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What are you talking about?
Blah blah blah
1999 was an abomination!
Players were out of shape and simply they didin't give a damn about the season.
Don't get me wrong any team that have had won that le still was going to get labeled as tainted.
What are you talking about?
Wouldn't that make every season Shaq has played an abomination?
people is what makes teams successful, without people, there wouldn't be fans, fans who buy tickets, merchandise, memorabilia...
People have the right to say what is right or wrong...
Seriously. What are you talking about? Do you even think about what you post?
Nobody in the world with the possible exception of your mother gives a what you give.
In the NBA, a Telling Calling Card
Stats Show How Referee May Have Shaped Outcomes
By Ivan Carter
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 25, 2007; E01
The idea that a lone NBA referee could alter the outcome of games and go undetected for a long period of time is not a shocking one for handicappers who make a living establishing betting lines for NBA games.
Several sports handicappers interviewed yesterday said that determining the betting lines on NBA regular season games is among the hardest tasks in the U.S. sports gambling industry, which takes in hundreds of billions of dollars in legal and illegal wagers annually. The difficulty arises because the teams play so many games and the effort of players tends to ebb and flow from night to night over the six-month regular season.
"I would be surprised if there haven't been refs fixing games for who knows how long," said Jimmy Boyd, who runs a sports gambling service based in Las Vegas, where sports gambling is legal. "With the NBA, selectivity is the thing. The league keeps close wraps on the officials. I mean, they are under as much scrutiny as anyone, but if a guy were to space out a bunch of games over two seasons it's not going to be easily detectable."
Boyd's assessment highlights the challenge faced by the NBA and the FBI as they investigate former NBA referee Tim Donaghy, who is the subject of a federal inquiry into the possibility that he gambled on games he worked over the past two seasons and passed insider information to others who placed bets themselves.
NBA Commissioner David Stern said yesterday that he believes Donaghy was a "rogue, isolated criminal" and that, to his knowledge, FBI investigators are not targeting any other NBA referees, players, coaches or league officials. Donaghy resigned on July 9, about 2 1/2 weeks after Stern said the FBI notified the league that Donaghy was part of a federal investigation into organized crime.
Donaghy, whose whereabouts are not known, is expected to turn himself in at U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, N.Y., over the next several days. A voice mail message seeking comment from Donaghy's attorney, John Lauro, was not answered yesterday evening.
Although Stern yesterday did not identify any specific games refereed by Donaghy that have come under su ion, sports gambling expert R.J. Bell said he has spotted some trends that suggest the possibility of tampering. Bell examined statistics on hundreds of games called by Donaghy over the last four seasons and published an analysis on his Web site, Pregame.com, which tracks sports gambling trends.
"This is a pattern you have to dig deep to see," Bell said. "The fact of the matter is, in hindsight, it's easier to see patterns because you know what you are looking for."
Bell said that while he found no obvious instances of outright tampering by Donaghy, certain trends emerged that raised questions in his mind. "What's so condemning in this case historically is that he was a passive referee," meaning he did not call an inordinately large number of fouls, "and then he became an active referee, and that's the sort of change you don't see," he said.
The NBA tracks the performance of its referees but does not make the statistics public. However, numerous Web sites run by fans and gambling aficionados keep their own records and analyze them.
Bell said that teams playing in games worked by Donaghy the last two seasons scored more total points than Las Vegas bookmakers expected 57 percent of the time. The odds of that happening naturally are 19-1, according to Bell.
Bell said high-scoring games usually are games in which a large number of fouls are called. A separate analysis by Covers.com, a Web site that tracks trends among NBA referees, showed that games played over the last two seasons in which Donaghy worked had an average of 56.9 free throw attempts, tops among NBA officials.
Three referees work every NBA game, so it was impossible to say how many of those calls were made by Donaghy.
"The first thing I would look for is a guy calling a bunch of fouls on a key player early in a game or a bunch of ticky-tack calls at the end of a game," Las Vegas handicapper Tim Trushel said. "Fans are used to debating how a given game was called, so it's not like someone is automatically going to think it was fixed. If a guy is looking to hit the over" -- a bet that the total points scored by both teams would exceed the number established by bookmakers -- "one way to do that would be to call a bunch of fouls. Fouls lead to free throws and obviously, that leads to more points."
According to Bell, from Jan. 1, 2007, to the end of the regular season, the opening betting line -- the number that states which team is favored and by how many points -- of 12 games officiated by Donaghy changed 1 1/2 or more points, which is an indication that a lot of money had been bet. In those 12 games in which the money was predominately on one side, the money was right in 10 of them.
