LEONARD
07-24-2007, 09:32 AM
Referee crisis vindicates Cuban crusade
Dave Krieger
July 24, 2007
It's probably safe to say that even Mark Cuban didn't want to be right this badly. But he was. Just this badly.
The maverick Mavericks owner has been jousting with NBA commissioner David Stern over the quality and transparency of the league's on-court officiating almost since the day he took over in Dallas. It was the single biggest cause of the now-famous rift between the two men.
Whatever you think of Cuban, you've pretty much got to admit he was dead right about this and Stern was dead wrong. And the commissioner's contempt for those who dared criticize his referees ended up doing great damage to the league he loves.
Stern was at his autocratic best when defending his league's opaque, subjective officiating, insisting it was wonderful and the details were nobody's business. So far as I know, even Cuban didn't suspect a Tim Donaghy scenario - a referee allegedly at the beck and call of "mobbed-up" bookies. This sounds more like a Billy Crystal-Martin Scorsese collaboration than Stern's new nightmare.
But there you are. It is a logical if bizarre extension of the lack of public accountability Cuban long ago pointed out.
It's not as if we haven't seen referees acting for personal reasons before. Nuggets fans will recall referee Steve Javie ejecting Dan Issel or Nick Van Exel, or both, every chance he got. It was personal and it was obvious.
Nor were Issel and Van Exel the only people who believed Javie used his whistle to enforce personal grudges. In fact, Allen Iverson said as much last season. Then the league fined him and made him take it back.
Cuban suspected the lack of transparency in NBA officiating could permit all sorts of personal agendas. At one point, he hired an outfit to compile a database that would point up statistical variations in individual referee's performances.
My understanding is Stern and his operations department thought he was playing a blame game and ignored his data. As far as they were concerned, Cuban was just another fan unhappy with calls against his club. In fact, that's how they define every critic.
Would Donaghy have been caught earlier with such outside monitoring? I have no idea. But as this scandal unfolds, the league's previous assertions that it alone is qualified to judge the work of officials sound more like a cover-up than a policy.
In a blog post late last week, before the NBA brought down its cone of silence, Cuban was uncharacteristically diplomatic in pressing his point:
"As bad as the allegations facing the NBA today are, it's also an opportunity to face every allegation that has ever been directed towards the NBA and its officials and pre-empt them from ever occurring in the future," he wrote.
"Calamity can be a catalyst for significant change. There are any number of examples in the business world where calamity led to better management, better communications, greater transparency and even better products. As the proverb goes, Necessity is the Mother of Invention.
"The NBA took a hit (Friday). Behind that hit is a catalyst and opportunity for significant change that could make the NBA stronger than it ever has been. It's a chance to proactively put in place people, processes and transparency that will forever silence those who will question the NBA's integrity.
"I have complete confidence that David Stern and Adam Silver will do just that and the NBA and our officiating will be all the stronger for it."
I don't know whether Cuban really has such confidence or is trying to show Stern an escape route through his massive miscalculation of this threat.
Frankly, I don't share his confidence. I watched Dick Bavetta blow two calls during Game 6 of the 1998 NBA Finals in Utah. One wiped out a second quarter three-pointer by Howard Eisley of the Jazz. Bavetta ruled it came after the shot clock expired.
Replays showed it did not. The other gave the Bulls' Ron Harper a two-pointer with 3:41 left in the game. Bavetta ruled it left his hand before the shot clock expired. Replays showed it did not.
That's a five-point swing in the Bulls' favor. They won by a single point to wrap up their second three-peat. Michael Jordan's game-winner is all anyone remembers. Scottie Pippen played only 26 minutes with a bad back and there were fears he could not have played in a Game 7.
Personally, I thought this was an issue of competence, not agenda, although Jordan's happy ending was a very desirable story line. What amazed me was the league didn't seem to care about the errors. It had no way to correct them, even as television revealed them. Somehow, it was preferable to get it wrong than to admit they were, in fact, mistakes.
Now we have allegations of intentional corruption by a referee. And Cuban is still out there, advocating a system of public accountability that a less defensive commissioner might have welcomed before it came to this.
