Van Gundy fined 100 Gs

[T Park]

And for saying a ref called him and said the league told the refs to look at Yao Ming harder, because of pressure from MarK Cuban.


If this is true???


Not, the kind of news you wanna hear.

[CosmicCowboy]

link?

[T Park]

just heard it on the radio.

When they invent links from the radio I'll let you know.

[Kori Ellis]

It's true.

Associated Press

DALLAS May 2, 2005 — The NBA fined Houston Rockets coach Jeff Van Gundy $100,000 the largest amount ever for a coach on Monday, a day after accusing officials of targeting center Yao Ming this postseason and saying Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban is to blame.

Speaking to three reporters at the team hotel in Dallas on Sunday night, Van Gundy said a referee not working the playoffs called him and warned that officials "were looking at Yao harder because of Mark's complaints" to the league office. He said that Cuban "has been hard on them," and "he's gotten the benefit."

"I didn't think that really worked in the NBA, but in this case it has," Van Gundy said, declining to identify the official he spoke to.

At a shootaround Monday before Game 5 of the series, Van Gundy said: "I stand by what I said. I believe it. I know what was told to me, and I've seen how it played out."

That was hours before the fine was announced. At the time, Van Gundy said he'd only been told not to say anything more about it.

"I didn't expect them to come out and say it was true, though," Van Gundy said.

The series was tied at two games each going into Monday's fifth game, which was to be attended by NBA commissioner David Stern.

Van Gundy said he got a call from his friend who is an official after Houston took a 2-0 lead. The coach said he was told the targeting of Yao was mentioned in an online evaluation from supervisor of officials Ronnie Nunn.

"No such directive was given to the officials regarding Yao Ming or any other player or team in the playoffs," NBA vice president Stu Jackson said in a statement released late Sunday to reporters from KRIV-TV, The New York Times and the Houston Chronicle, the three media outlets present when Van Gundy made his comments.

Cuban, who has been fined more than $1 million since buying the team five years ago, said in an e-mail that the accusations were "crazy" and "an insult to officials." He also noted that Dallas center Erick Dampier has picked up quick fouls in every game in this series.

[SpursFanDan]

I believe it.. I actually heard about this during game 4. Cuban is a little balding bitch.. does he think that we cant see that his hair is incredibly thin, and his mouth is ridiculously large. i just hate him,.. i'll find any reason to. Kudos to him for discovering internet radio.. which would of been discovered sooner or later.. but F him for trying to persuade the officials.. which i guess he has successfully done.

as for Yao and the moving screens.. he does move.. and so does duncan... and everyone else in the league... cuban just had to target one player. Dont you just love mings expression when a foul is called on him.. you would think he never commits a foul.

[polandprzem]

just heard it on the radio.

When they invent links from the radio I'll let you know.

They inveted couple years ago. But only army can use it.
It is Top secret.

ps. Maybe CIA Pop knows more about that
:smokin

[T Park]

is a little balding bitch.. does he think that we cant see that his hair is incredibly thin,

I said this to Exstatic the other night at the Spurs game.

Dude's hair has VANISHED.

He has a little bald spot in the back same as Manu, and a line down the middle of his head that is going too.

He is loosing his hair quick and bad.

[Rick Von Braun]

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/playoffs2005/news/story?id=2051807

[nkdlunch]

DAMN! now that's a fine

[boutons]

I hope the $100K out of their coach's pocket buys all the motivation the Rockets could ever use. Take the Mavs tonight and Thur night.

I'm so sick of TV showing Cuban's puss during the games.

[MiNuS]

Karl should be fined too for the stupid comments on the referrees and the white hat,black hat comment.He's trying to make this a black & white issue!

fools gold!

$250k !

[Phenomanul]

If the league fined him that much.... It must be true...

Otherwise it would have been a "slap on the wrist" fine of 10 or 20K at the most....

But because it shed light on some shady business... they only made themselves look more guilty by exacting 100K out of the ugly Van Gundy...