"Guys betting big money were right 10 out of 12 times," Bell said. "To me, that's a key number. Going 10-2, the odds of that are only 2 percent randomly."
Trushel said rumors that an NBA referee had been "bought off" began to circulate among gambling circles in April. "That's when you started hearing things, that a ref was shaving points or fixing games, but at the time, you weren't hearing any names and it would be very hard to pick up on it if the guy was careful," he said.
Trushel added that it is more difficult to detect a basketball referee who is seeking to influence the outcome of a game than it would be with officials in other sports.
"Basketball is different from the other sports," he said. "In baseball, the home plate umpire obviously has a huge impact on how balls and strikes are called based on their strike zone, but in basketball, you have three-man crews that rotate," meaning the same three referees do not always work together.
"So you'd have to look very closely to detect a pattern of a single guy altering the outcome of games," Trushel said. "The one question I have is: If he was doing this over a two-year period, how didn't any of the referees he worked with not detect something and say, 'What's going on?' "
Stern said yesterday that the investigation is looking into whether Donaghy fed privileged information to associates who bet on games. One piece of information that could help a gambler is knowing which referees are scheduled to call a given game. The NBA does not release such schedules and encourages referees to tell only their immediate family members. Coaches and players don't learn which crew is working a given game until shortly before tip-off.
"If a bookie could get that kind of information, it could help," said one source, who declined to be identified by name because he runs an illegal sports gambling operation in the Washington area. "Obviously the ref could make more of a difference by calling the game himself, but there is a reason why the NBA doesn't list which refs are working which games ahead of time. If you're setting a line, any piece of extra information can help."
Staff writer Michael Lee contributed to this report.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...l?hpid=topnews
So it the people who win the championships? If that's the case, you better hit gym little guy.
What do people/fans have to do with Championships? As far as I'm concerned they're earned and not awarded or voted on.
People have a right to their opinions, but that still doesn't change the fact that a fans opinion can take away a teams accomplishments.
The laegue should stripped the Spurs from their rings..
And you should use fire fox for the spell check function. Again, you can have your opinion about the Spurs. You can even hang around here all day pouting like you have been. But your OPINION wont change or take away anything that the Spurs have accomplished.
And you should get the out of here, dumbass.
Last edited by Supreme_Being; 07-25-2007 at 12:53 AM. Reason: Quote Box
YOU have been positively identified by my lab assistant as a paramecian.
quit responding to this idiot - the cavs are the arizona cardinals of the NBA except the cardinals have better chance of winning the super bowl than the cavs ever have of getting back to the finals. LeSweep is a great marketing tool, but his team doesn't have the tools to win a championship - just ask any sports writer in the country and they'll tell you the same - ubiased opinions. Most cavs fans would be embarassed at the crap this guy is saying - I know b/c I have a lot of cavs fan friends. All of them admit that the cavs were lucky to make the finals and they were way overmatched. I'll give them credit - they are much more realistic than suns or mavs fans.
If I only watched Spurs' games, I might agree. For example, all of the Spurs are very careful when crashing the offensive board and use the proper technique. Try watching the Pacers vs. the Hawks sometime. You will see offensive goaltending, and it isn't called.
I'm not sure what you mean by saying "travelling is a non-issue." I may not be an expert, but I am insulted by the notion that I don't know travelling when I see it. (Yes, I understand that the NBA and NCAA rules texts are not identical on this point, nor several others that people routinely gripe about.)
At any rate, you are missing my point a bit. If palming doesn't really matter, then get rid of the rule. Ignoring certain rules creates a bad impression and the appearance of impropriety.
The "pro call" is a problem that many experts and professionals have attempted to address. It's not just the ignorance or misperception of college basketball fans projected on the NBA game. I can name at least four books by former or current NBA players and coaches that specifically address travelling, palming, offensive goaltending, lane violations, etc. (These would be Charles Barkeley, Walt Frazier, Phil Jackson, and George Karl.) Their basic point is not that the officiating is unfair or influences the outcomes of games, but that it appears to do so when the rules are not consistently enforced as written.
I do agree that the most vocal critics of the NBA are by and large people that have no honest intention of ever watching a game, even if the league catered to their every whim. The strategy of appeasement is obviously not working, because many of the NBA's critics are not being intellectually honest.
Sorry, but if you think there's a lot of travelling that goes uncalled, then you have to live with my opinion that you might not know travelling as well as you think. I could be wrong, but that'll be my opinion.
