We wouldn't be an NBA blog if we didn't cover what might end up being the biggest story of the offseason - that NBA referee Tim Donaghy is being investigate by the FBI for allegedly betting on basketball games over the last two seasons (including games in which he has officiated).
Before we delve into this, let's once again make the statement: He's not being accused (yet) of determining who wins or loses. If he did bet on games that he officiated (the NY Times reports he is believed to have "altered" 10-15 games, all since December), we don't know what kind of bets he made - spreads, over/under, others - or how many. A few news reports also include stories about "suspicious" games he's officiated - "the Knicks shot 39 FTs to the Heats' 8 FTs", for example. Which means, what, he wanted the Knicks to cover? Maybe he wanted the over? Once again, as we always advocate here - don't jump to any conclusions just yet.
"At this point, it's too early to know if any games were affected," said John Avello, an oddsmaker from Vegas.
What we do know is that he is suspected of involvement with the mafia, and of placing bets with them. We know he had a gambling problem. The Daily News is reporting that the league had "previously confronted" Tim Donaghy about his suspected gambling problem. He was "ordered to the league's offices in New York" but "he was allowed to continue officiating games because NBA honchos did not suspect he was gambling on games or fixing the contests".
The NBA has a real problem now. First off, why would you ever let a person you believe has a gambling problem officiate your league? I guess if he's betting on the lotto or horse racing or playing poker, it's okay. But come on... if he's betting on anything else sports-related, like let's say football games, then don't you think he might be a risk? Especially if he's betting big money? The NBA should have exercised a little bit more caution there.
The problem isn't Tim Donaghy himself - this came out on a Friday, and he could easily be forgotten quickly, before the season begins in October, believe it or not. But the perception of NBA referees has always been a bigger problem for the NBA than any of the other sports league. If the goal of an official is to not be known, the NBA has failed. Where as I might struggle to remember any MLB umpires (none come to mind right now), and only one NFL referee (Ed Hochili, he of the biceps and internet fame), no less than a half-dozen NBA referees immediately spring to mind. Almost all for the same reasons - they are well known for their incompetence or because fans/players/coaches/Mark Cuban have complained about them in the past - Dick Bavetta, Violet Palmer, Joey Crawford, Bennett Salvatore, Joe Derosa, Tommy Nunez, Steve Javie, Bob Delaney... all off the top of the head. Wow.
It doesn't help the NBA that they've had race bias among NBA officials discussion, a NBA referee kicked out the league (and recently reinstated) for abnormal behavior, including challenging one of the most well-liked players in the league to a fight, and now a referee accused of betting on and perhaps fixing games he officiated. There are already way too many fans that believe the league is actively involved in determining who wins games. That's very unlikely, but there is no doubt among a large amount of fans that there is an inconsistency to refereeing. Superstars get calls - see this splendid D-Wil post for not only his first hand take on some NBA referees, but also for the excerpt from Jason Flemings' article. It sums up the perception (or reality) problem that the NBA is facing.
Perception should never be a problem - it generally tends to only effect a small % of your audience. But you know who is to blame for the popularization of this perception, the perception that the NBA is riddled with corruption? Bill Simmons. He's the one who popularized the theory that David Stern fixes lotteries (not just the Knicks '85 draft, either; he's also mentioned possible fixes a million times as jokes in other contexts... for example, when AI was traded last year, he joked that David Stern must have promised them the #1 pick this year). He's the one that has made some of those officials well known names, including Dick Bavetta and Violet Palmer. He's made it okay to criticize NBA refs by names, but has never done that in other contexts. For example, all the times he's spoken about the Brady "tuck rule" game, I don't the NFL referees' names have ever come up. I could be wrong, but I don't think so. All the other blown calls there have been in football over the years, he's never mentioned a refs' name, at least that's my impression. Someone else can verify whether that is actually correct or not.
I'm not saying Bill Simmons shouldn't be writing what he's written in the past. I'm fine with everything he's said regarding NBA officials and David Stern, and agree with most of it. I'm just saying that's the reason the perception of shadiness has become so... mainstream. He popularized it.
The problems I've always had with officials in all leagues is that there is little turnover in their ranks. On the one hand, this is a necessary ill - new referees are inconsistent; they tend to have more difficulties earning the respect of players and coaches, which leads to uneasy situations; and they are novices, relative to the rest of the referees; they make more bad calls and mistakes, and are more likely to lose control of a situation. See Violet Palmer for an example of what I mean. And keep in mind she's been a referee for 10 years now, and yet he style is still considered very erratic.
But because NBA officials have low turnover rates, too many hang on for way too long. The result is that officials become out of touch with players; they become set in their ways; bottom line, they become curmudgeonly. If you want to check out our sidebar on Joey Crawford, and how we think he views the NBA, read our next post.
Becoming an NBA official is also a difficult task - it pays well, but the path to the NBA requires lots of patience. You might toil in the NCAA or WNBA or other leagues for a long time. Often it seems like everyone who is an official has some refereeing bloodlines. I don't know the numbers off the top of my head, and am not going to sort through too many bios right now, but NBA officiating seems to run in the family.
