NBA Fixing Games--WOW

[AHF]

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He also pointed to the 2005 NBA playoffs (again not by name but it has been ID'd as the Rockets/Dallas series) as one where the NBA manipulated the referees (and a 2000 incident).

As an aside, this is the series where Jeff Van Gundy was fined $100,000 for claiming that an NBA official told him Yao Ming was being targeted for fouls.

I remember that. I thought it was overblown. Cuban sent tapes complaining that Yao was setting moving screens. Sending tapes to the league is the only way to really protest bad officiating.

My guess is that the tapes did show illegal screens by Yao and so the refs were told to look out for them. I don't see that as a damaging allegation at all.

Reviewing it in the best light for the league, I agree.

The comments by Jackson and Pollard are troubling though, don't you think?

[AHF]

FYI - Apparently the FBI investigated d*ck Bavetta, according to the New York Times:

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The FBI has made inquiries about NBA referee

d*ck

Bavetta, according to a former NBA referee who was interviewed by federal agents last year. Hue Hollins, who retired in 2003 and has been outspoken about the NBA's treatment of referees, said he met for about an hour with two agents from New York before last season. In addition to asking questions about Tim Donaghy, Hollins said the agents inquired extensively about Bavetta. They asked if he ever noticed that Bavetta "was making sure that the home team would win, and I told them I had no idea because I didn't work with him a lot." Hollins said the agents did not ask about a specific team, game or series and did not ask about Game 6 in 2002. "They were very specific about their questioning, as though they had heard something," Hollins said. "They knew exactly what they were going after."

[exodus]

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The comments by Jackson and Pollard are troubling though, don't you think?

What comments by Jackson are you talking about? I agree that making the referees a separate entity from the league would be a good idea.

As far as Pollard goes he is just saying what everyone was thinking at the time. Could the refs have been heavily biased against Sactown? Sure looked that way. But saying that they were being directed by the league to fix the game is a big jump from ref bias. Refs are human so it is inevitable that some will be biased or incompetent. But that isn't a crime.

If it was such a big problem i would think there would be more recent examples.

[exodus]

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FYI - Apparently the FBI investigated

d*ck

Bavetta, according to the New York Times:

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The FBI has made inquiries about NBA referee

d*ck

Bavetta, according to a former NBA referee who was interviewed by federal agents last year. Hue Hollins, who retired in 2003 and has been outspoken about the NBA's treatment of referees, said he met for about an hour with two agents from New York before last season. In addition to asking questions about Tim Donaghy, Hollins said the agents inquired extensively about Bavetta. They asked if he ever noticed that Bavetta "was making sure that the home team would win, and I told them I had no idea because I didn't work with him a lot." Hollins said the agents did not ask about a specific team, game or series and did not ask about Game 6 in 2002. "They were very specific about their questioning, as though they had heard something," Hollins said. "They knew exactly what they were going after."

This shows the FBI investigation isn't solely focused on Donaghy. it will be interesting to see if anything substantial comes out of it.

[AHF]

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The comments by Jackson and Pollard are troubling though, don't you think?

What comments by Jackson are you talking about? I agree that making the referees a separate entity from the league would be a good idea.

This:

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Also Tuesday [June 10, 2008], Lakers coach Phil Jackson was asked about the allegations regarding Game 6 of the 2002 series against Sacramento.

"Was that after the fifth game, after we had the

game stolen away from us after a bad call

out of bounds and gave the ball back to Sacramento and they made a 3-point shot?" he said. "

There's a lot of things going on in these games and they're suspicious

, but I don't want to throw it back to there."

I think the fact that an NBA coach responds to allegations of game fixing by saying there are a lot of suspicious things going on in games is pretty remarkable. Again, I haven't bought into the league office fixing games but there is a lot more smoke here than you would expect. If it was just Donoughy, I don't think people would be so concerned.

[exodus]

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I think the fact that an NBA coach responds to allegations of game fixing by saying there are a lot of suspicious things going on in games is pretty remarkable.

Coming from him i don't find it remarkable at all. he is constantly playing head games and here he is obviously responding to the accusation that the series was fixed in his favor. This is the same guy who publicly accused Kobe of sabatoging high school games so he could play the hero in the 4th quarter. Phil was coaching Kobe at the time he said that.

There are plenty of horribly officiated games. However ref bias and incompetence doesn't necesarily mean games are being fixed. it would be hard to visualize refs sticking their necks out to fix games unless they were getting paid off, and those payments could be traced.

[AHF]

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There are plenty of horribly officiated games. However ref bias and incompetence doesn't necesarily mean games are being fixed. it would be hard to visualize refs sticking their necks out to fix games unless they were getting paid off, and those payments could be traced.

I agree that bias and incompetence don't equal fixing games and we certainly aren't at a place where I am convinced Donoughy is telling the truth. I just think between the fact that everyone believed Game 6 was a case of extreme bias and incompetence at best to begin with; a scumbag claims to have knowledge it was fixed; players from the game think it was fixed; and the winning coach says that the refs do things that are suspicious adds up to a situation where conspiracy theorists will have enough material to run on for the next 50 years. That is a lot more than you see in 99.9% cases of questionable refereeing.

If you are required to do what the league wants to keep your job, though, it isn't that much of sticking out your neck to do so. You are sticking out your neck when you do what Donoughy did by manipulating games against the wishes the of the league.

[exodus]

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If you are required to do what the league wants to keep your job, though, it isn't that much of sticking out your neck to do so.

That would be the type of thing that would be very hard to keep hushed up over a period of many years. What would keep retired refs like Hollins from spilling the beans?

And if that really was going on it would probably be showing up more often. it is also a safe bet that it would be exposed by a FBI investigation.

[ATLBob]

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As an aside, this is the series where Jeff Van Gundy was fined $100,000 for claiming that an NBA official told him Yao Ming was being targeted for fouls.

That fine was so ridiculously excessive that it *almost* seems as if the league wanted to make sure that the issue went away ASAP while crippling coaches from making similar comments in the future.

Van Gundy shouldn't have received a fine period for his statement. If it was so baseless, why the absurd reaction from the league? It was blatantly obvious to everyone watching that Yao was being targeted.

Part of the league's problem lies therein.

[AHF]

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If you are required to do what the league wants to keep your job, though, it isn't that much of sticking out your neck to do so.

That would be the type of thing that would be very hard to keep hushed up over a period of many years. What would keep retired refs like Hollins from spilling the beans?

How many years were steroids in baseball before anything came out? More than a decade for sure.

I just don't share the optimism that fixing games would inevitably see the light of day in a period of 6 years - especially if the fixing is done on a smaller scale (i.e., only selected refs in on it - the "company men", etc.)

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it is also a safe bet that it would be exposed by a FBI investigation.

Hopefully there is nothing there but if there was an investigation it would not surprise me if it took more than a year to run its course.