Fear and Loathing in Vancouver: Ignoring the real problem

The Olympics have suffered countless calamities over the past week, including the mechanical failure at the conclusion of the Opening Ceremonies, a slew of weather issues, the cancellation of many of the tickets for events at Cypress, the collapse of a barrier at an Alexisonfire show and subsequent injuries to many concertgoers and the failure of the non-Zambonis at the Richmond Oval. For these events and a slew of others, the Games have taken a beating from many, particularly British journalists. Yet, as Bruce Arthur of the National Post points out in an excellent column today, the biggest issue around the Olympics is still the tragic death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili and the cover-up that's followed it.

The IOC's initial response to Kumaritashvili's death was promising. The grief Jacques Rogge and John Furlong demonstrated appeared real and heartfelt, and their tribute to Kumaritashvili at the Opening Ceremonies was appropriate and well-delivered. However, shortly thereafter, the IOC changed their tune dramatically, blaming Kumartiashvili for his own death [Jere Longman, The New York Times] after a brief investigation. Arthur accurately called their news release on the matter "a truly heartless and despicable missive", which about sums it up. Georgia president Mikheil Saakashvili nailed it in his comments at a news conference [Donald McKenzie, The Canadian Press] shortly thereafter, saying "No sports mistake is supposed to lead to a death. No sports mistake is supposed to be fatal."

Blaming the tragedy on Kumaritashvili is missing a big part of the picture. Yes, Kumaritashivili made a mistake, and yes, that led to his death. Clearly, the course can be navigated without tragedy, or we would have seen other deaths. What the IOC is overlooking, though, is that these kind of sports by nature are a delicate balance between speed and safety, and the Whistler track falls on the wrong side of that line [Jeff Passan, Yahoo!]

As Jeff Blair of The Globe and Mail wrote a week before the crash, many concerns had been raised about the track's incredible combination of ridiculous speed and tremendous G-forces long before Kumaritashvili's death. The New York Times reported today that Venezuelan athlete Werner Hoeger had been trying to warn Canadian and international luge officials of the track's dangers since he suffered a concussion on a race there in November, and Misha Dzhindzhikhashvili of The Associated Press wrote that Kumaritashvili had called his father shortly before his death to relay his concerns about the track. Other athletes had commented on the track as well, with Australian luger Hannah Campbell-Pegg being one of the most outspoken [ The Daily Telegraph]. "I think they are pushing it a little too much," Campbell-Pegg said before the fatal crash. "To what extent are we just little lemmings that they just throw down a track and we're crash test dummies? This is our lives." Unfortunately, her comments and the comments American luger Tony Benshoof made to NBC [Blair] turned prophetic: "When I first got on this track, I thought that somebody was going to kill themselves."

The worst part about the luge tragedy is that the IOC has completely overlooked the inherent flaws in the track. Yes, they made some changes, but as Yahoo!]'s Trey Kerby commented, those changes should have been made beforehand. "I'm not a professor of luge safety, but doesn't it seem as if these extra measures should have been installed when the track was built?" he wrote. "Isn't it common sense to pad steel beams and to try to eliminate the possibility of a slider flying off the course? It's terrible that a life was lost to learn these lessons."

Even that would be more acceptable if the IOC admitted they got it wrong, and they were now fixing the problem. That wasn't how they approached it, though; the safety changes were depicted as unnecessary changes made only to reassure athletes. As Longman wrote, "Olympic officials insisted that the changes were not made for safety reasons, but rather to accommodate the emotional state of Kumaritashvili’s fellow athletes — a bogus notion." They've also announced that the track at the 2014 Olympics will be slower [AP], but won't admit that there's anything wrong with the track in Vancouver. They've tried to cover up the problem, and you can bet they're happy that everyone's moved on to more trivial complaints about the weather and the security. In the end, a man's life has been lost needlessly and the IOC has done their best to blame him for the tragedy. That's the real shadow that hangs over these Olympics.