What all these things mean to me is this: It takes a long time for an official to break in, and then to get good, and by the time they are finally peaking, they are no longer interested or in love with the game. Those with family ties might not even love or care for the job as much as it's just inheriting the family business, so to speak. That makes them even more vulnerable to human faults. And the NBA hasn't doing a great job of taking these kinds of things serious... they really need to keep more checks on their referees. Not to suggest they spy on them, but Tim Donaghy had lots of issues, has the Daily News reports:
The NBA referee has been at the center of ugly incidents on court and off - with his ex-neighbors in Pennsylvania calling him a "sociopath." It started with the ref, a married father of four, chasing Lisa around the golf course, shouting obscenities at her, resulting in his suspension from the club.
He then supposedly "set fire to their tractor, drove their golf cart into a ravine and ignited a blaze on their deck."
When the couple's 5-year-old son threw mudballs onto Donaghy's property, the ref demanded cops arrest the child, the Mansuetos said.
The court papers said Donaghy had been arrested in the past - in 1995 and 2002 - for stalking and harassing others.
That last line really bring it on home. I get the neighbor problems, you can almost let that slide as an isolated series of events. But twice being arrested for stalking?!? You could get kicked out the NFL for that!
There is also the well reported case of his altercation with Rasheed Wallace, who was suspended for 7 games for his "confrontation" of Tim Donaghy. While that event happened before the time frame that is being investigated by the FBI, it shows you what happens when you jump to conclusions. A lot of the coverage of Rasheed Wallace at the time was in a negative scope - "oh, the big black athlete attacked a ref... that damn animal should be kicked out of the league already!" Now how does it look? Think maybe a competitor like Rasheed Wallace might be a little miffed if he felt the game was being called unfairly? What if he was right?
This story may or may not have legs, but the NBA really needs to address this. Even if it isn't fair, and other leagues maybe have worse officiating, the NBA is the one with the problem right now (sort of like how MLB has the steroid problem, not the NFL), and therefore they need to do something about it. What, I don't know yet. Oh, one more article and quote:
Today, many refs feel that the league's minders are more concerned that the referees hit specific foul "quotas" than make accurate calls -- and that this strategy threatens the integrity of the game. "You gotta hit certain numbers more than anything," says one current NBA referee, who has been in the league for over a decade and declined to be identified. (The officials' collective bargaining agreement prohibits them from speaking to the media without the NBA's permission.) He says a "vast number" of officials make certain calls "just so they don't become an 'outlier' on the stat sheet."
That's from this website. Again, it shows how the NBA, in trying to tackle their inconsistency officiating problem in the past perhaps even made it worse. Time for a new approach....
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SML,
Great article on this mess. You provide a lot of info. on this guy that I hadn't heard previously, as by all accounts on Friday night, this guy was portrayed as
a quiet, family guy that FL neighbors and former teachers thought was a good man.
The League is hard at work trying to distance themselves from Donaghy as we speak. The players and NBA PR machines are hard at work (and actually on the same page for a change) portraying this guy as a friendless loner in the league with other officials and players alike having a problem with him.
Supposedly the players invited him to their Bahama meeting at their expense this year to discuss his attitude toward them and he never even responded. And the refs group was quick to say they never knew this guy and that no one who worked with him hung out with him.
This latest PR is hypocritical and can come back to haunt them with the news that this guy was already on the league radar for a gambling problem. Why would the NBA keep a Ref working that they know has a gambling problem? In the very least, shouldn't they have sent him into some rehab or ordered him to get help and put him on leave? Why would you have him working playoff games if you question his integrity?!
Another question I have is that this guy is 40 and has been reffing for 13 years in the NBA. That would make him 27 when he first started....only about five years out of college. Don't you have to work and pay your dues to get into the NBA? Isn't that a pretty quick advancement into the Big league?
This mess is on the heels of a university study released in May that gives the reffing in this league a black eye as well. It found that many refs, black and white, show a distinctive bias toward players of the opposite race in their game calling.
Best case scenario, the league has to take some responsibility for its own inactions here and for looking the other way when they knew there was a problem. Worst case, it looks like it has an agenda in determining who wins (and in lottery picks).
Erin,
Great point about seeing which games this guy has worked....I'd like to see it too. I hope they put it out there for fans to see. Two games I know this guy reffed...
The 2004 debacle between the Pacers and the Pistons that resulted in Pacer players brawling with Pistons fans,
and the May 12th Spurs/Suns playoff game this year that resulted in a Spurs win. ( Never a Suns fan before, I am one of those folks who thought the Suns were robbed in that series.)
Great points, JJ. Another question I have is that this guy is 40 and has been reffing for 13 years in the NBA. That would make him 27 when he first started....only about five years out of college. Don't you have to work and pay your dues to get into the NBA? Isn't that a pretty quick advancement into the Big league?
