That's a stupid statement. You realize that all of the allegations of improprieties are after 2000? I guess it could taint Jordan's career as a Wizard, but Jordan did a good enough job on his own doing that.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

What do you feel will happen to the league if these allegations are true or if it is more widespread than just "one rogue official"?

Will it simply collapse and cease to exist? Will it carry on with 100-200 fans in the stands?

The NBA will survive, just like MLB survived a very difficult time(strike and steroids). You will see MAJOR reforms in officiating unlike we've probably ever seen in any sport. I would expect just about every current official to be replaced quickly. There will be total transparency in reviews. The NBA will preach consistency in calls and it will be hard to differentiate who was the home team and who was the road team.

That is only if this story gets much bigger. I don't know if there is enough right now to force changes of this degree.

The NBA can clean up just about every image problem they have with reforms and make the game stronger if they are forced to.

The question is what happens after this series is over. If it gets out of the news, then nothing will happen. If this lingers around, then the NBA must do something or all credibility is shot.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Right...but at this point the allegations, however severe, are seemingly limited to one or two games/series. Say it comes out that - just throwing out a number here- 50 games last couple year were fixed and it was a fairly routine thing. Or several playoff series were rigged. Then what? I'm just thinking if this thing blows wide open and is really nasty, how is the league going to survive? Probably the only fans that would remain would be the ultra-die hard

Regardless, even if Donaghy is proven false tomorrow and everything is over with, I think Stern has to do SOMETHING going forward.

FBI talked to Hue Hollins. No word if they asked about the foul on Pippen

They need to strap him in a chair and give him electric shock treatment until he confesses.

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Kid Cairo's Boers & Bernstein YouTube Channel

Kid Cairo: 2013 March Madness Tournament Winner!

"Cowabunga? Cowa fucking piece of dog shit! This game is diarrhea coming out of my dick!"

Sounds like "intentional torture" to me

The league can survive no matter what. It will take a MASSIVE pr campaign and massive reforms. It will hurt really badly, but I think eventually people will trust the new reforms. Most people don't trust the NBA officiating right now anyways. I'd love to see the home calls and star treatment in the NBA get lessened. I actually would love to see stars foul out of games. I'd love for a game to be called consistently. I wouldn't give up on the NBA if this was found out to be true. It's obvious that SOMETHING was going on. The only question is what. Was it simply a style of officiating that benefited the home team and star players more? Was it an attempt to be more devious and affect outcomes of games? Was it a full out conspiracy going right to the top?

The end result has been the same and I'll be happy if the NBA cleans up officiating, even if it never comes out that the allegations are true.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

If it comes out thats its true that several playoff series were rigged by the league then Im done being a fan. Im through with the league.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

I would tend to agree with you, but I think the leagues know that sports are almost like drugs. I mean think of all the time in our lives we spend watching, listening and debating sports. Everyone cried after the baseball strike that they were done, and i'd be 90% of them are back watching now. I feel like a battered wife. No matter how fucked up this turns out to be, it's going to be extremely hard to all of a sudden eliminate your favorite sport from your life. I actually tend to side with Rick's POV on this, that we do know something happened. We don't know to what extent is all. We just need some accountability from Stern and some massive reform

I find this way worse than the strikes or steroids though. The strike was about selfishness on both sides that your average working class fan couldnt relate to. Steroids are about individual athletes trying to gain an illegal edge. If his allegations are true, the NBA effectively turned into the WWE. I really dont think I'll "come back" or remain a fan if it turns out these allegations are true. Right now from what I've heard I dont believe him, but like everyone else Im curious to find out the rest of the story.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

FavreFan,
I don't understand why you are willing to completely give up on the NBA because of this. Anyone who has been following the league knows that home teams and star players have been given preferential treatment, and in some cases, in a statistically anomalous way that it defies explanation. The national radio show that I listen to has been beating that drum for at least a year. It is clear that something was going on just like it's clear that the strike zone in MLB shrank or that NFL QB's can barely be touched without drawing a penalty. You can't look at some of the discrepancies in foul differential and think that it was called evenly between the two teams.

The only new thing that Donaghy is adding is intent. He is saying that officials intentionally attempted to influence the outcome of games. That doesn't really affect what happened. Games clearly have been affected by officiating bias and this was known well before Donaghy was a household name. Consumer advocate Ralph Nader pointed out that specific game right after it happened.

Biased officiating has affected NBA games for the last decade. The only question is to why was it biased. It doesn't change anything. If you are willing to give up completely on the NBA because of the reason that it happened, you should be willing to give it up because it did happen. I'm not willing to give up on the NBA, as long as they make major reforms in officiating. I may give up on it either way if the NBA continues to ignore the fact that they have a major problem on there hands and have for a while.