Why NFL players avoid the "thug" label

This story from Aaron Wilson of The National Football Post about the accusations of domestic violence against St. Louis Rams' running back Steven Jackson is horrifying. According to the piece(which picks up on a TMZ report), Jackson allegedly attacked his girlfriend, Supriya Harris, in March 2009. She was nine months pregnant at the time and gave birth 10 days later. Here's the key part:

"In a complaint filed with the Las Vegas police department, Harris claimed: "Steven became enraged and pushed me to the ground, repeatedly."

And she alleged that the Rams runner: "forcibly grabbed my arm and flung me against the door. I was crying and trying to protect my stomach from the blows, as I was 9 mos pregnant. .. continued to shove me against the door until his nephew ... interceded and yelled, 'uncle, she has a baby, stop.'"

Harris said she was "bleeding heavily," after being smashed into a door handle."

This is a horrifying story. If there's any grain of truth in this whatsoever, Jackson should face severe punishment from both the law and the league. Commissioner Roger Goodell has come down very hard on offenders during his tenure, so I would expect the same from him here.

What bothers me, though, is that this story won't get anywhere near the amount of coverage something like the stupid Gilbert Arenas - Javaris Crittenton gun story drew. When NBA players goof around stupidly with guns without actually hurting anyone, the whole league gets branded as "thugs" and we're in for sanctimonious moralizing from columnists, talk-show hosts and everyone else. Yet, over the last decade alone, the NFL has had a ridiculous amount of incidents that were far more severe than the Arenas-Crittenton flap, such as Ray Lewis' involvement in a situation that led to two people being stabbed to death, Donte' Stallworth pleading guilty to DUI manslaughter after running down a pedestrian while drunk, Plaxico Burress shooting himself in the leg in a nightclub, James Harrison's domestic violence arrest (which led to this piece looking at many of the other domestic violence cases in the NFL), Shawne Merriman's domestic violence arrest, and Marvin Harrison's alleged involvement in both a shooting and a murder. These incidents are reported, but they're rarely the subject of moralizing columns and they're almost never used to impugn the credibility of the entire league and its players the way the Arenas-Crittenton feud has been.

Why is this? Well, there are plenty of reasons for it; I had a good discussion on the matter on Twitter with National Post columnist Bruce Arthur (who wrote one of the best pieces on Arenas, by the way) and PPP, the editor of Pension Plan Puppets. We touched on several of the factors involved, including the perception of the NBA, the higher visibility of players (thanks to no helmets), the relative popularity of the two leagues and the discipline David Stern hands out. However, I think it all boils down to two main factors.

The first factor in my mind is the nature of the game. Basketball is a physical sport, but football, by nature, is much more physical and extremely violent. We read about players such as Vikings' defensive end John Randle saying "I want to kill that guard!", or Bears' linebacker Dick Butkus saying " I never set out to hurt anyone deliberately - unless it was, you know, important, like a league game or something," and we laugh it off (quotes from Jonathan Rand's excellent 300 Pounds Of Attitude, which I'm planning to review here soon). We think, "What warriors these guys are!" and we glorify them for their violent urges. That isn't necessarily wrong, but we need to establish firm boundaries about what's acceptable and where and we need to make it clear that we love them for their skill and their intensity, not just their violence. If players grow up hearing about guys like Butkus and Randle, and hear about them through the prism that it was their violent urges that made them great, aren't they going to try and cultivate their own violent urges, and wouldn't that make those urges more likely to spill over off the field?

This leads to a problem in coverage, because it's more difficult to call out a James Harrison or a Shawne Merriman for violent behaviour off the field when you've just been praising their violent behaviour on the field. I don't think that has to be an issue; we should be able to clearly draw a line between athletes' play on the field and their behaviour off it. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem that many people are interested in doing that.

The second factor is even more important in my mind, though, and it has to do with how the league is marketed. It's not the Shawne Merrimans or Donte' Stallworths who are seen as the faces of the NFL and plastered all over commercials; it's the Peyton Mannings and Brett Favres. The NFL's not a league of violent criminals, it's a league of goofy white guys who play pickup football in Wranglers and watch movies on their Sony Bravia televisions! I'm sure at least part of that's thanks to race, but another big part of it is thanks to the glorification of quarterbacks (which I wrote about way back when). That's why Michael Vick's dogfighting charges, and not any of the murder, manslaughter or domestic violence cases, were the first scandal in a long while that caused any damage to the league as a whole. However, even those were quickly swept under the rug and blamed on Vick as a lone bad apple.

