LOL...NBA

I think would be the absolute last theing that David Stern would want to hear right now.

 

If Donaghey got away with it for this long, he couldn't have been too stupid about it. It sounds like he just made lots of borderline calls to push the over, although that Game 3 does look suspiciously fixed for San Antonio. People were saying that before any of this stuff even came out.

 

this video apparently shows Donaghy directing a warriors player, not guarding anyone, to move from the lane late in a Bulls-GS tie game. read somewhere that it should have been a technical -- two shots (?) and possession for the bulls. donaghy is working the baseline and actually grabs the guy (I think it's number 15), directing him out of the lane.

 

seems like every game i watch is fixed for san antonio. some teams seem blessed. some players, in particular, are allowed to do whatever they want. tim duncan gets away with murder because he's got the reputation of being "fundamentally sound". so when he uses two hands to shove people under the basket going for a board, it's just how you play basketball. of course, the burning question is why the nba would want to fix the games in the spurs favor.

that's the biggest problem with referees, imo -- there's too much respect given to vets and too much fitering the game based on what you think a player can accomplish. jason kidd used to get every charge called in his favor a few years ago because he's a good player and if a good player jumps in front of an inferior player, then the inferior player must have fouled him -- that block on nash was a classic call kidd would get a few years ago.

if you really wanted to fix games, you'd look at the teams playing and then decide to call the game in a style that helps the team you favor. everybody accepts that each game will be called a bit different in terms of how much contact is allowed and where -- like some games the bigs will be allowed to bang and some games they won't. sometimes a dribbler will get every call where he's impeded in the slightest and other times it takes more contact to get a whistle. rather than trying to fix particular games directly, it would be better to look for an edge that pays out over time and work more subtly.

 

we're going to be flooded with these now. i have no idea what he was doing with beidrins(sp) but it looked like he was taking something from him -- like maybe debris from the court that beidrins picked up. he was already out of the lane when the contact took place. there's an unwritten rule that refs don't call anything other than murder when the game gets down to the wire like this -- calling a guy for a defensive 3 would have been worse than not calling him. and we'd be looking at it right now on youtube if that call was made by donaghy.

 

yeah, I wasn't lending the claim any legitimacy, just pointing out, as you said, that the microscopes are gonna come out.

 

Well, no. You are making it a lot harder than it has to be. What you describe in this quote is what a trend playing gambler does. Trend players look for repeated situations that they think may give them an edge. "Dallas is 1-9 ATS in their last 10 games that are the second of back-to-back games", etc.

Fixers don't do trends that lead to a possible edge. They do fixed. As in 100% sure on that day, for that game. And you don't do sides. You do totals. All you have to do then is keep blowing the whistle.

 

Or swallow it.

 

It's still a lot easier to help get a total over than to try and have a hand in keeping it under. Even with swallowing the whistle, someone could go batshit for 50 that day without your help.

 

Yeah - I can't see them going for the under very often. I meant that the ref can stay the hell out of the way if the are getting into a run and gun scenario.