I bet Gundy's wife is furious... the new Cadillac she wanted will no longer be purchased.

[ShoogarBear]

Brilliant move by Gumby.

He just out-Cubaned Cuban. The Fairy Benefactor will have to STFU for the rest of the series.

[texbumTHElife]

Hold up hold up....

Cuban bitched about the refs and got nothing.

Van Gundy pointed out the fact that Cuban bitched about the refs and that he was TOLD it was effecting the officiating and HE gets fined?

I am telling you guys, something aint right with the refs this year. I am not saying any one team has it better of than anyone else but the officiating this year has been terrible.

*cue timvp

[mookie2001]

Cuban most likely did do that

people with obscene amounts of money think it gives them extra rights as a human, and sadly it often does

[Obstructed_View]

Cuban has been awfully quiet this year, and the Mavs get a lot of calls. Those two charging calls on Yao were complete BS.

...although it might have helped Van Gundy to mention it BEFORE the two games at home if he was going to talk about it.

[tsb2000]

He also noted that Dallas center Erick Dampier has picked up quick fouls in every game in this series.

Maybe that's becuase Dampier can't guard Yao any better than I could! :lol

[ALVAREZ6]

Now that's what Melo deserves to pay...

[nkdlunch]

What can be worse than Cuban trying to influence the refs?

the refs actualy listening to him!!!!

that's dissapointing

[Spurminator]

Oops, I missed this thread and posted in the NBA Forum. I even looked for one first.

Somebody shoot me.

[ShoogarBear]

:makemyday

[ALVAREZ6]

Mark Cuban is a bitch.

[grjr]

Can we get Cuban to call about Shaq if we play the Heat in the finals?

[Obstructed_View]

I'm sorry you are a paranoid freak. :)

[Jimcs50]

I said this to Exstatic the other night at the Spurs game.

Dude's hair has VANISHED.

He has a little bald spot in the back same as Manu, and a line down the middle of his head that is going too.

He is loosing his hair quick and bad.


You can shave my head bald and glue the hair to my ass for Cuban's money.

[Kori Ellis]

VINDICATION.....you guys can apologize to me one at a time.

don't you guys get it. the league actually calls games in favor of one team or another......then makes Van Gundy shut up with a big fine. sounds like organized crime to me.

If you actually believe that, why would you watch?

[Jimcs50]

Now tonight has a lot more spice to it than before.

[Obstructed_View]

If you actually believe that, why would you watch?
He doesn't. He says things like that so he can say "see? I told ya" if his team loses.

[FromWayDowntown]

It will be interesting to see this on a long-term basis. If there is truth to what Van Gundy said, the league will be on a witchhunt to out the official who spilled the beans. If there's an odd firing of a pretty good official before next season, I'd think we'd have our answer.

I can believe that the league responds to criticism by being hypervigilant about calling certain things, but I can't believe that it dictates calls to favor one team or another. If it did, and it was ever found out, the NBA would be over. Ever catch the movie "Quiz Show," or hear about the Congressional investigation into the rigging of "21?" In this day and age, with self-aggrandizing politicians and the amounts of money at stake, the NBA couldn't survive an investigation with a smoking gun pointing to dictated results and fraud upon fans.

[Obstructed_View]

Seriously, they mentioned that the Mavericks had pointed out Yao's moving screens, and if the league said "hey, watch Yao's moving screens" and the refs call Yao for a moving screen, how is that a bad thing?

Somebody in these playoffs, I can't remember who, carries the ball more than most people do as he's coming up the court. If his opponent told the league that he does it, and the league agrees, they are going to tell the officials to watch for it.

Van Gundy made it sound like something nefarious, and the league slammed him for it.

[ShoogarBear]

Seriously, they mentioned that the Mavericks had pointed out Yao's moving screens, and if the league said "hey, watch Yao's moving screens" and the refs call Yao for a moving screen, how is that a bad thing?