I guess I don't care as much about intent. I care about what happened. That won't change either way. The NBA needs to fix it in the future.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Rick we've been over this. We dont know anything except that Donaghy gambled on games and screwed with the points for those games. Thats all we KNOW. Yes the officiating looked awful in Game 6 of the 2002 series, but it was awful in Game 5 of that same series in the Kings favor. Noone seems to be mentioning that. Also Game 7 was well-officiated and the Kings missed 15 Ft's and lost in OT. You cant really say the NBA rigged it for the Lakers to win.

Second, Bagels said if it comes out that several playoff series were RIGGED, and it happened routinely, what would you do? Thats when I said I'd be through with the league. Even Donaghy isnt alleging it was this widespread. If it turns out every playoffs were rigged or tried to be rigged(Clearly the Spurs/Nets series was not the NBA's doing), then of course Im done with the sport. I dont follow the WWE.

We've been over this yesterday but you are blindly believing Donaghy with no corroborating evidence. You have a convict's word and ONE fishy officiated game, and like I've been harping on, you are conveniently ignoring Game 5 was stolen from LA and Game 7 was fairly officiated and the Kings choked. I dont believe him right now but Im not gonna say he's lying for sure, we dont know. I want to hear the rest of the story. But you dont KNOW what he alleges is happening.

As far as the home court/star preferential treatment, yeah it'd be nice if they lessened it a bit but that stuff has been going on for three decades, not just this year. If we are really gonna condemn that on the same level then MJ's titles truly were tainted.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

FF, you definitely have a point. Look, until more information is uncovered this could go in a million different ways. Was it just shoddy officiating or was their intent? Just like Rick says there is circumstantial evidence pointing to the fact that their was intent to rig, there are just as many indicating there are not. Spurs-Nets Finals being case #1. Why would the league want that? Or the Knicks not winning the lottery. Or Portland landing Oden and Seattle landing Durant. There's clearly a problem with all the ambigiouty (sp, fuck it)....I liken it to the old saying in football that holding happens on every play, it's just when the ref decides to call it. I'm sure for example when Shaq plays, the refs could call a foul either way every trip down the floor. Yes Shaq is an extreme example but surely there is contact happening all the time. To me that makes it a lot tougher to discern if their is intent or not

From what I have seen over the years I think bad officiating has more to do with incompetence and with alot fans not realizing how hard it is to officiate a game then with corruption and rigging. I agree with Coast that the grading scale should be made public, because according to the head of referees every ref scores at least a 94% accuracy score or isnt brought back the next year. I would like a seperate, independent body to confirm this. If that were the case, I think it would lower alot of peoples agitation with the officials.

Officials are humans like us, and are prone to mistakes. They are also impressionable and can get sucked into the whole "Game 7 at the Garden, Oh wow Pierce just made an incredible play, that couldnt have been charging" mentality. That and 20,000 screaming fans in their ear I think can make it difficult to call a fair game. I think officials get sucked in to the environment, and thats why star players and home court matters so much. But Rick, if you are saying this is new to the post MJ era, thats not true at all. This has been going back 30 years. The 80's teams won at home more than these current teams do. If was really hard to get a road win back then.

I agree something needs to be done about the officiating, but I dont think its due to corruption, just incomptence. Like I said, if it is revealed that Stern and the league purposely manipulated the outcomes of series routinely, Im done being a fan. I just really doubt thats gonna end up being the case.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

For now, I tend to agree. Like I said, for as much evidence as you can throw out that makes it seem like they rig games/series/situations, there's as much to point in the opposite direction. Look, for as much as people are going to say "hey the league was desperate for a Celtics-Lakers Finals"...sure, I agree, they wanted that. But weren't the Celtics considered strong contenders for the Finals from the moment they got Garnett? And when the Lakers got Gasol, didn't that vault them even higher? Point is they're two great teams already, it's not that big of a surprise they made it to the Finals. It's like saying MLB wanted the Yankees and Red Sox in all those World Series. I'm sure they did, but the fact is their teams were great and they deserved to be there

FavreFan,
I consider my posts in this thread to be a different point than what we talked about yesterday.

NBA officiating has been biased towards the home team and star players. I don't think anyone can really argue with that. The discrepancy between foul calls for the home and away teams in many series and games has been nearly unexplainable.

When I say something was going on, I don't mean cheating or fixing. I mean that it's not a coincidence that these things happened pretty much every year. It may not have been intentional attempts to extend series, but it seemed to be the policy of the referees to give the home team a pretty significant advantage. Doing this would have the side effect of extending series with no ill intent. The series was likely to go 2-2 simply because the home teams are likely to win.

