One of the more interesting NBA developments from the weekend had to do with something the NBA wants nothing to do with.
Tim Donaghy, the former NBA ref who was revealed to have bet tens of thousands of dollars on NBA games during the 2005-06 and 2006-07 seasons, was supposed to have a tell-all book entitled “Blowing the Whistle: The Culture of Fraud in the NBA” released later in November. However, late last week, the publishers for that book canceled it over issues of liability.
In today’s world though, nothing stays a secret. So who better than the folks at Deadspin to get their hands on some of the excerpts from the book that should have been?
You can click on that link to see all the pertinent excerpts that Deadspin was able to acquire. Many have questioned the validity of the book and the accusations that Donaghy makes in them.
But I don’t care about the credibility of the guy — or the lack thereof. I don’t doubt for a second that things like what you’re about to read have gone down and continue to do so today. And especially in a league — the NBA — considered by many to be the hardest to officiate based on the speed of the game and the unfavorable officials-to-players ratio on the court at one time.
Here are some of the ones that I found to be — by far — the most interesting:
You would think that the NBA would love a guy who plays such great defense. Think again! Star stoppers hurt the promotion of marquee players. Fans don’t pay high prices to see players like Raja Bell — they pay to see superstars like Kobe Bryant score 40 points. Basketball purists like to see good defense, but the NBA wants the big names to score big points.
If a player of Kobe’s stature collides with the likes of Raja Bell, the call will almost always go for Kobe and against Bell. As part of our ongoing training and game preparation, NBA referees regularly receive game-action video tape from the league office. Over the years, I have reviewed many recorded hours of video involving Raja Bell. The footage I analyzed usually illustrated fouls being called against Bell, rarely for him. The message was subtle but clear — call fouls against the star stopper because he’s hurting the game.
If Kobe Bryant had two fouls in the first or second quarter and went to the bench, one referee would tell the other two, “Kobe’s got two fouls. Let’s make sure that if we call a foul on him, it’s an obvious foul, because otherwise he’s gonna go back to the bench. If he is involved in a play where a foul is called, give the foul to another player.”
Similarly, when games got physically rough, we would huddle up and agree to tighten the game up. So we started calling fouls on guys who didn’t really matter — “ticky-tack” or “touch” fouls where one player just touched another but didn’t really impede his progress. Under regular circumstances these wouldn’t be fouls, but after a skirmish we wanted to regain control. We would never call these types of fouls on superstars, just on the average players who didn’t have star status. It was important to keep the stars on the floor.
As a Cavs fan, I have wondered for a while why LeBron James never — never, ever, ever — seems to get in foul trouble. Seriously, help me out if I’m wrong here. When’s the last time you watched a Cavs game and saw LeBron in foul trouble?
More on preferential treatment:
Madison Square Garden was the place to be for a marquee matchup between the Miami Heat and New York Knicks. I worked the game with Derrick Stafford and Gary Zielinski, knowing that the Knicks were a sure bet to get favorable treatment that night. Derrick Stafford had a close relationship with Knicks coach Isiah Thomas, and he despised Heat coach Pat Riley. I picked the Knicks without batting an eye and settled in for a roller-coaster ride on the court.
During pregame warm-ups, Shaquille O’Neal approached Stafford and asked him to let some air out of the ball.
“Is this the game ball?” O’Neal asked. “It’s too hard. C’mon, D, let a little air out of it.”
Stafford then summoned one of the ball boys, asked for an air needle, and let some air out of the ball, getting a big wink and a smile from O’Neal.
Ever see a game where one of the coaches just goes over-the-top bonkers? Well, would you be surprised after reading this?
I remember one nightmarish game I worked with Joe Crawford and Phil Robinson. Minnesota and New Orleans were in a tight game going into the last minute, and Crawford told us to make sure that we were 100 percent sure of the call every time we blew the whistle. When play resumed, Minnesota coach Flip Saunders started yelling at us to make a call. Robinson got intimidated and blew the whistle on New Orleans. The only problem was it wasn’t the right call.
Tim Floyd, the Hornets’ coach, went nuts. He stormed the court and kicked the ball into the top row of the stadium. Robinson had to throw him out, and Minnesota won the game.
[...]
Later that week, Ronnie Nunn told me that we could have made something up at the other end against Minnesota to even things out. He even got specific — maybe we should have considered calling a traveling violation on Kevin Garnett. Talk about the politics of the game! Of course the official statement from the league office will always read, “There is no such thing as a makeup call.”
On the tendencies of other referees, most notably Dick Bavetta:
That very first time Jack and I bet on an NBA game, Dick [Bavetta] was on the court. The team we picked lost the game, but it covered the large point spread and that’s how we won the money. Because of the matchup that night, I had some notion of who might win the game, but that’s not why I was confident enough to pull the trigger and pick the other team. The real reason I picked the losing team was that I was just about certain they would cover the spread, no matter how badly they played. That is where Dick Bavetta comes into the picture.