There's nothing wrong with that. The problem is when you use the media to point things out, you leave the league with a Hobson's choice: either look like they're responding to your whining (which then encourages more public complaining from the other side), or continue to let the illegal stuff go.

I'm positive Pop and the Spurs ask the league to watch certain things. They're just smart enough not to do it in the media.

[picnroll]

Didn't Dirk make a living moving on screens he set for Nash Mark?

[SilverPlayer]

my 2 cents. Its odd that the fine was so big, it certainly adds fuel to the fire that reffing isn't fair. But I don't believe they are biased towards any teams. They just flat out suck. And this year seems demonstrably worse than previous years. They need to get better, and they need to stop anticipating calls. It's ruining the game.

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

It's pretty pathetic considering what came out of Melo and Karl's mouths after game 3 that they aren't getting the same.

I don't even think they fined Karl and he flat out said the calls were bullshit. If that doesn't deserve a fine, I don't know what does.

[Pandaemonaeon]

Cuban is a little bitch but his accusations have some merit to them, considering that T-Mac himself, admitted that he was able to score via Yao's moving screen.

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

Gimme a break. There isn't a team in the league that doesn't use moving screens, including your beloved _allas Mavericks.

Anyone who counters otherwise either isn't watching the games or doesn't know shit about basketball.

[Obstructed_View]

I'm watching Rockettes Mavs right now and Dirk just set a moving pick that wasn't called right as I pulled up this thread. He set a second one as I was typing this.

[Jimcs50]

I'm watching Rockettes Mavs right now and Dirk just set a moving pick that wasn't called right as I pulled up this thread. He set a second one as I was typing this.


There are 20 moving picks every game.

[Obstructed_View]

There are 20 moving picks every game.
Precisely my point.

[FromWayDowntown]

Stern's comments last night sure made it sound as if the punishment was not necessarily for the comments, but for Van Gundy's apparent refusal to name his source. The comments alone were pretty pedestrian stuff -- implicating an NBA official as having disclosed the discussion of a conference call with the league's officials is, I think, what got Stern's gander up. I also suspect that Stern's going to try to smoke the source out somehow and will threaten Van Gundy with stricter and stricter punishments until the source is revealed. {ve have vays of making you talk . . . }

[Gatita]

The Commissioner made his point... no one is going to spread lies and talk shit about the officiating.

RALEIGH, North Carolina (Reuters) - Houston Rockets coach Jeff Van Gundy, already fined a record $100,000 by the NBA, could be banned from the league if he continues to publicly criticize officials, commissioner David Stern said.

[Ed Helicopter Jones]

I said this to Exstatic the other night at the Spurs game.

Dude's hair has VANISHED.

He has a little bald spot in the back same as Manu, and a line down the middle of his head that is going too.

He is loosing his hair quick and bad.

Screw you guys! Just wait until you're in your mid to late 30's damnit! :flipoff




:lol

[Gatita]

Screw you guys! Just wait until you're in your mid to late 30's damnit! :flipoff




:lol

I would hope that most men in their mid 30s would still have their hair!!!
But, then again most men in their mid 30s aren't stressed out by coaching the Rockets.

[TwoHandJam]

NBA officiating will continue to be poor until there is a neutral body that oversees the ref evaluation process. As long as refs police their own, there can never true quality and impartiality.

Period.

[Mr. Body]

In this day and age, with self-aggrandizing politicians and the amounts of money at stake, the NBA couldn't survive an investigation with a smoking gun pointing to dictated results and fraud upon fans.

They'd survive. In this day and age, it's all about the money in D.C. and getting some lobbyist to buff some congressman's car. People in power never take out other positions of power; they take out the little people.

That said, the massive amount of JVG's fine alone suggests he's gotten a little too close to the truth, or some kind of truth. And they need to shut him up. The threat of a lifetime ban is overreaching so far it isn't even funny. You can choke a coach or beat up a by-standing fan and come back the next year and if you suggest some odd practices instigated by the biggest crybaby owner in the league, you get tossed on your ear for life?

