# FBI investigating NBA official for fixing games



## DaRizzle (May 22, 2007)

From espn:

You know it's not a good Friday, as a sports commissioner, when you wake up to a crisis that you'd gladly trade straight up for baseball's steroid scandal.

Or as my Bloomberg News colleague Scott Soshnick put it on ESPN's "Outside The Lines": It would have been a much, much better Friday for David Stern if he were merely faced with the news bulletin that one of his Michael Vick-sized stars was being indicted on charges of sponsoring a widespread dogfighting operation.

Instead …

This can only be described as a horrific Friday for Stern and his National Basketball Association. The New York Post's disclosure that a referee is being investigated by the FBI for betting on games and making calls to manipulate point spreads -- a referee later identified by multiple ESPN sources as 13-year vet Tim Donaghy -- will haunt this league for the foreseeable future.

It's difficult to imagine otherwise even if Donaghy were to be found innocent.

It's hard to believe that Barry Bonds can probably claim a greater share of the public's trust than the NBA at large, but that's the ugly reality confronting Stern. As even Stern himself termed it in a statement issued Friday afternoon, Donaghy is accused of betraying "the most sacred trust in professional sports."

How long it takes to rebuild the public's confidence in NBA refereeing from here -- and the steps that the NBA will have to take to get there when confidence was already sagging so -- is something you can't even estimate at this early juncture.

Chances are it won't matter if this proves to be "a single NBA referee" acting alone, as Donaghy was described in the NBA's press release.

It doesn't seem to matter, as we speak, that formal charges have yet to be filed against him.

It doesn't even matter that the zillions of conspiracy theories that have been floated about the NBA over the past two decades -- most of them suggesting that the league was manipulating outcomes to support its superstars or big-market franchises in the quest for better TV ratings -- don't appear to have any connection to the things Donaghy is alleged to have done.

NBA conspiracy theorists have simply been waiting for some sort of proof that referees, for all the call-by-call video monitoring they get from their bosses, use their whistles unjustly to change games.

And they've never been closer to tangible proof than these claims against Donaghy, which allege that, for the past two seasons, he made calls intended to affect point spreads and thus ensure that he and his crime-ring connections could cash in on large bets.

Donaghy has already resigned … and the ref colleagues he has left behind already know the impact of his case. People in positions of power abuse that power all over the real world. Politicians, policemen and corporate honchos, you name it. There are law breakers everywhere. Yet in sports especially, guilt is assumed and innocence must be proven.

Unfair as that sounds.

So first the NBA has to prove to the masses that Donaghy is the only ref under suspicion of submitting to mob influences.

Stern will then have to bring a revolutionary level of transparency to his referee corps and its corresponding training/administration/review practices that can, as he says, "protect against this ever happening again."

Ideas, however, on how any of that gets done were pretty scarce on a dark, dark Friday.

How bleak is the situation? Various international soccer leagues have survived a handful of match-fixing scandals, but no referee, umpire, linesman or in-game official of any sort has ever been arrested or indicted for point-shaving or match-fixing in the history of America's four major sports.

So if this proves to be the Friday that finally launches the NBA on the road to fixing the credibility problem that has plagued its referees for years, as a few team executives have anonymously and optimistically suggested, Step 1 was a monumentally scary leap backward.


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## DaRizzle (May 22, 2007)

*Re: I knew it!!!!*

I checked the 2006 playoffs vs. the Suns. The only game he was a ref we won. This is some REAL shady ...stuff


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## Tha Freak (Dec 5, 2006)

*Re: I knew it!!!!*

Rigged NBA games? Who would have thought. Check the Miami Heat and Dallas Mavericks NBA Finals. The NBA refs are all shady, no matter which way you look at it. The NBA is shady with the way they handle superstars like Kobe Bryant (hell, you would think Kobe's the son of Satan), to how the ping pong balls bounce in the draft. The NBA image has really dropped as of late. It's kind of funny if you really think about it. Ever since David Stern tried to clean up the league's image, the league's image has just continued to drop lower and lower and lower. This doesn't the cause either


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## Cris (Jun 18, 2003)

*Re: I knew it!!!!*



DaRizzle said:


> I checked the 2006 playoffs vs. the Suns. The only game he was a ref we won. This is some REAL shady ...stuff


 What does that prove? He could have bet on us to win

if he actaully bet on anyone


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## Basel (Mar 31, 2005)

*Re: I knew it!!!!*

Stupid *** referee.


