MVN - Most Valuable Network

From the Office of the Taking it to the Rack Handicappers

It is with deep regret that we must announce that the results of the Taking it to the Rack Handicappers for 2006-07, our inaugural season, will have to be wiped off the books.

The New York Post has reported that the FBI is investigating an as of yet unnamed longtime NBA referee for his role in a New York-based crime ring, a role that included gambling on basketball and shaving points throughout the last two seasons.

According to Murray Weiss’s article on the matter, the official is on the verge of being arrested by federal law enforcement agents and is believed to have intentionally prejudiced the outcome of an absolute minimum of ten games that he officiated over the seasons in question.

With this information in hand, the fact of the matter is that we really have no idea how largely NBA handicapping has been affected over this time period. Thousands of dollars have been won, an unknown quantity of games has been altered, and handicapping results across the globe have been skewed. We do not even have the beginnings of an idea of what the full scope of effects of this referee’s actions.

What it comes down to for us as the Taking it to the Rack Handicappers are concerned is integrity. We know that there is an incredible likelihood that at least a portion of the games we have handicapped for you, the faithful reader, were tampered with. We know that there is certainly a possibility that a truly great number of our handicapped games were affected.

All this in mind, we cannot in good conscience continue to consider our world-class handicapping work of the 2006-07 season as legitimate as we once thought it was. It seems only right to wipe the slate clean of our profitable one-year handicapping history and start from the very beginning at the outset of the 2007-08 season.

We kindly ask that you take this moment to join us as we wave a teary-eyed goodbye to the 152 wins, 185 losses, and .451 winning percentage we accumulated after our founding on March 5, 2007.

We are sorry for the inconvenience, and please know that this deletion of records pains us as much as it does you. On behalf of the entire panel — Boof, Tek and Acks (who founded the idea for this public statement) — we offer up our sincerest apologies for any time wasted in following us through what is turning out to be a fraud of a handicapping season.

Taking it to the Rack Handicapping Enterprises is sorely disappointed. We devoted much time this past season to establishing ourselves as top-of-the-line prognosticators, and our record assuredly showed that. But as the adage goes, the best laid-plans of mice, men and handicappers often go awry.

Rest assured that we plan to redouble our efforts to doing everything in our power to continue to demonstrate our abundant acumen of NBA knowledge and sports prediction ability over the seasons to come. We will not let this crimp in initial success bring us down, nor shall we let you down.

For the final time, goodbye to 152-185 and .451.

And good riddance.

This has been a true travesty indeed.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 21st, 2007 at 12:01 am and is filed under NBA Police Blotter, Stephen Minakyan, NBA Point-Shaving, 2006-07 NBA Season, 2006-07 NBA Handicapping, 2007 NBA Off-Season, NBA Officials, General NBA, NBA Handicapping, Tek Kothary, Steve Weinman, Blogroll. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.