That, in my eyes, screams cover up.

[Slomo]

They'd survive. In this day and age, it's all about the money in D.C. and getting some lobbyist to buff some congressman's car. People in power never take out other positions of power; they take out the little people.

That said, the massive amount of JVG's fine alone suggests he's gotten a little too close to the truth, or some kind of truth. And they need to shut him up. The threat of a lifetime ban is overreaching so far it isn't even funny. You can choke a coach or beat up a by-standing fan and come back the next year and if you suggest some odd practices instigated by the biggest crybaby owner in the league, you get tossed on your ear for life?

That, in my eyes, screams cover up.
Very good point! The reaction does not match the "crime".

[Taco]

http://msn.foxsports.com/nba/story/3588876

Van Gundy isn't problem ... refs are
Kevin Hench / FOXSports.com
Posted: 55 minutes ago

OK, David Stern, you made your point.

You don't want NBA coaches talking publicly about the terrible officiating in the NBA. You don't want NBA coaches protecting their sources on inside information about the terrible officiating in the NBA. You don't want hardworking, passionate, decent men coaching in the NBA if they are going to be so impolitic as to point out the terrible officiating in the NBA.
Now, do you have any plans to actually do anything about the terrible officiating in the NBA?

If Jeff Van Gundy can be fined $100,000 for suggesting that he was tipped off by an NBA ref that the league was going to be "looking harder at Yao" in the playoffs — which may very well be true — then what does Mr. Stern propose to do about the unconscionable sixth foul called on Tim Duncan in last night's overtime against Denver?

With two minutes gone in OT, Carmelo Anthony slipped and fell — in the same spot that Andre Miller slipped earlier, by the way — and so the whistle blew. Why? Because the whistle always blows. (Unless it absolutely should, in which case it is often swallowed.) And when the whistle blows, everything stops. And everyone looks at the official who only then realizes the gravity of the situation. He has to call SOMETHING.

In this case, the official, having assumed a foul must have been committed, then had to look for a perpetrator and found only Duncan in the vicinity. Sorry. You're gone. Replays showed what viewers and broadcasters suspected: Anthony slipped. So this ref not only blew a call at a critical moment of a critical game, but he tagged a superstar with his sixth foul.

So what will his fine be? How about five hundred bucks? Perhaps a one-game suspension? Don't hold your breath. Lucky for Stern and his beleaguered officials, the Spurs won going away in overtime in what TNT's Charles Barkley called "one of the worst-officiated games I've seen in my 20 years associated with the NBA."

But Van Gundy's Rockets weren't lucky enough to survive the worst call of the night. Or rather, the worst non-call, which — horror of horrors — happened with Commissioner Stern in attendance.

With Houston making a run to close within three in the final minute, Rockets guard Jon Barry secured a defensive rebound under the basket. Since Barry himself was practically on the baseline, it's safe to assume that any defender that swooped in under his left elbow would be out of bounds. So when Michael Finley reached in from the baseline side of Barry and poked the ball free, Bennett Salvatore, Joe DeRosa or Tony Brothers would have to blow his whistle, right?

Right?

Nope. Like the rest of us, Salvatore and company just looked on doing nothing as the ball bounced to Jerry Stackhouse, who was tripped by Barry and awarded two crucial free throws.

According to Van Gundy, Salvatore claimed Finley had indeed been inbounds when he reached in and touched the ball. Wow.

Won't Mr. Salvatore be surprised when he sees the replay. Was Finley's right foot inbounds and his left foot on the line? No. Was Finley's left foot out of bounds and his right foot on the line? No. Were both of Finley's feet completely freakin' out of bounds? YESSSSSSS!!!

So what will the sanctions be against Salvatore's crew for contributing mightily to the Rockets' 103-100 loss? The usual. Nothing.