I'm not arguing that all NFL players are thugs or that all NBA players are pure as the driven snow. All I'd like to see is some consistency in the coverage of the league's issues. Personally, I fall into the camp that each player is responsible for their own actions and not reflective of the league as a whole. Thus, I'd argue that all of these incidents should be covered thoroughly, but as individual cases, not indictments of one league or another. However, if you want to moralize about how Gilbert Arenas and Javaris Crittenton's stupid ideas on how to use guns are responsible for the decline and fall of western civilization, by all means be my guest. Just make sure you apply the same standard to the NFL while you're at it.

Dissecting Prime Time Sports on Morris/Ibanez

To follow up to my initial piece on the Jerod Morris/Raul Ibanez controversy from this past week, I figured I'd discuss the reaction of the guys on Prime Time Sports on Friday. For those not familiar with it, Prime Time Sports is a radio/television program broadcast across Canada daily on the FAN 590 and its affiliates as well as Rogers Sportsnet. It's probably comparable in reach to ESPN's Around The Horn (a show I've complained about previously), but is generally much more insightful. The regular broadcasts tend to feature host Bob McCown and Globe and Mail writer par excellence Stephen Brunt interviewing top-tier guests from the media and sports worlds, and often have some great stuff. The Friday shows are more of an Around the Horn feel than an interview show, with a couple of other Toronto media personalities joining Brunt and McCown to discuss sports, but the emphasis still tends to be on thoughtful discussion over yelling and extreme opinions, which is nice to see. Unfortunately, that emphasis went out the window Friday.

First off, don't blame McCown and Brunt for this one; both were off this week. Instead, the Friday lineup was Sportsnet personality Rob Faulds, Sports Illustrated hockey writer and Fan 590 host Jim Kelley, National Post columnist Bruce Arthur and former Winnipeg sportscaster John Wells. Not a bad group of guys, though, and they have plenty of experience in the media, so you'd expect rationality from them. By and large, that failed to materialize, though. You can download the show here from the Fan 590 website. The Ibanez segment starts at 15:01 of the file and runs to about 26:30 (with a few minor tangents). Below, I look at some of the more outrageous quotes from the program.

Rob Faulds, introducing the story: "Raul Ibanez was not too happy with some accusations of a blogger saying that his great start was probably due to steroids. Now, this happens all the time with blogs. Where are they now fitting in, or do they even fit in?"

Analysis: First off, referring to Morris as just "a blogger" (I don't think they mentioned his name or his site anywhere, but I could be wrong on that) is one of the typical mainstream media failures of attribution I discussed here and isn't a good start. Guys like Morris who blog under their real name give up the benefits of anonymity and exchange them for the benefits of increased responsibility and accountability; the mainstream media should be willing to at least give them some credit for that.

Moreover, such a generic reference is a low-class move by Faulds and it doesn't bode well for the show. Without mentioning his name or the site, they force interested listeners to go to Google. They'd probably find Morris' material anyway, as one of his posts is the second result for "Ibanez steroids", but it might be tough to pick the original out from the massive amount of reaction pieces out there. That takes time, effort and persistence, and many people won't be willing to do that. Instead, they'll take the Prime Time Sports' guys' representation of Morris' words at face value, and that's a big mistake. In many ways, that's what started this whole thing off; what Morris wrote wasn't highly controversial or highly unusual on its own, but the way the Philadelphia Inquirer represented his story made it appear much worse than it was [Alana G, alanag.com]. Unfortunately, Prime Time Sports follows in those less-than-stellar footsteps with mischaracterizations of their own.

Bruce Arthur: "With journalism, we have gatekeepers. We have editors, we have safeguards, we have standards."
Jim Kelley: "What scares me is we’ve lost that gatekeeper wall if you will."

