ESPN: How former ref Tim Donaghy conspired to fix NBA games

[Machinator 32,099]

http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/25980368/how-former-ref-tim-donaghy-conspired-fix-nba-games

Very long but a great read.

[RockyMountainHighHorn 896]

I will co-sign that it’s a good read. It’s amazing, yet not amazing, how quickly they let it “get out” and get out of hand. True greed at its finest. 

[CurlyDumps 4,549]

Donaghy only made a couple grand per game.  Wow.  Ruined his career and his life for a fucking pittance, lol. What a chump.

Edited February 20, 2019 by CurlyDumps

[Goo Punch 4,275]

Is this new? I read something really long in this several years ago when the NBA blockednhim from releasing his tell-all book. It was a damn interesting read, and all of it sounded totally believable and unsurprising.

[CurlyDumps 4,549]

The details of the operation and the players involved are new to me. up until now all I really knew is that he bet on games he officiated, and maybe some shady gambler types were involved?

[Beau Vine 54,845]

Yep.  And I've said for years that this Donaghy scandal is the best thing to happen to the NBA, because it shined a light on all of the cockroach refs and they scurried (yes, I'm talking about you, Dick Bavetta and Bennett Salvatore) off into retirement.  

I had actually quit watching the NBA because I thought the officiating was so obviously crooked.  I had a friend tell me a few years ago that I was "missing out, because the NBA is much better now."  I remember flipping on an important playoff game and the first thing I noticed is that it wasn't being officiated by elderly white men. 

[The_Great_Hornsby 3,346]

NBA is still corrupt as shit. They made Donaghy look like a lone operator. If you read between the lines of the article and what the FBI agent said, you can see that the NBA leaked the investigation so the FBI wouldnt implicate the other refs. Donaghy called Scott Foster 135 times in the 07 season, those calls being 30 seconds on average in length. The ref Foster called the next most was for a total of 12 calls. Newsflash, Foster is still reffing. Im sure there are others.   

[Goo Punch 4,275]

3 hours ago, CurlyDumps said:

The details of the operation and the players involved are new to me. up until now all I really knew is that he bet on games he officiated, and maybe some shady gambler types were involved?

some of the stuff i remember from what i read back then:

•The referees tip the ball boys for the things that they do pregame. The refs would sometimes have a bet where the first ref who called a foul had to tip the ball boys for all three officials. They'd let guys just brutalize each other for 4-5 minutes until one of them was just absolutely forced to call a foul., and then all of a sudden everything was called tight. 

•Some older ref, possibly Dick Bavetta, hated Iverson. Donaghy would tell his mob guys to bet against AI's team when Bavetta officiated. He told of one specific time when AI was in Denver and Bavetta (I think) was officiating, and he told his mob guys to take the other team and the points. AI got three fouls in the 1Q and spent a lot of time on the bench and the opposing team covered easily.

•Officials climbed the ladder by being comoany men. Period. If you wanted to work the playoffs and work the finals and be at the top of the ladder you had to prove that you would take care of whatever it was that the league wanted. The NBA front office is too savvy to give direct orders, but certain guys (Joey Crawford for example) would be spoken to and the message would be clear: make sure that "x" happens in this game/series. 

There was so much more. Just go to google and do searches involving Tim Donaghy, his book, excerpts from said book, and the NBA's blocking him from publishing it. 

[Napoleon 8,710]

When I saw the 2006 Mavs/Heat Final flip direction on a dime and it was all downhill after the Mavs had one the first two games and were cruising in the 3rd game, I started really thinking that the league was determined not to let Mark Cuban win a title.

Then, when I saw Dwayne Wade drive to the left side of the lane and go up to Dirk, who was standing still... outside of the little circle with his arms straight above him, and elbow the shit out of Dirk's ribs before fading away for a shot and the refs called the foul on Dirk, I turned away from the TV (I was at the gym) and basically wrote off the NBA until I turned on the Mavs/Lakers game 3, late in the 4th quarter while living down in Buenos Aires. I saw online that the Mavs were winning by double digits and pulling away and I thought "I can't believe that the refs are going to let the Mavs sweep the Lakers."

But the Lakers were dealing with the fallout of Kobe's wife outing another Laker for cheating on his wife and the Lakers' locker room was a mess. Even so, I thought that the refs would stop the Mavs, but the Mavs were shooting over 50% from behind the 3-point arc and the Lakers were playing like absolute shit. When the Mavs won by over 30 points in LA and Mark Cuban hadn't made a single comment about the refs, I thought...

1) Maybe Cuban is going to bite his tongue this year and...
2) If he does, maybe the league will allow the Mavs to actually win games.

That year the Mavs won it all and I was happy... but then I went back to being done with the NBA. Fuck that league. Fuck fixed games. Who gives a fuck about a league that has teams play more than ~38 games a year? Who cares how Team X is playing in November? Or December? or January?... While it's not as bad as baseball, Basketball & Hockey are just mind numbing sports to follow.

[Tommy Shelby 188]

5 hours ago, Goo Punch said:

some of the stuff i remember from what i read back then:

•The referees tip the ball boys for the things that they do pregame. The refs would sometimes have a bet where the first ref who called a foul had to tip the ball boys for all three officials. They'd let guys just brutalize each other for 4-5 minutes until one of them was just absolutely forced to call a foul., and then all of a sudden everything was called tight. 

•Some older ref, possibly Dick Bavetta, hated Iverson. Donaghy would tell his mob guys to bet against AI's team when Bavetta officiated. He told of one specific time when AI was in Denver and Bavetta (I think) was officiating, and he told his mob guys to take the other team and the points. AI got three fouls in the 1Q and spent a lot of time on the bench and the opposing team covered easily.