Antoine Walker can get suspended for making contact with an official — in what had been the worst-officiated game of the playoffs prior to Spurs-Nuggets last night — and Van Gundy can be fined 100 large for divulging certain details of a private conversation and then not giving up his friend, but when will NBA officials be publicly held to account for doing a poor job?

Stern's answer seems to be to come down hard on the complainers and hope it will distract the fans from the larger problem. But he's missing the solution.

Replay. Replay, replay, replay, a thousand times replay!

If it's good enough to see if a shot was released in time or if a toe was on the line, why not to see if a player was inbounds when he made contact with the ball?

Both of Monday night's horrible calls could have been overturned by replay. Give coaches two challenges per game or per half, or one per game, but give them something. Anything to avoid officials deciding games. If throwing the red flag has already been taken, maybe they could roll a red-white-and-blue ball onto the court to signify a challenge.

Do you think Bennett Salvatore wants to feel like a jackass when he watches that replay and realizes not only did his crew blow the call but that he erroneously defended the non-call to the losing coach? Of course not.

On a play like Finley reaching in from out of bounds, a ref would happily overturn his own ruling and award the ball to the aggrieved team.

Same with those pesky block/charge calls when the refs are always guessing as to whether the defender's heels have cleared the circle under the basket. How many hundreds of times during the regular season does the replay reveal an official's error on this call? Sometimes the defender gets called for a block when his heels are hovering just above the circle, and sometimes the penetrator gets called for a charge when the defender's heels are on the line. It's an impossible call to make with any certainty when massive bodies are flying at high speeds.

So in the pressure cooker of the playoffs, let's just acknowledge that refs make mistakes that television cameras can rectify and use the technology to take some of the heat off the officials.

There's a reason so many calls are missed in the NBA — it's an almost impossible game to officiate. If you've ever been courtside when the combustible mixture of freakish giants and blazing sprinters (and freakish giant, blazing sprinters) all collide in pursuit of a rebound, you know it's simply impossible to have a perfect night as an NBA ref.

So why not help the refs, the coaches and the fans? NBA games don't run that long. There's time for a handful of challenges. Just to get the calls right.

Or you can threaten to run Jeff Van Gundy, one of the genuine good guys in the league, out of the game. It's your choice, David Stern.


Kevin Hench is supervising producer of The Sports List on Fox Sports Net.

[Mr. Body]

I just read that Fox Sports article. Very wise, very good article. I agree - NBA basketball is so fast, so dynamic, that it's impossible for even three talented officials to see everything as it happens. Much less three untalented or over-the-hill officials, like they have nowadays. That's the reason for a lot of superstar calls, in my mind: refs simply can't get in position to see everything and so give a lot of calls to the established star over the scrub.

I see no large reasons why a replay system shouldn't be used. One problem is how fluid the game is - there's none of the starts and extended stops of football, the next play happens immediately - but there can be some solution found. Why not have a fourth 'referee' posted with a television to look at plays where the refs are uncertain about the outcome? There'd be none of that 'umps stare at each other in fear, realizing none of them saw what happened and thousands of fans are going to see it up on the Jumbotron in a few minutes' kinds of look.

But it looks like David Stern is intent on circling the wagons and protecting his little fiefdom.

[nkdlunch]

Van Gundy fucked up. Stern got pissed and there's your fine. Teams call the NBA all the time to complain about officials or calls, its common knowledge. It's been like that for years, you think teams haven't called the NBA to look at Shaq more closely in past playoffs? And the NBA has to listen to those complaints.

Plus the officials are always having meetings and talks about players and who to look closely and who not to. That's normal too. You think they haven't talked about Manu after Karl bitched like a little girl?

Van Gundy fucked up because he made it seem like a "conspiracy". Although I'm sure Cuban is the bitchiest owner in the whole NBA, and probably has Stern's number in speed dial. I think the NBA is handling the officiating horribly and last night's Spurs game is proof.

