The NBA seems to have referees that like gambling.
But the NBA commish isn’t going to punish them for it. He’s going to change the rules.
National Basketball Association commissioner David Stern has discovered that a large percentage of professional basketball referees have violated their no-gambling rule. The NBA had an absolute ban on gambling placed on their officials, basically banning them from even stepping foot inside of a casino. The ban was set in place when Las Vegas was the only city in America with casinos and sportsbooks and when other more mainstream forms of gambling such as state lotteries were in existence.
“The reality is that about half of our referees have told us they have been into casinos over the last year, and I’ve decided that they will not be disciplined for that because I think the rule is overly broad,” says David Stern. “It’s not the right thing to do to slap these guys on the wrist.”
How are these rules going to get changed for officials?
The rules were wide and erratic. So now Stern and the rest of the higher-ups in the NBA are going to rewrite these rules and enforce them hardcore style. This comes on the back of the admission of Tim Donaghy, the referee that bet on games and was reportedly paid by the mafia to assist on the fixing of games in the 2006-2007 NBA season and possibly before that also. Donaghy is currently awaiting his federal charges sentencing court date. NBA commish Stern has said that the league has not found any evidence that there were any other basketball referees involved in the fixing of games and NBA game gambling.
“The current state of the record is that Mr. Donaghy acted alone,” says the NBA commissioner David Stern. “No other referees bet on NBA games. Donaghy is a criminal who did a bad thing, and there’s an entire set of questions with respect to gambling and the like. But let’s not conflate that with the question of the competence of our officials.”
Some of the changes planned by the basketball league includes using statistical tracking mechanisms “to detect signs that something may be amiss”, cell phone regulations placed on referees, public declarations when officials make bad calls in basketball games, and announcements of the referees for a particular game in the morning, instead of the current 90 minutes before game tip-off to prevent leaking of information.
“We want our referees to have clear sets of rules that are not overly broad and that are enforced and well understood,” says Stern.
This whole situation with Donaghy really has rocked my thoughts on referees. I always gave them the benefit of the doubt when they made a bad call as I know many other people did.
But what about now? Can we trust referees in sports?
Now those conspiracy theory wackos on sports talk radio don’t sound so wacko anymore. This situation has been one of the biggest scandals to rock professional sports and will have repercussions on all sports to get tabs on their officiating and regulate their high ranking officials. All this comes on the heel of Las Vegas trying to get the attention of the NBA to bring a professional basketball team to Sin City, with Stern stating he wants Vegas to ban local sportsbooks from accepting basketball bets.
There have been other reports of other sports with a gambling controversies. Pete Rose, a famous example, who bet on baseball games while he was a coach for the Major League Baseball team Cincinnati Reds. Or Robert Hoyzer, the convicted referee who took bribes to fix soccer games in Germany and was sentenced to 29 months in prison.
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1 response so far ↓
1 Stevie NBA // Apr 30, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Sooner than later, National Basketball Association Commissioner David Stern and his underlings need to be accountable for this scandal. Until the FBI makes its arrests, until the Feds lay out the case against Donaghy and his mob co-conspirators, no one can be sure that he wasn’t blowing a dirty whistle in Game 3 of the Suns-Spurs series in the Western Conference semifinals. Go back to that game on May 12, see Donaghy’s work and your stomach sinks. Perhaps the Feds know precisely which of the apparent 10 to 20 games were tainted across these past two seasons, or perhaps, they’re counting on Donaghy and the mob to give them up.
Until further notice, the de facto championship series between San Antonio and Phoenix is tantamount to tainted.
Donaghy made one of the worst calls of the playoffs (a phantom, delayed foul on Manu Ginobili in a key late third-quarter run that awarded the Spurs three free throws), and he was part of an officiating crew that sent Suns star Amare Stoudemire to the bench with foul trouble, leaving him available for only 21 minutes in the game. Beyond that, there were plenty of missed calls, and dubious whistles. That game hangs over the league like an anvil now.
San Antonio was giving four points on the betting line and won 108-101. Those three Ginobili free throws pushed the Spurs to a six-point lead late in the third, and Phoenix never recovered. As it turns out, that is the last game Donaghy will ever officiate in the NBA.
Looking back, you wonder how that end didn’t come sooner for Donaghy. But then again, the league always seemed to be cutting breaks to its refs, forever fostering a sense of entitlement. One of Michael Jordan’s women targeted official Eddie Rush as the matchmaker who introduced her to him. Bob Delaney had real-life NBA stars appearing at his summer referees academy in Florida, a favor that you would think a player would realistically figure could curry him favor later.
So yes, when Donaghy saw that he could survive charges of terrorizing neighbors and chasing a mailman down the street in his car while making wild threats, he probably started out figuring that a few bets on the golf course with buddies, and then, a few on, say, football games, couldn’t come back to hurt him. Maybe the league called him on that gambling, and still, he survived again.
Listen, people aren’t perfect. They’re flawed. They make mistakes. No one is asking an official to live an unblemished existence. But is it too much to ask that they don’t put themselves in positions where there could be the appearance of impropriety?
Perhaps the talent pool of quality officials made the league less likely to cast those considered competent aside. “If the NBA was charted on the refs it’s bringing into the league, you’d see a bunch of two-star-rated recruits,” an NBA coach told me last season. “I haven’t seen many blue chippers coming through the door. If they were a college program, they’d get fired for bringing in all these bad classes.”
For the longest time, the NBA had suffered crises of credibility with its officials. Much of the public, including people within the league, believed the games were controlled on some levels, that officials on the floor carried out agendas beyond making the right calls. The refs have been seen as league pawns so that big-market teams could stay alive in the playoffs for television purposes, or used to keep superstars on the floor. There have long been conspiracy theories and that’s so much of the reason the NBA will struggle to overcome this scandal. Truth be told, everyone wanted to believe there was a Tim Donaghy out there.
And always, Stern delivered a smug dismissal, challenging you to bring him proof. Those are wild accusations, he would say. Bring me evidence. Now, Stern has lost the moral authority to talk that way ever again. His arrogance about the league’s officials always bothered people, and now, it comes back to haunt him.
This isn’t the time for defiance out of the commissioner on Monday in New York, nor cocksure promises about the future that he can’t keep anyway. For the good of the league now, and maybe for his own ultimate survival, he needs to deliver a humbled concession that the NBA could’ve done more to stop Tim Donaghy. He’s the CEO, the emperor of the sport. Above all else, Stern needs to say that, “This one’s on me.”
All you guys are wasting your time.The NBA has been exposed.The NBA has always been FIXED!!!!It is all about FAVORITISM and PREFERENTIAL TREATMENT.A bunch of CROOKS!!!!!
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