Being an expert on referee protocol does not mean you can testify as to another referee's fixing of games, that does not fall under that particular expertise. You're shoehorning hearsay. Nor can one be certified as a "game fixer" because you're convicted. That's absurd.
Not that those types of criminals are usually truthful, but a criminal will tell the truth if the truth benefits him. He will also lie if a lie benefits him. In this case both could easily be true so you can't just discount what he's saying as definitely false.
The Feds use convicted felons all the time in proving conspiracy cases to juries. The general public may not know this, and the people who hear Stern's bull spin may not know this, but I know this, you know this, and anybody knowledgable about the "justice" system knows this.
Convicted felons are used to prove drug conspiracies is especially common. Almost every case uses them. People who snitch to get their sentences reduced are used all the time as well and juries believe them.
Stop watching the Spurs then.
End the misery.
How? Which exception to the hearsay rule would be used in this case?
It does if the witness has firsthand knowledge of the fix. Conspiracy laws make it much easier to bring hearsay into the courtroom. Donaghy could also fudge and/or spin his testimony a little to allow evidence to be brought in. That is what usually happens in federal court cases. They witnesses are coached so they say the right thing.
The real beauty of the system is that a strong federal case could prove Bavetta was guilty even if he was innocent.
Why go to work every day when capitalism mostly benefits the rich? Because you still get something out of it.
Then why ? Because it is wrong, and it could be better.
I see this the other way around. People like you are so wedded to the NBA, and the vicarious entertainment it brings you, that you will do anything to prove that it's NOT fixed so that it continues to mean something to you.
The Spurs are the victims of a massive conspiracy. That is why I root for the Spurs, they can beat the New World Order.
You're saying Donaghy could perjure himself in order to allow hearsay evidence to be entered?
I'm no lawyer, but that doesn't seem to be a sound legal strategy, counselor.
Conspiracy/hearsay are very different from expert witness rules. You're mixing things up a bit. You're talking about the coconspirator exception to hearsay. Government would still have to prove up a conspiracy pre-trial. Which, again, they did not even feel the need to further investigate apparently.
Donaghy said the Spurs benefited from the conspiracy as well.
If Donaghy was the lone government witness, they would get absolutely massacred. A competent defense lawyer would rip him apart on cross-examination.
You're saying Donaghy could perjure himself in order to allow hearsay evidence to be entered?
I'm no lawyer, but that doesn't seem to be a sound legal strategy, counselor.
How so? And what if the defendent had a public defender?
He said it was from a personal grudge, not part of the wider conspiracy.
The credibility of Donaghy is not an issue at pre-trial. The standard is "if true" is there a preponderance of evidence of a conspiracy. Donaghy is a personal eyewitness to a conspiracy.
Spinning testimony is not perjury. It is a common legal strategy, although not one you want to admit to.
You're saying Donaghy could perjure himself in order to allow hearsay evidence to be entered?
I'm no lawyer, but that doesn't seem to be a sound legal strategy, counselor.
It's like the two different conspiracy theories came together:
1) Stern fixes games
2) The refs are rogues who can't be controlled
Well, the timing is incredible.
Please tell us all how Donaghy can legally "fudge" and "spin" his testimony to effect an exception to the hearsay rule.
You said he could do it; tell us how.
Donaghy is not sufficient to create a preponderance of evidence, especially if it allegedly involves the NBA itself. You're talking "more likely than not." You haven't introduced enough evidence based on Donaghy's word.
Also, is the suit against the NBA and the officials as their agents? You could get it in as a statement against interest if the latter, but you'd have to prove up the conspiracy with the NBA to do so anyway. Don't see how you can implicate the NBA without more than what you've got.
You guys really think he is just making that all up? All the details and names and dates and facts? All just completely made up, huh?
Get your head out of the sand. I imagine there's more truth in that book than false info. I still believe talent decides most games, but I believe there's a great deal of bias -- personal, as in the Javie/Iverson example, referee games, etc - and league-wise, extending series, superstar calls, etc -- that is a large variable in outcomes.
The guy got pinched for gambling - and that shoots his credibility for this situation? Yeah, he's trying to make a buck because that gambling well dried up -- but I'd be willing to bet (no pun intended) there's a LOT of truth in this, and that, like Timvp said, this does not end well (for the league.)
If he's lying about it, then Stafford, Bavetta, Javie, et al should be talking to lawyers about pressing slander/libel charges, right? I didn't see a lot of people suing Canseco, and everyone thought he was lying.
Apparently, someone already talked to their lawyers, the book got pulled. Publisher's not willing to take the heat.
There's no way the games are fixed. Impossible to have predetermined outcomes. That's why it's still interesting to watch - the league can only shade so far and the team being called against still can win the games and a le if they're disciplined enough and play well enough to overcome a few calls. To me the Spurs 4 les are a testament to this - why would Stern want to lose money by having the small market team in the finals for 4 out of 10 seasons? The Spurs have overcome just like others have as well. Is it fair? No, but it's nit predetermined so it's still very entertaining to watch. My hope is this book and a controversy causes the league to back off of manipulating games for a while.