Analysis: This is one of the common refrains in the old-media hymnal, and it has some truth to it. Editors do add value at times and can make sure that what's reported is fair and accurate. The problem is that they don't always do that, though; check out Craig Silverman's Regret The Error site for a cornucopia of examples of where those editors, safeguards and standards have failed (see Blair, Jayson for one of the worst). That's not to say that the editorial standards and safeguards don't have value; of course they do. The point is that they aren't infallible. Furthermore, those editors, safeguards and standards are not universal; look at the difference between the New York Times and the New York Post for an excellent example.

The other key point here is that Arthur and Kelley, like so many mainstream media personalities, unfairly portray the blogosphere as full of people without editors, safeguards or standards. Many of the bigger blogs do have rigid editing processes, and everyone has safeguards and standards of some sort. Yes, many bloggers have their safeguards and standards below what the mainstream media considers acceptable, but you have to consider the audience as well; people read sites like Kissing Suzy Kolber for entertainment and opinion, not hard news, so it isn't as important to have rigid standards there. Those of us who run more serious sites do have safeguards and standards, and sometimes we are more conservative than the mainstream media thanks to the absence of a massive conglomerate backing our reporting. It's unfair to portray the mainstream media/blogosphere divide as a black and white picture where one group has rigid standards and the other doesn't; the real, grey truth is that each site or organization has its own standards and should be evaluated on its own merits.

Rob Faulds: "I have no problem with blogs. I have a problem with the facts, when the facts aren’t right."

Analysis: I hate to break it to you, Mr. Faulds, but mainstream media outlets get the facts wrong just as frequently as the blogosphere, sometimes more frequently. Part of that is because much of what they're reporting is new and original, so of course errors tend to be made, while it's harder to make definitive errors if you're writing an analysis piece (unless you misrepresent what's already been reported). In fact, your own lofty radio station isn't exactly pure and unblemished; consider the Sean Avery/Jason Blake flap, where the FAN reported that Avery had made derogatory remarks about Blake's leukemia. They weren't able to prove that, and FAN reporter Howard Berger had to apologize on-air [Regret The Error]. So, if your problem isn't with blogs but with bad facts, perhaps complain about the stick in your own eye before targeting the mote in someone else's.

Jim Kelley: "The guys you pointed out, the good bloggers, they have that grounded background in journalism for the most part."

Analysis: I can't say that a journalism background isn't helpful for blogging, as that's the area I come from as well. However, it certainly isn't a prerequisite. Many great bloggers have no background in journalism at all. As I wrote in my piece on Geoff Baker's similar criticisms, "It's part of a disturbing trend in the sports media where some sportswriters feel the need to claim that the experience they have covering other subjects makes them superior." Journalism backgrounds can be useful, but they certainly
aren't mandated for bloggers, and many can do great things without them.

Bruce Arthur, on the differences between how mainstream media and bloggers approach covering teams: "We don’t have an interest in making [the teams] look good necessarily."

Analysis: I think it's pretty hard to claim that all bloggers are out there to make the teams look good and the mainstream media are out there to keep them accountable. In fact, the converse is generally true. The limitations of mainstream pieces mean that you have to carefully differentiate news and opinion, and the preponderance of mainstream game stories or trade stories (news pieces) just tell you what happened (which I don't have a problem with, but it does mean that there isn't a lot of room for criticism or analysis in those stories). Sometimes, you'll see opinion columns on games or trades as well, which can be more critical and analytical, but aren't always. Meanwhile, most pieces on team blogs include plenty of opinion and analysis, and much of it is not favourable to the team's players, coaches or management. For example, consider the coverage of the Leafs in the Toronto Star and at the excellent Pension Plan Puppets. After reading pieces from the two sites, would you really say that PPP and his crew of writers have "an interest in making the team look good?" I don't think you would. I think you'd find that they're more critical than the mainstream media (even their site name is a shot at the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan's ownership stake in Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment), and often for good reasons. They're certainly not sucking up to ownership or management, and I don't think most bloggers or mainstream outlets are.

Jim Kelley: "We’re in trouble, all of us, differentiating between truth and simply what’s out there. ... That’s where you need those gatekeepers."

