All bets are off if Tim Donaghy is right
Mitch Lawrence
NY DAILY NEWS
May 20, 2008
After an epic Game 7 in Boston on Sunday, with the Celtics riding Paul Pierce's standout play to a win over the mercurial LeBron James, the last thing the NBA needs is another visit from Tim Donaghy.
But Donaghy, the man the NBA insists was the rogue ref in last summer's betting scandal, is back to rock the league, no matter what happens in Tuesday's Eastern Conference finals or for the rest of the playoffs.
In a letter from Donaghy's attorney to the federal judge in his trial that was obtained by the Daily News, Donaghy claims that he provided information to the government that showed that there was more hanky-panky going on between other refs and coaches and players - not just Donaghy. And Donaghy contends that the government didn't want these revelations - "information concerning circumstances that favored certain players or teams over others" - made public.
What players? Which teams? Donaghy's attorney, John F. Lauro, doesn't say.
"In one instance, for example, confidential information was secretly passed from another referee to a coach," Donaghy charges.
What coach? Which ref? Donaghy doesn't identify those people either, so the league has to be relieved by that. But this is bad, really bad, for David Stern and his owners and players, even if Donaghy didn't name names. This is the first time that Donaghy has implicated a coach as he tries to reduce his sentence from 33 months in jail to no more than six months and probation.
It's a strange strategy, accusing the people he's cutting a deal with of ignoring his information. In a sense, he's spitting in their faces.
Predictably, the league trashed Donaghy's inflammatory accusations. Joel Litvin, the NBA's president of league and basketball operations, in a statement called Donaghy's letter "the desperate act of a convicted felon who is hoping to avoid prison time. ... Mr. Donaghy is no more trustworthy than he was when he was breaking the law by betting on NBA games."
But if true, this is a bombshell since the league has said from the start that Donaghy was the lone ref to participate in the illegal gambling. From the get-go, the league insisted that no other NBA person - coach, player, team official, whoever - was part of Donaghy's illegal operations that went on for three years and encompassed more than 100 games. The league has tried to paint a picture that no one else in the entire NBA community knew of Donaghy's shenanigans. From the league's perspective, the guy was operating in a vacuum.
Maybe. If not, how come no one else has been outed, no other ref has been implicated?
Is Donaghy telling the truth? Or is he just angry that the two other men in the scheme he engaged in are getting off with more lenient sentences. Who knows, but it's never a good time for the NBA to have to answer to these kinds of questions about whether its games are on the up and up. Especially today.
Tonight is the NBA draft lottery and we all know how the league still is being accused of fixing the Patrick Ewing draft in 1985 so that he would come to the Knicks. Unfounded as it might be, that charge will linger forever.
But Donaghy is a messier scandal, by far, because it goes right to the core of the integrity of the league. Donaghy contends that the NBA fostered the exchange of valuable information that helped gamblers and turned the league's games into a mockery.
"The NBA allowed an environment to exist that made inside information, including knowledge of the particular officials who work a game, valuable in connection with predicting the outcomes of games," Lauro wrote to U.S. District Court Judge Carol B. Amon. "For example, the particular relationships between officials and coaches or players affected the outcomes of games, and other practices prevented games from being played on a level playing field."
Game 7 in Boston was waged on a level playing field, with Pierce advancing and LeBron going home for the season. You can believe Donaghy or choose to think he's just throwing one more firebomb, but now he is back to tell you it's not always the case.  |