[email protected]
Dave Krieger
July 24, 2007
It's probably safe to say that even Mark Cuban didn't want to be right this badly. But he was. Just this badly.
The maverick Mavericks owner has been jousting with NBA commissioner David Stern over the quality and transparency of the league's on-court officiating almost since the day he took over in Dallas. It was the single biggest cause of the now-famous rift between the two men.
Whatever you think of Cuban, you've pretty much got to admit he was dead right about this and Stern was dead wrong. And the commissioner's contempt for those who dared criticize his referees ended up doing great damage to the league he loves.
Stern was at his autocratic best when defending his league's opaque, subjective officiating, insisting it was wonderful and the details were nobody's business. So far as I know, even Cuban didn't suspect a Tim Donaghy scenario - a referee allegedly at the beck and call of "mobbed-up" bookies. This sounds more like a Billy Crystal-Martin Scorsese collaboration than Stern's new nightmare.
But there you are. It is a logical if bizarre extension of the lack of public accountability Cuban long ago pointed out.
It's not as if we haven't seen referees acting for personal reasons before. Nuggets fans will recall referee Steve Javie ejecting Dan Issel or Nick Van Exel, or both, every chance he got. It was personal and it was obvious.
Nor were Issel and Van Exel the only people who believed Javie used his whistle to enforce personal grudges. In fact, Allen Iverson said as much last season. Then the league fined him and made him take it back.
Cuban suspected the lack of transparency in NBA officiating could permit all sorts of personal agendas. At one point, he hired an outfit to compile a database that would point up statistical variations in individual referee's performances.
My understanding is Stern and his operations department thought he was playing a blame game and ignored his data. As far as they were concerned, Cuban was just another fan unhappy with calls against his club. In fact, that's how they define every critic.
Would Donaghy have been caught earlier with such outside monitoring? I have no idea. But as this scandal unfolds, the league's previous assertions that it alone is qualified to judge the work of officials sound more like a cover-up than a policy.
In a blog post late last week, before the NBA brought down its cone of silence, Cuban was uncharacteristically diplomatic in pressing his point:
"As bad as the allegations facing the NBA today are, it's also an opportunity to face every allegation that has ever been directed towards the NBA and its officials and pre-empt them from ever occurring in the future," he wrote.
"Calamity can be a catalyst for significant change. There are any number of examples in the business world where calamity led to better management, better communications, greater transparency and even better products. As the proverb goes, Necessity is the Mother of Invention.
"The NBA took a hit (Friday). Behind that hit is a catalyst and opportunity for significant change that could make the NBA stronger than it ever has been. It's a chance to proactively put in place people, processes and transparency that will forever silence those who will question the NBA's integrity.
"I have complete confidence that David Stern and Adam Silver will do just that and the NBA and our officiating will be all the stronger for it."
I don't know whether Cuban really has such confidence or is trying to show Stern an escape route through his massive miscalculation of this threat.
Frankly, I don't share his confidence. I watched Dick Bavetta blow two calls during Game 6 of the 1998 NBA Finals in Utah. One wiped out a second quarter three-pointer by Howard Eisley of the Jazz. Bavetta ruled it came after the shot clock expired.
Replays showed it did not. The other gave the Bulls' Ron Harper a two-pointer with 3:41 left in the game. Bavetta ruled it left his hand before the shot clock expired. Replays showed it did not.
That's a five-point swing in the Bulls' favor. They won by a single point to wrap up their second three-peat. Michael Jordan's game-winner is all anyone remembers. Scottie Pippen played only 26 minutes with a bad back and there were fears he could not have played in a Game 7.
Personally, I thought this was an issue of competence, not agenda, although Jordan's happy ending was a very desirable story line. What amazed me was the league didn't seem to care about the errors. It had no way to correct them, even as television revealed them. Somehow, it was preferable to get it wrong than to admit they were, in fact, mistakes.
Now we have allegations of intentional corruption by a referee. And Cuban is still out there, advocating a system of public accountability that a less defensive commissioner might have welcomed before it came to this.
[email protected]