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This will not end well.
Not endorsing this as truth or fiction...but what is entailed in this book is DEFINITELY disturbing.
http://deadspin.com/5392067/excerpts...nt-you-to-read
Two weeks before the 2003–04 season ended, Bavetta and I were assigned to officiate a game in Oakland. That afternoon before the tip-off, we were discussing an upcoming game on our schedule. It was the last regular-season game we were scheduled to work, pitting Denver against San Antonio. Denver had lost a game a few weeks prior because of a mistake made by the referees, a loss that could be the difference between them making or missing the playoffs. Bavetta told me Denver needed the win and that it would look bad for the staff and the league if the Nuggets missed the playoffs by one game. There were still a few games left on the schedule before the end of the season, and the standings could potentially change. But on that day in Oakland, Bavetta looked at me and casually stated, "Denver will win if they need the game. That's why I'm on it."
I was thinking, How is Denver going to win on the road in San Antonio? At the time, the Spurs were arguably the best team in the league. Bavetta answered my question before it was asked.
"Duncan will be on the bench with three fouls within the first five minutes of the game," he calmly stated.
Bavetta went on to inform me that it wasn't the first time the NBA assigned him to a game for a specific purpose. He cited examples, including the 1993 playoff series when he put New Jersey guard Drazen Petrovic on the bench with quick fouls to help Cleveland beat the Nets. He also spoke openly about the 2002 Los Angeles–Sacramento series and called himself the NBA's "go-to guy."
As it turned out, Denver didn't need the win after all; they locked up a spot in the playoffs before they got to San Antonio. In a twist of fate, it was the Spurs that ended up needing the win to have a shot at the division le, and Bavetta generously accommodated. In our pregame meeting, he talked about how important the game was to San Antonio and how meaningless it was to Denver, and that San Antonio was going to get the benefit of the calls that night. Armed with this inside information, I called Jack Concannon before the game and told him to bet the Spurs.
To no surprise, we won big. San Antonio blew Denver out of the building that evening, winning by 26 points. When Jack called me the following morning, he expressed amazement at the way an NBA game could be manipulated. Sobering, yes; amazing, no. That's how the game is played in the National Basketball Association.Be prepared for revamped Suns trollsMy favorite Tommy Nunez story is from the 2007 playoffs when the San Antonio Spurs were able to get past the Phoenix Suns in the second round. Of course, what many fans didn't know was that Phoenix had someone working against them behind the scenes. Nunez was the group supervisor for that playoff series, and he definitely had a rooting interest.
Nunez loved the Hispanic community in San Antonio and had a lot of friends there. He had been a referee for 30 years and loved being on the road; in fact, he said that the whole reason he had become a group supervisor was to keep getting out of the house. So Nunez wanted to come back to San Antonio for the conference finals. Plus, he, like many other referees, disliked Suns owner Robert Sarver for the way he treated officials. Both of these things came into play when he prepared the referees for the games in the staff meetings. I remember laughing with him and saying, "You would love to keep coming back here." He was pointing out everything that Phoenix was able to get away with and never once told us to look for anything in regard to San Antonio. Nunez should have a championship ring on his finger.
This will not end well.
I had a sick feeling in my stomach as I read the part about 2007...just can't shake it.
I want to believe he's a crook and a liar, and that this is all absolute bull . But I can't.
Is anybody really surprised? This happens everyday, it's too hard to take subjectivity out of the mix. That's why every Spur fan hates Joey Crawford.
Joey's non call of the foul on Brent Barry was the most obvious case of a biased ref getting his wish I have ever seen.
(Of course, I am a biased fan...)
I still don't understand the outrage in the Suns-Spurs series..the officiating wasn't nearly as bad as many other series' this decade, and people really twisted it..even in the infamous youtube video about the Spurs getting calls in that series, the calls aren't even that bad..
I didn't hear any non-Spurs fans crying about the officiating in the Dallas series..
LOL @ the Spurs getting calls due to San Antonio's Mexican community..
wtf they had the whole book and publish a couple of paragraphs. wtf was the rest about. him as a kid or something?
Anything in that book about the Lakers lol Probably a whole load of chapters on fixed games for them.
Sadly this book is going to make me side with a lot of Laker fans on the internet, since we're gonna have to be defending our team just like they'll have to defend theirs..
This is killing all the excitment I had from the Spurs game, it makes me want to stop seeing the NBA.
Why do you have to defend the indefendible?