Analysis: No, Mr. Kelley, we're not headed for some pending blogpocalypse where no one knows what truth is any more. Like mainstream newspapers and radio stations, blogs have to work to earn their credibility. The good outlets in either category will get the facts right more often then not, be accountable for what they write and report and admit it when they screw up. The bad ones won't. Sports fans aren't stupid; they're not going to take blogger Eklund's latest trade rumours as gospel (in fact, funnily enough, the most prominent mainstream outlet to give Eklund any attention at all was Kelley's own Rogers Sportsnet, which featured him on one of their trade deadline shows) or believe everything mainstream media writer Bruce "Malkin to the Kings" Garrioch writes [full credit to Greg Wyshynski of Puck Daddy for that name]. Both sides have their share of reputable and disreputable sources, and smart fans take each source's record into consideration. They're perfectly capable of separating truth from fiction on their own without your vaunted gatekeepers.

Bruce Arthur: "It's not just in sports either. This happens in politics an awful lot. During the 2008 presidential campaign, the stuff about Obama being a Muslim, was nothing. It was never anything and yet it got slipped into the undernews. ... It’s harder and harder to figure out what’s real and what isn’t."

Analysis: Yes, Mr. Arthur, misinformation comes out in politics too. However, plenty of Internet sites such as the Huffington Post played key roles in debunking that particular rumour, and mainstream sources like Fox News did more to spread it than anyone (which Arthur acknowledged, to his credit). Moreover, as I mentioned in the Baker post, in the lead-up to the 2004 election, it was CBS that was fabricating stories and bloggers that were proving them false [ZDNet]. You can't just say the blogosphere is responsible for propagating lies and the mainstream media always tells the truth; it doesn't quite work like that. Each source and story needs to be evaluated on its own merits.

Anyway, it sounds like some sense is beginning to prevail on this particular issue. Much of the reaction in both the mainstream media and the blogosphere has taken a more reasonable tone as of late, and the discussion of it at the Blogs With Balls panel yesterday sounded very positive from the Twitter updates I saw. It's just unfortunate that the Prime Time Sports guys, with one of the largest media platforms in Canada, couldn't use it more responsibly to thoroughly discuss the issue. Instead, they did offer some insight, but mixed it in with the kind of uninformed and vitriolic comments presented above. In my mind, that's a shame, and it reflects poorly on the state of sports media discussion in Canada.

Thoughts? Opinions? Questions? Leave them in the comments below, or e-mail me at andrew_bucholtz AT hotmail.com.

Manufacturing the Olympics

The whole kerfuffle around the Olympics' lip-synching switch, pre-taped fireworks and "volunteer fans"–which got a nice front-page expose from Bruce Arthur in the National Post this morning-better reveals the true nature of the Beijing Olympics and China than most of the coverage so far. If you're one of the five people living under a rock somewhere who hasn't yet heard about this, here's the basic run-down. During the opening ceremonies, the Chinese featured a song entitled "Ode to the Motherland" that was sung by seven-year-old Yang Peiyi, but lip-synched live by nine-year-old Lin Miaoke because Yang's face was apparently too round and her teeth were too crooked. Not content with this masterpiece of propaganda, they then inserted pre-taped fireworks footage into the montage of live fireworks to add to the event and sent in volunteer cheer squads to fill some of the empty seats.

This trifecta of deceptive maneuverings shows us plenty about China. If they just let things happen as they may, this wouldn't get a ton of attention: no one cares if a seven-year-old has perfect teeth, or how long a fireworks montage is, or even if not every Olympic venue is perfectly full. Instead, they've created a firestorm of negative press out of their attempts to spin things just right. The whole censoring-the-Internet bit is right up the same alley, and it shows just how badly the Chinese understand the Western media: by trying to keep reporters from writing about Amnesty International and Tibet, which might have just been brief subplots in the vast array of Olympic coverage, they created a boatload of stories on how the government was trying to limit the media's access.

