiracy.

October 28, 2009- The Whistle is Blown
Tim Donaghy's book entitled "Blowing the Whistle" was oddly suspended from being released (some are posing that an NBA pay-off happened to silence the book's publisher Triumph Books). Legally, Triumph Books stated "concerns over potential liability" as the reason for cancelling publication. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your perspective) snippets of the book were leaked to the website DeadSpin.com, causing a mixed "shock/I-told-you-so" reaction.

The allegations were absolutely devastating.


"After the opening tip, it was hilarious as the three of us immediately focused our full attention on the intended victim, waiting for something, anything, to justify a technical foul."


"I became so good at this game that if an obvious foul was committed right in front of me, I would call a travel or a three-second violation instead. "


"If (NBA Referee Steve) Javie was on the court when Iverson was playing, I would always bet on the other team to win or at least cover the spread."


Donaghy- "I was thinking, How is Denver going to win on the road in San Antonio? At the time, the Spurs were arguably the best team in the league."


NBA Referee Dick Bavetta -"Duncan will be on the bench with three fouls within the first five minutes of the game"


And worst of all-
"...he expressed amazement at the way an NBA game could be manipulated. Sobering, yes; amazing, no. That's how the game is played in the National Basketball Association."


Image Issues
Regardless of the accusations, the real problem is an image issue. Someone please give the NBA's Public Relations department a raise; the 2009-2010 NBA faces an image issue of epic porpotions, one not seen since the Steroid Debacle in Major League Baseball. This could be worse.


In professional sports, the players can cheat, the coaches can cheat and even the officials can biasedly cheat, on their own terms. Leagues CANNOT cheat. If fans even smell a whiff of the rank, odorous pungency of a Stern-istic communist regime, all bets are off.


A true fan watches for one reason and one reason alone- to see THEIR team win a championship. IF the NBA sets up games, creates a biased officiating system and pushes certain teams into positions of success, then why would anyone watch the NBA? IF Donaghy's allegations proved to be true, then the NBA is no more than a glorified WWE. The games are wrestling matches, the superstars are pre-selected heroes/heels and the officials figuratively take steel chairs to the head (or purposely miss calls in the Association).

So how impactful could a "rogue referee's" whistleblowing actually be? (Especially if he stands to monetarily gain from his inside knowledge. Utterly devastating.

We all have had a sense of some biased officiating going on, but not from a league-posed perspective. Yes, the NBA allowed star players to get away with travelling, fouls and arguing w/ officials. For them to basically set up games for specific teams to be in position to win, is a different animal in itself.

Strange Coincidences
As a Houston Rockets fan, this especially hit home in 2005, in the Rockets/Mavericks playoff series. Houston went up 2-0 in the series and Dallas' owner Mark Cuban complained to the League about Yao Ming setting illegal screens. The following is a letter from Tim Donaghy's lawyer on the series-

"Team 3 lost the first two games in the series and Team 3's Owner complained to NBA officials. Team 3's Owner alleged that referees were letting a Team 4 player get away with illegal screens. NBA Executive Y told Referee Supervisor Z that the referees for that game were to enforce the screening rules strictly against that Team 4 player. Referee Supervisor Z informed the referees about his instructions. As an alternate referee for that game, Tim also received these instructions."


The letter continued with- "Tim described one referee's use of a team's practice facility to exercise and another's frequent tennis matches with a team's coach"


Via ESPN, "During the 2005 postseason, Mavs owner Mark Cuban did in fact complain after his team lost to the Houston Rockets in the first two games of their series, and Dallas went on to beat Houston in seven games. Jeff Van Gundy, then the coach of the Rockets, said that an NBA official had told him about the league's plan to closely monitor moving screens by Yao Ming, and Van Gundy was ultimately fined $100,000 for his comments regarding the situation. Van Gundy later backed off his comments."


The Rockets went on to lose the series in Game 7.


Fan Fallout
There are two types of fans- 1. Proactive, intelligent fans and 2. Ignorant, accepting fans. Type Two fans accept David Stern's explanation and mark Donaghy's comments off to a money-making scheme. Type One fans delve deeper into the allegations behind the surface. From a business perspective, the NBA propers exponentially from setting up big games and series.


Logically, it makes sense for the NBA to create bigger ratings, revenue and attendance numbers by have a "behind-the-scenes" approach to "referee coaching" (which is teaching ref's on how to make the game run smoothly, appear unbiased and yet give an undeniable advantage to the Association's money-making team)


All I can speak for is myself. Will I continue to watch the NBA? Yes, basketball is my passion. Will I have a different perspective? You bet. Every call that seems shaky or strange will be questioned by the NBA's fanbase as a whole.


With the integrity and purity of the game now in jeopardy, only one statement rings true to me- maybe we were better off WITH amateur officials making the calls.

***All statements Tim Donaghy has made in his book are ALL allegations***