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## o.iatlhawksfan (Mar 3, 2006)

*Re: I knew it!!!!*

Why would he throw Lakers game with all the attention they get. He probably did it to a team that doesn't get much attention. Hawks, Bobcats, Sonics, etc.


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## Eternal (Sep 7, 2005)

*Re: I knew it!!!!*

Hopefully this will now cause the league to get their officiating act together and start calling some better games in the future.

This could be a blessing in disguise. Of course there is gonna be a ton of problems now after this event happened, but hopefully it gets the league to clean its act up.


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## Cris (Jun 18, 2003)

*Re: I knew it!!!!*

its not going to matter... fans/players have come acustomed to blown calls


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## Eternal (Sep 7, 2005)

*Re: I knew it!!!!*



Cris said:


> its not going to matter... fans/players have come acustomed to blown calls


Agreed.


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## DaRizzle (May 22, 2007)

*Re: I knew it!!!!*



Cris said:


> What does that prove? He could have bet on us to win
> 
> if he actaully bet on anyone


It was sorta a joke...I was just saying at least it didnt affect us negatively in that series


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## Cris (Jun 18, 2003)

*Re: I knew it!!!!*

it just came out like the ref would only bet one way.


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## HKF (Dec 10, 2002)

*Re: I knew it!!!!*

In 2006, the Lakers won 3 games in the playoffs versus the Suns.
In 2007, the Lakers won 1 game and in the game they beat Phoenix, it looked like the Suns quit. Bad example.


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## Blazer Freak (Jul 11, 2004)

*Re: I knew it!!!!*

I don't get why people are making a huge deal out of this. Many writers are acting like it's worse than Steriod and such. Until it comes out it was more than one ref, then it's not a big deal. What's in the past is in the past.


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## Cris (Jun 18, 2003)

*Re: I knew it!!!!*

The problem at hand is bigger then fact that one of the nba officalls _potentially _bet and _potentially_ threw games. It raises bigger question into the integrity of the league as a whole. Now im all for giving the guy the benefit of the doubt and im not going to judge him until the FBI concludes its probe and investagation. Your "not that big of a deal" comment is a bit troubling however, because even if its just one (ref) and if he _was_ betting on games then there is a conflict of interest which would effect every single team one way or another. If it be directly in games, or through the standings.


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## Bartholomew Hunt (Mar 4, 2003)

*Re: I knew it!!!!*



Cris said:


> The problem at hand is bigger then fact that one of the nba officalls _potentially _bet and _potentially_ threw games. It raises bigger question into the integrity of the league as a whole. Now im all for giving the guy the benefit of the doubt and im not going to judge him until the FBI concludes its probe and investagation. Your "not that big of a deal" comment is a bit troubling however, because even if its just one (ref) and if he _was_ betting on games then there is a conflict of interest which would effect every single team one way or another. If it be directly in games, or through the standings.


Good points. It will be tough for Stern to bully his way out of this one. I am for whatever it takes to clean up the absolutely horrible officiating NBA fans have had to deal with. Officiating will be under an extremely heavy microscope now.


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## HKF (Dec 10, 2002)

*Re: I knew it!!!!*

Nope one ref is not a "problem" to me. The league could improve the officiating of course, but your first mistake is believing a ref wouldn't cheat. I mean do you live in the real world? These guys are human and some have gambling problems. You try to get the best people who won't be corrupt, but sometimes mistakes happen.

If it leads to wholesale changes in the officiating then this will be a good thing. Making it more than that to me is silly.


