Just when things are looking up for the NBA with the dream NBA finals featuring the Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics, a bomb was dropped on the NBA. Tim Donaghy, a former NBA referee at the center of a gambling scandal alleged that he is not the only NBA referee who is influencig NBA results.
Reports in the U.S says that Tim Donaghy claimed that NBA routinely encouraged refs to ring up fouls to manipulate results and discouraged them from calling technical fouls on star players. This is to keep them in games and protect ticket sales and television ratings.
Donaghy, who faces up to 33 months in prison for pleading guilty last year alleging he took cash from gamblers and bet on games himself, says that if the NBA wanted a team to succeed, NBA league officials would inform referees that opposing players were getting away with ‘violations’. As expected, the NBA called the allegations baseless.
The problem for the NBA is how detailed Donaghy’s allegations are. In one of several allegations of corrupt refereeing, Donaghy said that in May 2002, two referees were working a best-of-seven series in which ‘Team 5’ was leading 3-2. In the sixth game, he alleged the referees purposely ignored personal fouls and called ‘made-up’ fouls on Team 5 in order to give additional free throw for Team 6. ‘Team 6’ won the game and came back to win the series. Without question that is the Los Angeles Lakers-Sacramento Kings series. That series went to seven games during the 2002 playoffs and the Lakers went on to win the championship. With the Shaq-Kobe duo at LA, one can see why the NBA would want the Lakers to win instead of the Kings. Just for the record, the Lakers, who beat Sacramento 106-102 in that game in Los Angeles, shot 27 free throws in the final quarter and scored 16 of their last 18 points at the line.
Like they say, there’s no smoke without fire and these allegations aren’t new. For years, people were complaining that referees were favoring certain teams. Now with this, the year with the dream NBA finals might turn out to be a year the NBA would rather forget.
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