The NBA, Cheating: Where Do I Begin

Despite all of the grotesque things we have witnessed humans do throughout the course of our respective lifetimes, we often choose to disregard them or turn a blind eye, particularly in matters involving television. I speak particularly of sports, and secondly of the media in general. In this day and age, I'm finding myself more and more disillusioned to the integrity of the media. Gone are the days of Woodward, Bernstein, and "Deepthroat," replaced by Spygate and Tim Donaghy. Apples and oranges? Not necessarily. In the end, it's integrity. The media is paid to do one job: report the news objectively. Less of it is "just the facts ma'am" type reporting, and more of it is speculative, opinionated, garbage. A fist-pound between Barack and Michelle Obama is not news (and it's not time to add in your editorial, garbage, and uneducated / ignorant opinion). It has little to do with his campaign. The point at hand is the media has become more and more of a format for controlling what the casual watcher does and does not watch or care about.

Truehoop had an excellent story on the Donaghy betting scandal, even interviewing a professional gambler. Now, before you start saying "what credibility does that guy have," realize that a professional gambler has the most at stake. It's no different than attempting to trade stocks or buy and sell currrency. And, betting is legal in most states and jurisdictions, just not bookeeping.

A quck excerpt from a long and detailed interview:

I can say with a large degree of certainty that this game was one of the more blatant fixes. That Phoenix vs. New York game was a game that I was told was bet by the crew associated with [alleged Donaghy co-conspirator James "Baa Baa"] Batista, it was also a game where Phoenix shot 14 free throws in regulation and New York shot 36.

There aren't that many games in the last five or six years where a team had a 20 point free throw edge. In a sample of 6,373 games I show there being 167 games where the home team shot 20 more free throws than the visiting team, and 78 where the visiting team shot more. I hate trotting out numbers to prove my point because you can cherry-pick whatever statistics you want, but I think if someone with an objective eye goes and watches this game, focusing on Donaghy especially they'll come away thinking that it was pretty clear the Knicks got a huge advantage in the game.

To me, this piece is very interesting. Again, I say a professional gambler can be likened to one who buys and sells stocks or currency. He does the research, he knows the trends, he understands the statistics because he peruses through the statistics. And with sites like 82games.com tracking back to these statistics isn't quite so hard as one might think.

He also offers this:

What do you think about how the NBA has handled the Tim Donaghy investigation?
From a league perspective they have done a great job sweeping this scandal under the rug, and downplaying it.

I keep on reading how Donaghy "provided information" as though this was the crux of the scandal.

The guy fixed games. He didn't "provide information" he bet on games he was working, and made calls to insure he would win those bets. It's pretty basic stuff but the NBA has somehow turned the focus of the whole investigation away from this and instead focused on the "inside information" angle.

I understand what the league is trying to do, I think in this instance the truth doesn't jibe with the league's best interest. In that respect the League and the Commissioner have done a great job of downplaying the scandal.

Interesting. What's even more interesting is that after this piece was published Donaghy came out and said he wasn't alone. He even claimed that the NBA front-office worked with referees to fix playoff games. (?!?!) Of course, Stern comes out and immediately rebukes this notion, and says these claims are baseless. But what else did you think he was going to say.

The problem is in searching for major coverage on Donaghy's claims, there isn't much out there. But then this story pops up. Ex-FBI Agent vouches for Donaghy's claims. And we're not talking about just a run-of-the-mill FBI Agent:

The man who put away John Gotti, baby-sat Sammy (Bull) Gravano, raided an Al Qaeda bomb factory and helped uncover the NBA betting scandal says Tim Donaghy told the truth.

Philip Scala, the recently retired FBI supervisory special agent in charge of the Gambino squad, which uncovered Donaghy's scheme of betting on basketball games he had officiated, said he believes the disgraced referee's claims that other refs were dirty.

Interesting...Your move Commissioner Stern. Does it hurt to investigate? Yes. But in this world integrity is EVERYTHING. And since you were once a lawyer (insert lawyer jokes here) you should know better. Plus the fact that you run a multi-billion dollar organization. We need transparency.