The Suns didn't need much if any help losing to the Spurs. But it does call into question just about everything the NBA spews fair and impartial treatment.
The Spurs/Suns series was the only shot the Suns had at actually beating us, I will give them that. It is equally fair to acknowledge that the Spurs had just as good of a chance to beat the Suns.
And it's not like the Spurs haven't had their turn at being the whipping boy of the officials a certain Dallas series comes to mind as well as a couple of Laker's series.
But this has to stop. I say we mike the refs and feed it live over the internet, during the entire game including the breaks and halftime reviews.
seriously, what a buzzkill
this guy is the jose conseco of nba referees
i heard bevetta told his friends to bet charles barkley in the race at the all star game, bevetta lost the race on purpose
It will get out eventually...for some reason I picture Stern hanging out in barnes and noble hiding the book in the kids section.
Still though, I'm sure some of this is true...but alot exaggerated or flat out false.
The about Bavetta is dead on though. There is no doubt he is used to extend a series and that he lets the losing team pull to within six points. (I know it's six because that's when he swallows his whistle.)
The thing Bavetta has started to try to compensate for this by calling fouls on the bad team that don't change the game. He makes sure they get to the penalty just as fast as the other team without putting the better team on the line. And the game just slows to a crawl.
Suns lost fair and square.
The End. Put it to rest, plz.
thats why i was so happy when we were going to get new refs!! because it gave us a window period to be a fair game. i mean come on the suns? lets talk l.a games!!! lets talk about all the bad officiating against the spurs our whole era!! i mean seriously i dont believe the spurs were part of a conspiracy at all, it would make the nba no money whatsoever. if you watched that game against clippers yesterday, thats the im talking about. when l.a is getting close to losing they call a few re ed fouls and it throws everyones energy off!!!
Let me get this straight? They helped the Spurs win because some guy wanted to stay away from his wife?
Weak.
some are so obvious its ridiculous!!! i thought to myself no way theyre starting this crap their first game back!!!
I'll admit that his stories are interesting, but to be fair, those excerpts are mostly about incidents we already know about..the Suns-Spurs was already "controversial", Lakers-Kings was obvious, Lakers-Blazers was obvious, Kobe getting superstar calls is obvious..
his story about Iverson vs. Javie/Crawford isn't supported by the numbers..his Spurs-Nuggets story could have just easily been the much more superior team dominating, as expected..
While on one side we have to consider that this is all possible..on the other side you have to consider that this is a guy that has no integrity, he cheated the game, and he's naming a lot of obvious games, and doesn't have hard evidence..
, I've known this was at least manipulated for years. I just can't understand why the NBA would want small market SA to win les??
Quite frankly, if you don't realize that the NBA fixes games then you aren't paying attention. I will never forget sitting in the flying saucer in 2003 watching game 4 of the Laker/Wolves series.
Thats the thing. They don't have to make 'bad' calls. The rules are setup to be so nebulous and arbitrary you really cannot argue them. They can create turnovers by calling offensive fouls. They can bailout turnovers by calling fouls. They can take players off the court by calling fouls. You can extend the game by calling fouls.
The most important thing they can do is kill momentum though.
The Lakers were down by 20 or so halfway through the third and it starts. The refs never let the Wolves get on a roll and the Lakers would get bailed out and they would try and keep their momentum alive. Unfortunately for the refs, the lakers were still down by 8 halfway through the fourth. They had to become blatant.
I was literally predicting what the refs were going to call in the last half of the 4th quarter of that game on each and every possession. Devean George misses a jumper? Offensive foul on the other end. Kevin Garnett makes a layup? An and-1 for Kobe at the other end.
At first it kind of freaked me out because I was calling it on a lark but then I realized what was happening. Then it pissed me off.
The people that say that the NBA isn't fixed are either:
A) Clueless about basketball
B) Not paying attention or
C) Refusing to see the truth because they don't want to think of the sport as being tainted.
If we got the benefit of some of it then thats fine with me. I really don't believe it because Stern is all about profits and if I am not mistaken our finals appearance after beating the Suns was one of the worst rated ever if not the worst but whatever.
We are the team after all that got our superstar ejected from a game for smiling on the bench. I was actually hoping that the scabs were going to be staying on and the real refs would stay away. They are absolutely the most corrupt officials in all of professional sports.
Not good, but, consider the source. Dona was a pile of lying crap so who knows what the truth is.
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