Really, they should have hired some Western PR specialists. The best way to get a reporter to write a story is not to provide him with information on it, but rather to tell him "there's nothing to see here": anyone with even a smattering of journalistic instincts knows when someone's trying to hide something. Cover-ups usually make the best stories as well, and often lead to effects far greater in magnitude than just telling the truth in the first place would have caused: just ask Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein or Richard Milhous Nixon.

It's the whole authoritarian spirit of the Chinese Olympics that is so disturbing, though. Clearly, good is not good enough. A seven-year-old girl can have a beautiful voice, but crooked teeth? She's got no place in their Olympics. Cheering and other expressions of fandom? Not unless they're state-approved [Deadspin]. Tibetan bartenders? Better expel them, as well as question their black employers, discriminate against black bar patrons, approve the lyrics of foreign entertainers and prevent local residents from inviting foreigners to their apartments [The Washington Post]. Chatting with foreigners? Only allowed if you don't ask about age, marriage, health, home, personal experience, religion, political views or occupation. While you're at it, you'd better be careful with how you walk around foreigners and how you speak with handicapped athletes [Gawker]. Reading Fire Joe Morgan or Joe Posnanski's blog? Nope, no sabermetrics here [Joe Posnanski]. Planning to protest? Make sure you check with the police first [Charles Hutzler, The Associated Press].

As Arthur writes, these Olympics are certainly impressive, but the deception and the image-management makes you wonder what's real.

"What China has built here is incredible. The architecture, the machinery, the armies of volunteers and an Opening Ceremony with images that were surely seared into the soul of every Chinese citizen, and not a few citizens of the world, who watched. These are the Superpower Olympics, damn the costs. As Thomas Boswell of The Washington Post put it, the four billion people who will see these Olympics will witness "the behemoth that is being born."
But they are the Hollywood Olympics, too, complete with false fronts and lead actors and a cast of thousands, or millions. At its heart, this is a bright, shining, $40-billion lie. If the whole thing is being staged in Cambodia, don't be surprised."

What the Chinese government fails to realize is that their own efforts at control are only making things worse. The protests in Tibet earlier this year would have been less of a story if the government hadn't tried to keep the word from getting out. The smog would have been reported on, for sure, but in a less-embarrassing and less-frequent fashion if they didn't keep trying to tell us that everything's fine. Amnesty International probably would have been a bit player at most in these Olympics if the government hadn't blocked their website. No one would have criticized Yang Peiyi's appearance if she had sang, but by using a double, they touched off a firestorm of controversy. Normal, spontaneous cheering isn't a negative story, and might even be a positive one, but telling your fans how to cheer isn't going to earn you rave reviews.

The control, the censorship and the stage-managing make it easy to be cynical and skeptical even during moments that should be great promotional pieces. Even China's gold medal in team gymnastics is largely discredited due to the controversy about the gymnasts' ages [Ann Killion, San Jose Mercury News]. Open the country and the Games up, play by the rules of the rest of the world, let the press do their job, and you'll be surprised at the praise you'll get. If you try and keep the lid on for too long, it will eventually blow off in your face in a shower of hot steam.

Donaghy's new allegations speak to basketball fans' worst fears

Photo: A screen capture of SI's original Tim Donaghy story from beRecruited.

Well, the NBA has managed to find a way to blow it yet again. The Tim Donaghy scandal had almost died down, and all of a sudden, the league starts demanding $1 million he doesn't have in restitution. In response, Donaghy's lawyers file letters and documents with the sentencing court alleging that officials altered the outcome of at least two specific games or playoff rounds: Game Six of the Los Angeles Lakers - Sacramento Kings Western Finals clash in 2002 and the Houston Rockets - Dallas Mavericks series in 2005.As respected ESPN legal analyst Lester Munson writes, accusations that easily could have stayed quiet have now become a dark shadow cutting to the very heart of the league.