•Officials climbed the ladder by being comoany men. Period. If you wanted to work the playoffs and work the finals and be at the top of the ladder you had to prove that you would take care of whatever it was that the league wanted. The NBA front office is too savvy to give direct orders, but certain guys (Joey Crawford for example) would be spoken to and the message would be clear: make sure that "x" happens in this game/series. 

There was so much more. Just go to google and do searches involving Tim Donaghy, his book, excerpts from said book, and the NBA's blocking him from publishing it. 

You sure it wasn't Bennie Salvatore? 

 

[Beau Vine 54,845]

5 hours ago, Napoleon said:

That year the Mavs won it all and I was happy... but then I went back to being done with the NBA. Fuck that league. Fuck fixed games. Who gives a fuck about a league that has teams play more than ~38 games a year? Who cares how Team X is playing in November? Or December? or January?... While it's not as bad as baseball, Basketball & Hockey are just mind numbing sports to follow.

So you like shiny objects, huh?

[Vic Mackey 47,306]

I love how the NBA made him the scapegoat. Yeah, he was definitely the lone ranger. No way does it include most of the other refs and go all the way to the top. One of the worst screw jobs/fixes was Game 6 of the Kings/Lakers. Sacramento was on their way to making the Finals. But the NBA couldn't have that small market in the Finals. Especially not against the Nets. They didn't have the star power the Lakers did and the national appeal.

I might be biased but Mavs/Heat is another one. But I don't think I am biased as it is nationally accepted that the refs influenced the series big time with how they allowed Wade to go rogue and do as he pleased and nothing Dallas could do. The amount of free throws he shot were absurd. Now Dallas did have their own faults and were there with an inexperienced coach vs a vet In Pat Riley. Heat also had Shaq and Mourning, two vets who helped a young Wade. I am not even mad at Wade because of course a player is going to do whatever he can get away with. Why not?

I always stop and wonder how much fixed are sports? All of them.

[Brian Fantana 6,707]

Yeah it's amazing to me that Scott Foster is still a ref after reading that.

[pops 7,044]

Great read. Crazy the Gambino crime family basically brought it all down.

And the money those guys made while Timmy D only took home 2 to 5k a game is laughable. What an idiot. 

 

[Goo Punch 4,275]

7 hours ago, Tommy Shelby said:

You sure it wasn't Bennie Salvatore? 

 

you know it probably was. i couldn't remember exactly which old guard official it was, but that makes sense. 

[CurlyDumps 4,549]

4 hours ago, pops said:

 

And the money those guys made while Timmy D only took home 2 to 5k a game is laughable. What an idiot. 

 

Isn't it?  God, I can't get over this insane new revelation in the Donaghy saga.  Dude was risking EVERYTHING for 2 grand/game.

Maybe it was more about the power and control than the money. Some tidbits about his personal life jumped out at me, like how Kim (the ex-wife) said she was "truly afraid of him" and didn't confront him because she was "scared." Sounds like he was a shitty father and husband, and possibly victimizing Kim, who may have been a victim of coercive control.

[Brian Fantana 6,707]

Honestly, it doesn't surprise me that much though he should have been smarter and known what was going on. $2-5k a game might have seemed like a pretty good deal to a kid from the Philly 'burbs especially given the context that he was having trouble finding more places to hide cash from his wife.

[UcancallmeSurly 451]

9 hours ago, Tommy Shelby said:

You sure it wasn't Bennie Salvatore? 

 

Billion dollar industry & these fucks have way too much power.  I'm surprised a player or even coach hasn't knocked an official out.

[Beau Vine 54,845]

That video is great.  Larry Brown KNEW.

[MrBig 5,507]

Fuck human refs. This shit should be automated. If we can get red light tickets in the mail, we should be able to get some automated refs.

[Tommy Shelby 188]

19 hours ago, UcancallmeSurly said:

Billion dollar industry & these fucks have way too much power.  I'm surprised a player or even coach hasn't knocked an official out.

Someone has a thrown a chair before haha

 

[Machinator 32,099]

On 2/20/2019 at 10:55 AM, Brian Fantana said:

Yeah it's amazing to me that Scott Foster is still a ref after reading that.

Right on schedule, he officiates the LAL-HOU game and fucks it all up.

Edited February 22, 2019 by Machinator

[Felix 607]

Gee some one from Philly is a piece of shit.  Who could have guessed?

[Eskimohorn 5,654]

Fuck human refs. This shit should be automated. If we can get red light tickets in the mail, we should be able to get some automated refs.

There is a violation on every play. Traveling, boxing out, screens, close outs, flops.

[Onboard 2.0 9,083]

11 minutes ago, Eskimohorn said:

 

There is a violation on every play. Traveling, boxing out, screens, close outs, flops.

 

Just stop the traveling, and you'd improve the game.  

[Vic Mackey 47,306]

Just stop the traveling, and you'd improve the game.  

Harden would not be pleased with this. Or LeBron.

[Onboard 2.0 9,083]

40 minutes ago, Vic Mackey said:

1 hour ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

Just stop the traveling, and you'd improve the game.  

Harden would not be pleased with this. Or LeBron.

None of them would, but the game would be better off for it

[Eskimohorn 5,654]

None of them would, but the game would be better off for it

Again, there is a violation of some kind on every possession in every basketball game played.

[immortal13 4,059]

20 hours ago, Eskimohorn said:

 

Again, there is a violation of some kind on every possession in every basketball game played.

 

Same in football

[Onboard 2.0 9,083]

On 2/24/2019 at 4:34 PM, Eskimohorn said:

 

Again, there is a violation of some kind on every possession in every basketball game played.

 

I violated yer mom last night....... again.

[Underdog 28,870]

3 second violation?