The Spurs-Suns series doesnt have on how bad the Kings-Lakers 02' WCF's were called. Now THAT was rigged.
Ref excerpt doesn’t read as tall tale for teams
By Dan Wetzel
The biggest problem the NBA has in trying to squash, defuse and discredit anything disgraced referee Tim Donaghy says is that many of its own players, coaches and front office executives are predisposed to believe the guy.
In a sweet bit of irony, Donaghy wrote a book about corruption in NBA officiating while serving time in a federal prison for being the most corrupt NBA official ever. He’s currently back behind bars for violating the parole agreement that sprung him from his original federal gambling charges.
While publisher Random House will reportedly not publish “Blowing the Whistle: The Culture of Fraud in the NBA” because of liability concerns, deadspin.com printed what it calls excerpts of the book.
The NBA denies it threatened any legal action against Random House in an effort to stop the book, league spokesman Tim Frank said. It’s far more likely the publisher pulled back when its senior legal team got a look at the completed manuscript that lacks corroboration for the most serious allegations. If those passages were stricken, the sales potential of the book would likely fall apart.
In today’s media world though, that hardly matters. A website ran what it received and now it’s available for public consumption.
Whether or not Donaghy’s allegations are true, most of them are believable. Not only to anyone who has watched a game, but the league’s own rank-and-file players and coaches.
Donaghy admits stars get preferential treatment, some refs have it in for some players and coaches, and a losing home team is likely to get a favorable whistle to make it compe ive.
By understanding the dynamics of intra-league relationships and referee tendencies during his 13 years with the NBA, Donaghy writes he was able to gamble successfully on the outcome.
Ask around the NBA this week and you won’t find too many people outside the league office dismissing Donaghy’s claims.
“I read it last night and was laughing, and said, ‘Yep, that’s about right,” one team executive said. “I don’t think anyone is going to dispute the possibility.”
If the NBA’s own front-office people believe this, then how can fans simply dismiss it?
Consider Rasheed Wallace, who has recorded a record number of technical fouls during his career-long battles with refs. He earned many of them, but he also claimed the refs had it in for him.
“Some of them cats are felonious, man,” ’Sheed famously declared, even before Donaghy became a felon.
Was Wallace targeted? Well, here’s Donaghy, according to Deadspin’s excerpt:
“To have a little fun at the expense of the worst troublemakers, the referees working the game would sometimes make a modest friendly wager amongst themselves: first ref to give one of the bad boys a technical foul wouldn’t have to tip the ball boy that night.
“After the opening tip, it was hilarious as the three of us immediately focused our full attention on the intended victim, waiting for something, anything, to justify a technical foul. If the guy so much as looked at one of us and mumbled, we rang him up. Later in the referees’ locker room, we would down a couple of brews, eat some chicken wings, and laugh like .”
This is confirmation of what nearly every player in the league suspected.
The most damning allegations are against a fellow referee, who Donaghy names but I won’t. The allegations are uncorroborated and some comments attributed to the ref are not sourced.
The charge is huge though, a claim that the NBA used certain refs to determine games and extend playoff series.
Across the league, many have whispered the same su ions about certain referees. Worse, this particular ref worked many notoriously suspect playoff games.
That includes the 2002 Western Conference finals between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Sacramento Kings that Donaghy called, “a stunning example of game and series manipulation at its ugliest.”
Elizabeth Ventura, the NBA’s senior vice president of communications, said in a statement Thursday that Donaghy’s allegations were investigated by the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in 2008, and that the only criminal conduct discovered was that of Donaghy. The latest allegations, Ventura said, will be forwarded to former federal prosecutor Lawrence Pedowitz, who conducted an in-house review of the league’s officiating program two years ago.
The suggestion of a league-office effort to control the games is where I generally draw the line on these conspiracies. Individual referees showing blatant favoritism or vengeance? Absolutely, that’s human nature.
The idea of David Stern sitting in his Manhattan tower committing federal crimes and risking the future of a billion-dollar business to potentially make a few more million from a favorable outcome?
Nope.
I don’t believe it’s true in the NBA, MLB, college football or any other sport (other than boxing) where referees are currently under fire. These vast plans would be suicidal for people with little motivation to conduct them.
Besides, in the NBA, there have been too many Finals sweeps. There’s been too many Pistons-Spurs series. There’s been too many games begging for referee intervention that never arrived.
There are plenty of NBA fans who won’t ever agree with me, and, courtesy of Tim Donaghy, there’s more grist for the mill. That’s fine. No one can be completely sure what’s true or not.
The NBA can only deny it all.
The league’s biggest problem is that many of the most convinced conspiracy theorists are drawing league paychecks. And if they aren’t buying the NBA’s denial, why should anyone else?
Wow I'm surprised a team exec came out with that. Sounds like they know the game but would never blow the whistle because doing so would take all that fat bacon out of their mouths as well. Better to lose and be rich than not play and be poor.
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