From my earliest involvement with Bavetta, I learned that he likes to keep games close, and that when a team gets down by double-digit points, he helps the players save face. He accomplishes this act of mercy by quietly, and frequently, blowing the whistle on the team that’s having the better night. Team fouls suddenly become one-sided between the contestants, and the score begins to tighten up. That’s the way Dick Bavetta referees a game — and everyone in the league knew it.
[...]
Studying under Dick Bavetta for 13 years was like pursuing a graduate degree in advanced game manipulation. He knew how to marshal the tempo and tone of a game better than any referee in the league, by far. He also knew how to take subtle — and not so subtle — cues from the NBA front office and extend a playoff series or, worse yet, change the complexion of that series.
And about that ill-fated Game 6 of the 2002 Western Conference Finals between Sacramento and Los Angeles at Staples Center? How can Donaghy not mention that game?
The 2002 Western Conference Finals between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Sacramento Kings presents a stunning example of game and series manipulation at its ugliest. As the teams prepared for Game 6 at the Staples Center, Sacramento had a 3–2 lead in the series. The referees assigned to work Game 6 were Dick Bavetta, Bob Delaney, and Ted Bernhardt. As soon as the referees for the game were chosen, the rest of us knew immediately that there would be a Game 7. A prolonged series was good for the league, good for the networks, and good for the game. Oh, and one more thing: it was great for the big-market, star-studded Los Angeles Lakers.
In the pregame meeting prior to Game 6, the league office sent down word that certain calls — calls that would have benefitted the Lakers — were being missed by the referees. This was the type of not-so-subtle information that I and other referees were left to interpret. After receiving the dispatch, Bavetta openly talked about the fact that the league wanted a Game 7.
“If we give the benefit of the calls to the team that’s down in the series, nobody’s going to complain. The series will be even at three apiece, and then the better team can win Game 7,” Bavetta stated.
As history shows, Sacramento lost Game 6 in a wild come-from-behind thriller that saw the Lakers repeatedly sent to the foul line by the referees. For other NBA referees watching the game on television, it was a shameful performance by Bavetta’s crew, one of the most poorly officiated games of all time.
And it turns out that the ‘02 West Final was just the tip of the iceberg for a guy like Bavetta. Remember another thrilling Western Conference Final involving the Lakers that also went seven?
The 2002 series certainly wasn’t the first or last time Bavetta weighed in on an important game. He also worked Game 7 of the 2000 Western Conference Finals between the Lakers and the Trail Blazers. The Lakers were down by 13 at the start of the fourth quarter when Bavetta went to work. The Lakers outscored Portland 31–13 in the fourth quarter and went on to win the game and the series. It certainly didn’t hurt the Lakers that they got to shoot 37 free throws compared to a paltry 16 for the Trail Blazers.
What about that ‘07 second-round series between San Antonio and Phoenix that became one of the most controversial of all time? Ask Tommy Nunez. Nothing mentioned about the Robert Horry-to-Steve Nash bodycheck, but definitely some fishy business going on in that series:
My favorite Tommy Nunez story is from the 2007 playoffs when the San Antonio Spurs were able to get past the Phoenix Suns in the second round. Of course, what many fans didn’t know was that Phoenix had someone working against them behind the scenes. Nunez was the group supervisor for that playoff series, and he definitely had a rooting interest.
Nunez loved the Hispanic community in San Antonio and had a lot of friends there. He had been a referee for 30 years and loved being on the road; in fact, he said that the whole reason he had become a group supervisor was to keep getting out of the house. So Nunez wanted to come back to San Antonio for the conference finals. Plus, he, like many other referees, disliked Suns owner Robert Sarver for the way he treated officials. Both of these things came into play when he prepared the referees for the games in the staff meetings. I remember laughing with him and saying, “You would love to keep coming back here.” He was pointing out everything that Phoenix was able to get away with and never once told us to look for anything in regard to San Antonio. Nunez should have a championship ring on his finger.
Those are just the parts that intrigued me the most. Oh, there’s much more on Deadspin in case you didn’t get a chance to read it last week.
I’m trying to think of controversial calls involving the Cavs over the past several years, especially in the postseason, but I can’t. But objectively, I’m sure that many of these so-called “fixes” — if they ever involved the Cavaliers, which they undoubtedly have, I’m sure — probably went in Cleveland’s favor due to LeBron James. And I am talking about game-altering fixes, not fixes that affect the point spread.
One thing that I can’t understand however is how the league somehow “allowed” the Spurs to win four championships. It has been proven over and over again that the Spurs are bad for the league’s ratings and popularity, yet at a time when the league needed to rebound from the downtime post-Jordan, it’s San Antonio that created a dynasty by winning four ‘chips in a nine-year span. Does this say a lot more these Tim Duncan/San Antonio teams than what they’ve accomplished on paper?
Again, I’m sure I’m not alone when I say I have a hard time separating fact from fiction after reading these excerpts. But one thing’s for sure: it definitely changes the way I will observe NBA games from here on out.
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