They are about as likely to call it on someone that didn't travel as they are to miss it when someone does, so it becomes a non-issue. Do they still miss them from time to time? Absolutely. It ain't the only thing they miss, it's just the easiest for someone who's never read the rulebook to see and complain about. If you have to go back and watch a replay of someone in the post to see if they took an extra step, then he did a good enough job of selling it that you aren't likely to ever be able to get him for it unless we'd like to issue challenges to the coaches and allow them to stop game play to have someone check the videotape. That should make games exciting.
If you want to talk about rules that aren't enforced as written, how about the five second back to the basket rule? I've never seen that called since they put it in. I think they called it the Mark Jackson rule at the time it was put into the rulebook. How many years has he been retired?
Rules are going to appear to be inconsistenly enforced due to people complaining. You and I could each make a highlight video of a single game, taking opposite teams, and make it look like our team got screwed by the officials. There are that many debatable calls in a single game. The average idiot that turns on the NBA game because it pre-empted The King of Queens may not realize that, but you and I should.
He tried, but the Spurs won anyway.
Why do you give this Fast Dunk guy the time of day? Hes probably the lamest troll I've ever seen. His flaming posts are either moot or clearly simply the result of blatant ignorance. There isn't even any humor to his posts in the form of 3 mispelled words per sentence or a seemingly endless amount of random pictures (HoopsCzar). He inspires no fire or zeal in his "victims". All I feel is pity.
Let me just say that the nice thing about all of this is the reffing next year should be top notch. Mike Mathis (former NBA ref) was on ESPN and Jim Rome's show where he called out the league for not doing enough to ensure good officiating. He said that the 30 people used in the stands to oversee officials during games is a joke and that most of them aren't qualified enough to judge the quality of officiating. He also layed heavily into the "good old boy" network at the league office where people have been hired and "advanced" to the playoffs not because of their quality of officiating, but because of their friendships. That can be evidence enough if you look at the majority of refs for the Finals. Mainly Javie, Salvatore, Mauer, Crawford, Bavetta, and Rush (his being in the Finals is proof enough on how the best refs don't make it).
This is just terrible
Whatever...!!
I'm your daddy!
No, Spurs are your daddy.
I see this jack session is still going on.
Here is where I am failing to see all the logic in the Game 5 and now Game 3 protests: The "If Game" cascades into changing the entire sequence of events.
The series it tied 1-1 going into Game 3.
If they say that the Suns should have won Game 3 (because obviously Donaghy had the fix in as they could never lose a game because of their own inadequacies), then who is to say that the Spurs would not have played with more intensity in Game 4? Clearly the Suns did after losing Game 3, so why wouldn't the Spurs?
If the Spurs play with greater intensity in Game 4 to produce a win, there is no Horry hip check at the end of the game to "entice Amare off the bench for a suspension".
Essentially at this point, all we have done is flop Game 3 and Game 4 victories, with the only "what if" difference being that Amare/Diaw are available for Game 5. Series tied 2-2.
If the Suns are at full strength for Game 5, they have a greater chance of pulling out a victory on their home floor, even though the Spurs already beat them there in Game 1. If we give them the HCA, they win Game 5 and go back to SA for a potential elimination game.
If the Spurs are facing an elimination game, on their home floor, their intensity and level of play will be ratcheted up to a high level. See Game 7 against Detroit, and even Game 7 against the Mavs which was a great game even if they lost. I know that some may argue that this "what if" is not valid because the Suns lost the elimination Game 6, but they had already turned on the Excuse Machine at that point, and it was on the road. So Spurs still win Game 6 in this scenario, albeit on the different end of the elimination spectrum.
Series is now tied 3-3 going to a Game 7 in PHX.
If Sun Fan is going to create what if situations that favor his team, then to be intellectually honest he will have to assume some what if situations that go against his team as well. Thus, being logical about it, the most that could be assumed with different outcomes to Games 3 and 5 is that it would come down to a Game 7, because the outcome of Games 3 and 5 would naturally have an impact on the outcomes of Games 4 and 6 as noted above.
Nothing was "stolen" from the Suns that was rightfully or guaranteed theirs. Essentially, their logic is that their team would have done no wrong to lose a game and that the Spurs would have done nothing right to win a game, giving PHX a sweep of Games 2-5 and winning the series 4-1.
Unfortunately, both the regular season and playoff matchups between these two teams over the last 2 years does not logically support that what if scenario. The logic supports that the series could have easily gotten to a Game 7, and then all bets are off as either team could have won, but again, nothing indicates that this series was a guarantee for them.
Of course, they will want to throw out Game 1 as well because of the Nash Gash, meaning they will attempt to justify that they would have easily won this series based soley on the performance in Game 4, but then the logic digresses even further...
no . why/.?
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