Yes, I was pretty curious about that myself, considering most referees are older. I've been doing some research on how referees "advance" to the big leagues, but haven't come up with anything conclusive yet. I will get to it if I find anything.
My first instict was to assume that he was another "family" guy, someone whose father is a ref or something. He isn't, but check this out (from Wikipedia):
(Donaghy) is one of four NBA referees from the same high school in Springfield, PA.
The others three include Joey Crawford, whom the Daily News reported today Donaghy got into a fist fight with three years ago during a meeting.
Becoming an NBA ref really does seem to be on a spoils-based system... I'll do more research into this topic, see what else I can dig up.
Yeah, the league is definitely trying to distance themselves from him, to make him look like more of a "friendless" loner, like you said. The hope being that people will then assume that he's the "only" one, and that this is an isolated incident. Whether or not that is actually the case, I'm sure we won't find out.
Erin: Covers.com has culmulative data on his records as a ref versus spreads and over/under lines, but I don't know if they broke it down game by game.
He called 46.6 fouls/game on average, which makes him 4th among the 60ish referees. However, I don't think those numbers deviate too much from the norm; as the quote in the post mentioned, there seems to be "a quota", and while I have to look up the average, I'm guessing it'll be around 45 fouls/gm.
Tim Donaghy was #1, by far, in technical fouls called (take that Crawford!). He called 177, for a 2.6 per game average. That was 20 more than the second highest, Ken Mauer (that's from the NY Post today).
The predictable sympathy quote which I knew was coming was in the Post, too:
"He wasn't going to do it," said a source close to the ref. "The Mafia said, 'No, you're going to do it!' The Mafia threatened his wife and his kids. He didn't have a choice in the end. He loves his family."
Love the exclamation points by the Post, to add effect. Lame.
Another source close to the ref reportedly received a call from Donaghy about five or six weeks ago.
"[He] said, 'I've got a couple of problems. Do me a favor and say a couple of prayers for me,' " the source recalled.
I'm sure I can find a source that would quote Michael Vick has saying something similar five or six weeks ago, too. Double standard.
The Post doesn't have any standard, single or double. I haven't heard anyone else minimizing Donaghy's culpability.
SML great article and loved the oh-so-true title... Also, good point about Bill Simmons and the dangers in popularizing specific referee names. Oh, and while you are doing your research could you find out if he called any of those games in the Heat-Mavs finals a couple of years ago!
Nice work, SML. Despite the fact that this is the NBA and the refs in the NFL are not named in the ways that Bill Simmons has popularized (and he noted today that Donaghy was one of the refs in the pivotal Spurs-Suns Game 3 this year), plenty of NFL fans think the refs there are dodgy in similar ways.
Donaghy should have been a red flag to any competent manager long before this came out.
Brian, very true on the Post. I hate that paper, and it is another of Rupert Murdoch's rhetoric-spewing outlets (like Fox News). I admit that there hasn't been too many MSM articles that have tried to frame Donaghy as a victim yet, beyond the Post. But I will keep an eye on it, for any other MSM newpapers or writers that do try to frame Donaghy as a victim should be scrutinized as possibly having a double-standard or (probably unconscious) bias. Nobody tried to frame Michael Vick as a "victim" of a snitch trying to avoid jailtime; I hope no one else tries to make Donaghy into some sort of victim here, either.
S2N: Thanks. I will go take a look at that Simmons article.
SML,
Great work on the ref connection. Joey Crawford, Mike Callahan, Ed Malloy and Tim Donaghy are all graduates of Cardinal O'Hara HS in Springfield. If I were an NBA official, I'd start there. I've heard of Joey Crawford... he calls lots of technicals too, doesn't he? Things that make you go HMMMMM.....
I'm glad I wasn't the only one to think he broke into the NBA really young. Being a conspiracy theorist and seeing all the work going into isolating this guy, it makes me think there's more snakes hiding under a rock.
Being italian and being (also) a soccer fans and having Italy just passed through the worst fixed games scandal of its (glorious ?) story, I have a hard time understading how a single ref could "adjust" a game, even if it would affect only the score and not the winner
If there are more refs involved, as JJ suggests, then ok, but a single one... uhm....
BTW, who knows how much money makes a NBA ref? per year, Any idea?
According to ask.com, NBA referees make between 90,000 and 225,000 a year.
The latest is that Donaghy has hired former fed prosecutor John Lauro, who specializes in representing whistleblowers. As Donaghy first appeared on the FBI's radar through a wiretap of a Gambino family associate concerning betting, the Feds already know the mob end of the gambling. So who is this guy going to expose as a whistleblower?
This case could get very interesting.
thanks JJ
90.000 to 200.000 + $ a year it seems a lot of money to me
I expected to see someone writing a piece that listed all the games Donaghy has refereed in the last two seasons. I'm interested in seeing it, but I'm not sure I'm willing to do the research it requires. Anyone seen anything like that? It would probably be possible to research the point spreads for his games as well.