"Donaghy's sentencing is scheduled for July 14. He faces a maximum of 25 years in prison for conspiracy to engage in wire fraud and transmitting betting information through interstate commerce. In the usual course of presentence investigations and procedures, the federal probation department asks the 'victim' about the damage resulting from the crime. As a 'victim' of Donaghy's crimes, the NBA claimed in a June 5 letter that it was entitled to $1 million in restitution from Donaghy. Restitution, or the reimbursement of the victim's losses, typically pays back a bank or a charity for money lost in an embezzlement or a theft. Donaghy obviously damaged the NBA and its reputation, but there is no indication he stole any money from the league. The NBA claimed that it was forced to spend the nice round sum of $1 million investigating Donaghy and the damage he caused, and the league wants its money back. Clearly enraged by the unexpected demand from the NBA for $1 million, Donaghy and [his lawyer John F.] Lauro retaliated with detailed accusations of manipulation by other referees. It is the worst nightmare for the NBA, which might now be reconsidering a withdrawal of its demand for restitution."

Here are the key allegations, from ESPN.com's story:

"Jeff Van Gundy ultimately backed off comments that a referee told him officials had targeted Yao Ming in the Houston Rockets' 2005 first-round playoff series against the Dallas Mavericks. Maybe Van Gundy was right after all.
A letter sent to the sentencing court on behalf of convicted former referee Tim Donaghy outlines just such a plan. It also alleges that referees helped alter the outcome of the controversial 2002 Game 6 playoff series between the Los Angeles Lakers and Sacramento Kings.
...
The letter also details an incident in the 2002 playoffs in which Donaghy alleges that two referees, who were known as NBA "company men," wanted to extend a series to seven games. "Team 5" could have wrapped up the series in Game 6 but saw two players foul out, lost the game and ultimately the series.
Only one series went to seven games in the 2002 playoffs: Lakers-Kings.
...
Donaghy also alleges that team executives conspired with the league to prevent star players from being called for too many fouls or being ejected. He claims that league officials told referees that doing so would 'hurt ticket sales and television ratings.'"

And two more from the New York Times:

"In their letter, Lauro and Donaghy make a number of other charges, among them:
That referees “socialized frequently with coaches and players” and asked for autographs and free merchandise, in violation of league rules.
That a referee’s relationship with one team’s general manager “led to an attempt by that referee to influence a game’s outcome” in 2004. Donaghy claimed that the referee in question told him that he planned to favor the general manager’s team in a game that night."

Lone Gunmen everywhere let loose a simultaneous shout of exultation when this news broke. Finally, all the debates about questionable NBA officiating and the league's conspiracy to influence the playoffs in favour of TV-rating darlings over the years (summarized nicely in this Basketbawful post by Matt McHale) have some tangible evidence from someone on the inside to back the conspiracy theory. Considering how well these theories have done over the years without this, this could be what kicks them into high gear. As Munson writes, this is perfect ammunition for those who question the NBA's credibility, especially because Donaghy's now naming specific instances. "The accusations are the kinds of things that fuel conspiracy theories that abound among NBA fans, but Donaghy is now adding dates, places and games," he writes.

If this was any other sport, this might not be as believable. However, this merely confirms fans' deepest fears about the dark side of the NBA. We already know Donaghy may have "subconsciously" influenced games [The Smoking Gun] in favour of his gambling positions, and that wasn't picked up for a long time: from there, it isn't a huge jump to other referees influencing games in favour of what the league sees as best for itself. Then you get situations in this year's playoffs like the Derek Fisher-Brent Barry incident and the foul discrepancies in Game Two of the Finals. In both cases, a result that just happened to be extremely convenient for the league occurred. Coincidence? Perhaps, but the more times these "coincidences" happen, the harder it becomes to believe that there's nothing to see here.

Donaghy picked a couple of strong examples to release, as well, further helping his cause. Many people have suspected that Lakers-Kings game (and series) was rigged ever since it happened (and Sacramento Bee columnist Ailene Voisin rather presciently predicted last summer that the Donaghy investigation might turn up new material on that fiasco). It was such a ridiculous game that even Ralph Nader called for an investigation, as detailed in Voisin's piece above. The Yao Ming scenario was also interesting: it led to ABC broadcaster Jeff Van Gundy commenting on the air that a working referee had told him that the refs were clamping down on Ming after Mavericks' owner Mark Cuban complained (the Mavericks won the series in seven games). Van Gundy was fined $100,000 by the league for his comments, but they're looking pretty accurate now. During halftime of tonight's game, he said he still thinks Ming was unfairly targeted but he doesn't give Donaghy any credibility: you have to wonder how much of that is just window dressing to avoid another fine, though.