[TwoHandJam]

Seeing this article gives me hope but makes me angry at the same time that Stern is so belligerent about protecting his blessed officials.

Here is a post I wrote back in March: link (http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?p=178827)


Have you ever tried to get a friend to start watching the NBA? Usually the first comment out of their mouths is "I don't understand what a foul is." That's because from one game to the next - and even within the same game, what qualifies as a foul seems pretty subjective at times. The refs just aren't as good as they could be imo.

The glaring problem with NBA refs is that they are allowed to police their own. They are supposed to review and reprimand any underperforming refs with the ultimate authority being the director of officials - himself a referee.

This. Never. Works. Any psychology undergrad will tell you that people cannot be trusted to police themselves because they always have their own best interests at heart. Nobody wants to fire one of their own for incompetence. It's the reason that any investigation in police misconduct for example is invetigated by the department of internal affairs - a separate and presumably more neutral third party organization.

I think the NBA could do two things to improve the quality of its refs:

1) Create a neutral third party to review referee performance and hire/fire refs.

2) Change the rules such that each coach could challenge a call once per half. I don't think this would have an adverse effect in terms of slowing down the game. You could even remove one full and/or one 20sec timeout from the current allotment to compensate as I think they're too many timeouts in games anyway.
How many times have we seen a blown call on a big screen instant replay with no repercussion for the ref? Too many times for my liking. With a challenge system like in football, the ref could get immediate feedback on his error and it would be very public as to just how good a particular ref is over time. The penalty for an erroneous challenge could be something like 2fts and loss of possession. I don't think one challenge per half would be detrimental to the speed of the game.

Here are some of the highlights of the article above:


Antoine Walker can get suspended for making contact with an official — in what had been the worst-officiated game of the playoffs prior to Spurs-Nuggets last night — and Van Gundy can be fined 100 large for divulging certain details of a private conversation and then not giving up his friend, but when will NBA officials be publicly held to account for doing a poor job?
Stern's answer seems to be to come down hard on the complainers and hope it will distract the fans from the larger problem. But he's missing the solution.

Replay. Replay, replay, replay, a thousand times replay!

If it's good enough to see if a shot was released in time or if a toe was on the line, why not to see if a player was inbounds when he made contact with the ball?

Both of Monday night's horrible calls could have been overturned by replay. Give coaches two challenges per game or per half, or one per game, but give them something. Anything to avoid officials deciding games. If throwing the red flag has already been taken, maybe they could roll a red-white-and-blue ball onto the court to signify a challenge.


:hat

[SuBZer0]

As if $100K was not enough, Stern actually threatened Van Gundy's job security...what the hell is that? Seriously...the NBA has to become a bit more consistent than Kobe's shot-selection

[Obstructed_View]

I asked the same question on the NBA forum, and I guess I'm just impatient. David Aldridge reported that the officials were instructed to watch Yao's moving screens on the telecast BEFORE GAME 3. If this is common knowledge, why is JVG's mentioning it later such a huge sin? I'm puzzled. I also see absolutely no impropriety in the system.

As much as I defend the officials, the officiating has been terrible this season, and especially for these playoffs. I have a suspicion that due to the fight in Detroit there are a lot of NBA suits in there fucking around with the process and issuing decrees which causes the whole thing to crumble.

[Kori Ellis]

Mike Monroe: Van Gundy's relationship with referee troubling
Web Posted: 05/04/2005 12:00 AM CDT

http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/basketball/nba/spurs/stories/MYSA050405.7C.COL.BKNmonroe.23ce37212.html

In the film "Conspiracy Theory," Mel Gibson plays a paranoid New York City cab driver convinced the government is out to get him, and everyone else, for that matter. He comes off as such a loon, nobody will take seriously anything he says.

Of course, the government really is out to get him, and it takes the intervention of Julia Roberts, playing a Justice Department employee, to ultimately help Gibson foil the plotters.