The NBA refs were calling things in a certain way that was biased and had the effect of giving the home team a major advantage. There are many NBA games that haven't been officiated evenly between home and away. I would care more if it came out that this was done intentionally, but I don't think it makes things that much better if it wasn't. Biased officiating has been a major problem in the NBA. Lack of intent to extend series doesn't change the fact that the results were affected by a policy that greatly benefited home teams and stars.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

I agree with most of what you just said, I just disagree with your assertion this is a recent development. I've seen clear cases of it going back over 20 years. Remember the last three seconds of Game 7 of the 1988 Finals? Where were the refs then? All through the 90's the Bulls benefitted from these discrepencies. Like I said, I would like to see something done about the star treatment and home court biases also, I just dont think its as damaging as what Bagels was asking, if it comes out several series were rigged. I think thats infinitely worse.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

People people people. The NBA has been rumored to be fixed for YEARS. My grandfather was complaining about the sport back in the freakin 80s, before Stern or Donawhosawhatsit. Basketball has and always will boil down to a combination of the successful execution of a system with the clutch shooting of the most talented person on the floor. The risks of losing MILLIONS of dollars does not make any sense for fixing the game. The game is not fixed. Sorry. Done.

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This was written by Simmons back in 2002, quite interesting!!

Question: What was the most disturbing subplot of the playoffs?
Answer: The officiating, also the most disturbing subplot of the past four playoffs. If you examine the last four NBA playoff campaigns, during every situation where the league definitively "needed" one of the two teams involved to win -- either to A) change the momentum of a series so it didn't end prematurely, B) keep an attractive, big-market team alive in a series, or C) advance an attractive, big-market team to another round -- the officiating appeared to be slanted towards the team that needed that game. I use the phrase "appeared to be," because reviewing an official's performance is purely subjective. Maybe I'm dead-wrong.

These were just the games that jump out in my mind (again, I could be wrong):


1999, Knicks-Pacers, Game 3 ... LJ sinks a game-winning four-pointer (called a continuation foul by referee Jess Kersey even though LJ was fouled a full second before he released the ball).


1999, Knicks-Pacers, Game 6 ... Knicks last chance to close out Indy before the series shifts back to Indiana for Game 7 ... they get every call.


1999, Spurs-Knicks, Game 3 ... down 2-0, the Knicks get every call in their first home game and win their only game of the series.


2000, Knicks-Heat, Game 7 ... Knicks advance to the conference finals ... falling out of bounds, Latrell Sprewell awarded a timeout by referee Bennett Salvatore with 2.1 seconds left even though none of the Knicks called for one ... Sprewell admits after the game that he hadn't called a timeout ... the Miami players chase the referees off the court after the game, yelling that they had been robbed ... after the game, Jamal Mashburn tells reporters, "They had three officials in their pocket" and Tim Hardaway refers to referee Dick Bavetta as "Knick Bavetta."


2000, Lakers-Blazers, Game 7 ... LA shoots 21 more free throws and rallies back from a 17-point deficit in the final seven minutes ... Shaq plays an illegal defense down the stretch, undaunted ... Rasheed Wallace absolutely gets manhandled down the stretch, yet doesn't get a single call ... up by four with 25 seconds left, Shaq body-blocks Steve Smith out of bounds and the refs don't make the call (the most egregious non-call in recent memory).


2002, Celtics-Nets, Game 4 ... Celts up 2-1 ... the Nets are inexplicably allowed to push and shove Kenny Anderson and Pierce while they dribble the ball ... a number of head-scratchers go against Boston, including three offensive charges down the stretch ... four different "bull-(bleep)" chants during the game.


2002, Lakers-Kings, Game 6 ... LA needs a win to stay alive ... from an officiating standpoint, the most one-sided game of the past decade ... at least six dubious calls against the Kings in the fourth quarter alone ... LA averaged 22 free throws a game during the first five games of the series, then attempted 27 freebies in the fourth quarter alone of Game 6 ... rumors that David Stern wanted to pull a Vince McMahon and declare himself "The special guest referee" for this game prove unfounded.

(By the way, I would feel remiss if I didn't share this information: Dick Bavetta was assigned to every one of the above games. That's an absolute fact. You can look it up. Doesn't mean anything ... I just felt the need to pass that along. It sure looks bad, doesn't it? Maybe the league could do a favor for Bavetta and not assign him to Game 3 of the Finals, especially if the Lakers jump to a 2-0 lead over New Jersey. You wouldn't want to rile up those conspiracy theorists or anything. Ummmm ...)

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"Stay out of courtrooms-but if you must go in be Well Armed and Don't compromise. You are innocent, remember that. They are guilty" -- Dr. Gonzo

I knew there was a reason I took him in the dead pool!

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This is a close second to your "Black women only look good with caucasion features" post as "Dumbest post ever made"

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Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

now how would you know that?