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## Cris (Jun 18, 2003)

*Re: I knew it!!!!*

Anything but a perfect non biased referree is a problem, but I know as well as you that doesnt happen as much as we would like. Now i said id give the guy the benefit of the doubt and frankly If he bet on games that he did not ref then I dont have that big of a problem with it but if the truth comes out that he did infact bet on the games that he did ref then that really is a "problem" in the area of conflict of interest.


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## Showtime87 (Jun 27, 2005)

*Re: I knew it!!!!*



Blazer Freak said:


> I don't get why people are making a huge deal out of this. Many writers are acting like it's worse than Steriod and such. Until it comes out it was more than one ref, then it's not a big deal. What's in the past is in the past.


Really? This is so much worse than a drug scandal it's not even funny! It's one thing for a player to be under the influence of an illegal substance while playing in a game. It's an entirely different issue for a referee, who is supposed to be above suspicion to have a direct and deliberate effect on the outcome of a game. When the integrity of the sport is in question, you can throw everything else out the window. This isn't the WWE where we all know the outcomes are preordained. It's assumed that when you watch or attend a game that you are going to see an unbiased contest and not have to worry about one of the officials being in someone's pocket. 
If this is only one ref, it might not turn into a disaster for the league. But if it's discovered that multiple officials were involved, this game is really going to have a difficult time recovering and regaining the public trust. This is huge deal.


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## L.A. Guy (Jun 8, 2007)

*Re: I knew it!!!!*

I wonder how he got caught?


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## DaRizzle (May 22, 2007)

*Re: I knew it!!!!*



L.A Guy said:


> I wonder how he got caught?


The FBI mas monitoring the Gambino crime family and his name came up in taped conversations


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## Kobester888 (Jul 8, 2005)

*Re: I knew it!!!!*

Lakers Games w/ Tim Donaghy as the ref. All with titles of bad officiating.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6SpBM8dB4k&mode=related&search=

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVTIYTSCG90&mode=related&search=

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhqDI-ODgz0&mode=related&search=

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYPujQiKIzE&mode=related&search=

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZyD3Zjuxvw&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8X7jPPi_4M&mode=related&search=

I guess a lot of people must have betted on a lot of Laker games.


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## L.A. Guy (Jun 8, 2007)

*Re: I knew it!!!!*



DaRizzle said:


> The FBI mas monitoring the Gambino crime family and his name came up in taped conversations


They should have him "whacked" before he talks, he will be swimming with the fishes in no time!


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## King Sancho Fantastic (Jul 19, 2005)

*Re: I knew it!!!!*

Ill give Luca Brasi a call....


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## L.A. Guy (Jun 8, 2007)

*Re: I knew it!!!!*



CubanLaker said:


> Ill give Luca Brasi a call....


lol..if that doesnt work call chichi or rocko(sorry I was watching the whole godfather saga lst night lol)


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## DaRizzle (May 22, 2007)

*Non-threating hate mail anyone???*

Nobody deserves physical harm to them but a letter saying how disgusted you are cant hurt!!!

Tim Donaghy
6918 Dominion Ln
Bradenton, FL 34202 

Make his mailman he tried to run over work overtime!:mad2: 

Check out his house, here:
http://www.zillow.com/HomeDetails.ht...rop=681076 87

http://www.azcentral.com/sports/suns...ghyhomebig.jpg


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## Eternal (Sep 7, 2005)

Threads merged.


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## Cris (Jun 18, 2003)

*Re: Non-threating hate mail anyone???*

nvm


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## Eternal (Sep 7, 2005)

Those links you gave us btw, don't work.


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## DaRizzle (May 22, 2007)

Eternal said:


> Those links you gave us btw, don't work.


Yeah i know, my bad, Im not the most computer savy guy in the world


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## L.A. Guy (Jun 8, 2007)

Ya whats up with those links, I was anxious to see his house!


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## DaRizzle (May 22, 2007)

I found it on the phoenix suns part of this site if you want to find it


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