Roberts also falls for Gibson before the credits roll.

There doesn't seem to be a happy ending in the offing in the NBA's version of "Conspiracy Theory." Houston Rockets coach Jeff Van Gundy has pretty much accused the league of conspiring to have its referees watch Yao Ming, his 7-foot-6 center, more closely than other centers in response to demands from Mavericks owner Mark Cuban.

Van Gundy claims a friend who is a veteran referee — one who is not working the playoffs — phoned to alert him about an Internet memo "point of emphasis" about Yao that was sent by supervisor of officials Ronnie Nunn to all the refs.

This allegation so infuriated commissioner David Stern that he fined Van Gundy $100,000 and has virtually threatened to throw Van Gundy out of the league unless he stops shooting off his mouth and cooperates with an investigation of his allegations.

"If he's going to say things like that, he's not going to continue in this league," Stern said after Van Gundy was quoted in the Houston Chronicle with his assertion. "If the attitude reflected in those comments continues to be public, he's going to have a big problem with me as long as I'm commissioner."

Stern is acutely sensitive about any suggestion the league engages in any sort of conspiracy to affect the outcome of games. His sensitivity is heightened during the playoffs.

There used to be a widely held belief that the league somehow rigged playoff games to make certain the most popular teams — sorry San Antonians, that means the Lakers, and before them, the Bulls and Knicks — advanced to the Finals. Better for the TV ratings, don't you know.

Stern gets downright apoplectic when asked about such theories, pointing out all such assertions amount to accusations of criminal wrongdoing by the league and its officials.

Of course, it would help if Stern would cease making jokes about hoping the Finals could produce a matchup of Lakers vs. Lakers, as he once did during a telephone news conference.

It was a joke, based solely on the size of L.A.'s TV market and the marketability of Kobe Bryant and then-Lakers center Shaquille O'Neal, but it didn't help Stern convince anyone the conspiracy theorists were as goofy as Gibson's cab driver character.

What is really troubling about Van Gundy's claim isn't the fact he comes off as just another whiner looking for a scapegoat after his team ceded a 2-0 lead in its series with the Mavericks. The shocker is the fact he claims one NBA referee is a good enough friend that he or she would pick up a phone to tip him off.

NBA refs and NBA coaches aren't supposed to be friends, for obvious reasons. Refs aren't even allowed to stay in the same hotels visiting teams occupy, and the identities of the officiating crews are kept secret until they arrive at the arena.

If Van Gundy truly has such a close relationship with a referee, that is troubling, and it is no wonder Stern wants to know which referee leaped across such an ethical divide.

It would be easy to dismiss Van Gundy's allegation as fabricated if not for something once told to me by a high-ranking official from another team. This official's team was concerned because one veteran referee seemed to "stick it" to them whenever he worked their games. The referee was a good friend of a head coach who had been fired by the team.

Stern's outrage would be easier to accept had not Game 4 of the Spurs-Nuggets series been such an officiating mess that there was no flow and a two-time MVP was disqualified with his sixth foul on a phantom violation.

The real solution to stopping the conspiracy theorists in their tracks would be refereeing that raises fewer questions.

[Obstructed_View]

So again I ask: Why is it a $100k fine for Jeff Van Gundy when he mentions something that the NBA leaked to David Aldridge three days earlier? There has to be a detail in here that I'm missing.

[gospursgojas]

So again I ask: Why is it a $100k fine for Jeff Van Gundy when he mentions something that the NBA leaked to David Aldridge three days earlier? There has to be a detail in here that I'm missing.

Bc he said that an official called him and told him that they were...Im guessing that makes it worse

[Kori Ellis]

Van Gundy says that an official (who is a friend) called and told him they would be calling Yao more tightly because Cuban told them to do so. This is bad for a variety of reasons. Number 1 probably being that the refs would be persuaded by a team's owner to rule against an opponent.