In my mind, the biggest problem this produces is that the NBA can never completely prove its innocence, even if it turns out that they are innocent. No amount of denials is going to take away the suspicions in the minds of many, especially seeing as many of those doubts were implanted long before Donaghy came out with this latest information. We already know that David Stern doesn't particularly value truthfulness or history: now, the question is if he values the integrity of the game, or if the TV ratings are more important. The problem is, we may never really know for sure.

The last word on this matter should go to the National Post's Bruce Arthur, who rather brilliantly called this almost a year ago. Here's some of the best bits from his July 21, 2007 column on the Donaghy scandal (bolding mine), appropriately titled "Donaghy may become NBA's worst nightmare" with the kicker "Referee Scandal Could Rock League To The Core."

"After Game 5 of the 2006 NBA Finals, a Miami Herald columnist reported -- erroneously, as it turned out -- that after a controversial finish, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban turned towards the seats of NBA commissioner David Stern, and screamed, "F---you! F---you! Your league is rigged!"
Cuban never said it, and the columnist later issued a correction. He had reported it because someone told him it happened, and frankly, because it sounded plausible. One, because Cuban is a hothead. And two, because in the NBA, every conspiracy theory is believed.
Now, there appears to be an actual conspiracy. The New York Post first reported yesterday that an NBA referee is being investigated by the FBI for fixing the point spread in a number of games, in concert with organized crime, over the last two seasons."
...
Welcome to David Stern's worst nightmare. Bar none.
For that matter, if the allegations prove true, this is the worst nightmare of every sports league. The players can be criminals, and the games can be one-sided, and hell, Ron Artest could wade into the crowd and beat up a different fan each and every night. But when the integrity of the game is wounded, when that bedrock is cracked, it robs the game of all significance.
This is not steroids in baseball, or labour trouble in hockey, or even Michael Vick's sickening dog-fighting case. The only worst-case scenario is if a star player is the one doing the fixing, and even that may not be as bad. But a star is an aberration, a Pete Rose. A team is the 1919 Chicago White Sox. An official, at least in terms of perception, is institutional.
And in this case, this particular institution is an easy target. For some reason, people are perfectly willing to believe the worst about the NBA.
To be fair, gambling has had its tendrils threaded through in the NBA for years. Michael Jordan was a legendary gambler, at cards and on the golf course, and it was long speculated that his first retirement, in 1993, was in part league-ordered because of Jordan's alleged gambling problems. The 1997 book Money Players -- written by investigative reporter Armen Keteyian, New York Times columnist Harvey Araton, and investigative reporter Martin Dardis -- details allegations that Isiah Thomas wagered thousands in illegal dice games. There are more stories, whispered about throughout the league.
But none of those tendrils had ever demonstrably reached on to the court. Until now.
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Now, every decision Donaghy made in the last two years will be scrutinized, again. And now, Stern is facing perhaps the biggest crisis of his 23-year tenure.
NBA referees have always been faced with more suspicion than in any other sport -- the league favours superstars, etc. And at every turn, Stern has vigorously defended his officials -- from charges of home-court bias, of incompetence, or of race bias, which was recently floated in a university study.
Now, if this gambling allegation is true, every borderline fan can suspect any call he or she doesn't like. My brother, a lifelong NBA fan, soured on the league after those 2006 Finals, in which Miami's Dwyane Wade seemed to get the benefit of every call. Many other fans went with him. How many more are on the ledge after this? Moreover, how does the NBA put a team in Las Vegas? How does the league maintain its integrity? How does it recover?
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But this has the potential to bloody the NBA, and badly. This might have been the worst season in NBA history -- the short-lived change of basketballs, the injuries, the tanking, the whining, the All-Star fiasco (in Vegas, natch), the dead-dull playoffs, the playoff-altering suspensions, and finally, a dreadful NBA Finals.
But this is different. This might be the worst poison of all."