[gospursgojas]

You cant blame David Stern .... JVG is not just complaing about the refs hes questioning the integrety of the game

[TwoHandJam]

Fuck Stern. He's a clueless idiot who's either too stupid or too lazy to institute changes that would make officiating in the NBA better than mediocre. And that's being generous.

If you're a Rockets fan that had to endure the complete fuckup of a call where Barry had a ball swatted away in the closing seconds by Finley with both feet out of bounds. I strongly doubt you wouldn't be questioning the quality of today's officiating.

Couple that with last game's ejection of Duncan and you have two plays that can easily change the outcome of a series. These aren't petty mistakes. This is a real problem.

[Obstructed_View]

Van Gundy says that an official (who is a friend) called and told him they would be calling Yao more tightly because Cuban told them to do so. This is bad for a variety of reasons. Number 1 probably being that the refs would be persuaded by a team's owner to rule against an opponent.
If Van Gundy said that Cuban "told them to do it", he's playing to the media to report it so the conspiracy idiots will run with it, but other than that it's his take on the way it actually is done. Mark Cuban complained about Yao's moving screens, and the NBA said they were going to be watching Yao's moving screens. Personally I think George Karl making up outright lies about the way a game is officiated is a bigger travesty than JVG complaining about the way things are.

By the way, if the officials issue a directive to watch something specific, especially in the middle of a playoff series, why wouldn't they tell the team that they were making a change? I'd think that's why they leaked it to David Aldridge in the first place.

[Kori Ellis]

Today he apologized, sort of.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/playoffs2005/news/story?id=2055294

Rockets coach Jeff Van Gundy, who received a six-figure fine Monday for accusing officials of targeting center Yao Ming this postseason, admits he made a mistake but doesn't plan to call commissioner David Stern's office to discuss the issue.

Van Gundy told ESPN's Greg Anthony in an interview Saturday that he hasn't spoken to Stern, and won't unless he has to, since being disciplined. Van Gundy was fined $100,000 -- the largest ever for a coach -- for making the comments Sunday.

"It's up to them if they want to speak with me further," Van Gundy said. "They obviously have a difficult job ... The fine was stiff but I have to accept it."

Van Gundy got himself into trouble by telling three reporters at the team hotel in Dallas on Sunday night that a referee not working the playoffs called him after the Rockets went up 2-0 and warned that Yao was mentioned in an online evaluation from supervisor of officials Ronnie Nunn.

Van Gundy added that because Mavericks owner Mark Cuban "has been hard on" the league and officials, "he's gotten the benefit."

Earlier this week, Stern called Van Gundy's fine "an intermediary step," adding that an investigation will continue once the Rockets finish their playoff run. He said further punishment is possible, even implying that Van Gundy might face a lifetime ban.

Van Gundy, who joked about the fine the night it was issued, told ESPN he should have stopped at expressing his frustration with how the game was called.

"When you make a mistake -- and I think since I had to take a couple of days to review what I said and think about it more -- the only thing you can do is apologize," he said. "First, for using the word bias. I never thought about the implications that the word bias could have on the league.

"That was not my intent. ... I've been frustrated with how the game [had] been officiated. I should have just left it at that. I made a mistake by bringing someone else into it. When you make a mistake -- you can't run from it, you have to accept the discipline."

Stern said the league was furious about what Van Gundy said and about his refusal to divulge the official he claims told him that referees "were looking at Yao harder because of Mark's complaints" to the league office.

Cuban said the Mavs sent the league a list of plays they thought could've been called moving screens on Yao and backup Dikembe Mutombo. He said the league responded that "nine were actually moving screens and should have been called but were not."

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Van Gundy added that because Mavericks owner Mark Cuban "has been hard on" the league and officials, "he's gotten the benefit."

After watching the calls the Mavericks get this year, and some of the rotten calls in the series against the Rockettes, I'm having a hard time refuting the above statement. Van Gundy might have found himself at the bottom of a river if he hadn't attempted to soften his position.