Let me make one thing clear: I take no joy in the attendance woes of the NBA, or any other league for that matter. And if hockey fans like me are "insecure," it's for a very simple reason: the relentless drumbeat in the mainstream media and on sports blogs that the NHL is irrelevant.
What am I talking about? Well, our friend Enrico Campetelli gave us a nice reminder last week over at The 700 Level, where he posted an interview he did with long-time Flyers beat writer Tim Pannacio. It was Pannacio who left the Philadelphia Inquirer after last season when he demurred after his editor attempted to re-assign him to cover the Eagles. The reason: the editor, an ex-ESPN hand who was responsible for PTI and Around the Horn had declared hockey "an irrelevant sport," this in a town where the Flyers are outdrawing the 76ers despite the fact that the Flyers lost six straight games to start the season.
5. Deseret News: Carlos Boozer "hasn't decided" if he'll opt out this summer. What? You don't believe Boozer when he's talking about his contract?
6. AlanaG.com: A hilarious tale of a trip to the voting booth, which has been taken a little too seriously by at least one other site. (Oh, and it's NBA-related because of the video of Acie Law voting, I guess.)
Perhaps more than any other pro major league, the NBA has flirted with Las Vegas in recent years. The Maloofs, controlling owners of the Kings, are a big part of that. The family's notoriety, fortune and fame come from the Palms Casino. Ever-mindful of the potential or appearance of point shaving or game fixing, the NBA has barred the Palms from offering bets on NBA games in its book. That changed today, when (at the request of the Maloofs) the NBA board of governors voted to allow the league's games on the books at the Palms.
The Maloofs' argument, according to quotes collected by the Associated Press, is that a minority owner of the Celtics runs Harrah's, a casino chain. Harrah's takes bets on all NBA game not involving the C's. There have no problems which game-fixing accusations or whatnot, so the Maloofs feel it's only fair to give the Palms a chance.
Weird timing, yeah? The league is just now burying the Tim Donaghy headlines. The independent Pedowitz report recommended the NBA crack down on player card games on team planes, for crying out loud. I can't imagine even an investigation as amiable as the Pedowitz report would think opening up the book at the Palms to NBA games could possibly be a good idea, given eternal suspicions about the league. And the fairness argument is a non-starter: the Harrah's CEO (Gary Loveman) owns 2.4% of the Celtics, while the Maloofs own something like 80% of the Kings franchise.
David Stern -- who could have stopped this at any point -- really doesn't care about the league's image when it comes to the Donaghy scandal or the gambling issue. This is a particularly egregious reminder of that fact.
NBA Essentials ranks our six favorite stories of the day.
1. Hoops Addict. Blogger tries out for D-League team. Blogger gets injured within 30 minutes. Blogger still gets a good story with great video out of it. 2. ESPN.com, via FD. Bill Simmons puts together a great Elgin Baylor column.
Today's release of the Pedowitz Report -- which, among other things, backed up the league's assertion that Tim Donaghy was the only one doing what he was doing -- prompted David Stern to take questions from the media via conference call. Here were some of the hightlights:
- The question was asked that if the report found that referees were not manipulating the outcomes of games, how were they able to win between 60 and 70% of their wagers? Stern answered simply, "I don't know," then questioned the reporter on that statistic. He added that he hadn't seen those numbers and that he didn't know if that was accurate. But he guessed that if you start by guessing and you're at 50-50, any additional piece of inside information would be likely to increase your odds of guessing correctly.
- Speaking of inside information, that was the reason the commissioner gave for implementing the game-day release of the names of which officials would be working which games. He said that the more information that's available publicly, the less of a gambler's advantage there is, because there would be almost no inside information anymore. Stern stated that the "gambler's edge would be blunted" by the release of more public information.
Something we touched on briefly in discussing the explanation for the 130 phone calls between NBA referees Tim Donaghy and Scott Foster was the boredom of life on the road. In the independent report on the NBA's referee program, Lawrence Pedowitz goes into a fair bit of detail about the lonely nature of the job.
[M]uch of a referee's life involves travel, and travel involves a great deal of waiting time, so Foster often makes calls to "kill time." Foster is a creature of habit and a basketball and sports junkie. When he is on the road, he works out every morning at 10:00 a.m. He is also an early riser, which means that he has several hours to kill every morning. [...]
Referees have more time on their hands in the afternoon before a night game. Foster described this time as often boring and lonely, because referees rarely spend it together. Therefore, Foster usually returns to his hotel room after lunch and makes more calls to fellow referees. [...] The excitement of officiating an NBA game in the evening typically leaves him "wired" and unable to sleep right away when he gets back to his hotel room after the game, often after midnight. Because it is often too late at night to call his family, Foster calls his fellow referees to discuss the games they have just officiated.
Scott Foster needs a hobby he can take on the road. Online poker? Erm ... maybe not. The league should include some fix for this problem in its restructuring of the referee program. Why not hire a little buddy to hang out with and entertain each ref? Or give the refs supplemental jobs, like transcribing Gilbert Arenas' blog posts. Keep these guys busy. We all know an idle mind is the devil's playground.
The report from FOX Sports found that Donaghy called Foster more than 130 times over a six-month period, 10 times more than he had phoned any other co-worker. Worse, most of the calls lasted less than two minutes, and many of them preceded calls to Donaghy's betting buddies.
How did Pedowitz explain the odd behavior? By noting the long friendship between Foster and Donaghy and detailing how so many short calls could show up in records:
Foster told us that he frequently calls other referees and either hangs up when the call goes to voicemail or leaves a short voicemail message, and that other referees do the same when calling Foster. Foster's cell phone service agreement, which appears to be typical for cell phone carriers, provides that a call begins as soon as the phone being called rings, and a call as short as one second is recorded as a one-minute call. If the phone rings five or six times and the caller then leaves a message, it is likely that the call will last over one minute and will be recorded as a two-minute call. Therefore, it seems likely that many of Donaghy's short calls to Foster were in fact instances in which Donaghy and Foster did not speak to each other.
So basically, Foster never answers his phone. The report also discusses how lonely life as a referee can be, and notes that talking with other refs is a way to relieve boredom.
The lack of interest in Foster's involvement by the league, the FBI, federal prosecutors, and basically every media entity save for FOX ... that has also served to strengthen the skepticism of Foster's involvement. And while little the league has come up with in its defense has gained much public traction, it seems like this particular explanation could stick.
Everyone's been waiting for the independent report on the NBA's referee program from former federal prosecutor Lawrence Pedowitz. It's out -- big ol' PDF file here, NBA press release here. The major hook Pedowitz offers: Tim Donaghy's allegations that other referees and the league conspired to "fix" games to extend playoff series are without merit. From the report:
We have discovered no information suggesting that any NBA referee other than Tim Donaghy has bet on NBA games or leaked confidential NBA information to gamblers. In this connection, we reviewed a suggestion that referee Scott Foster was somehow involved in Donaghy's conspiracy (a suggestion raised in a press report about Donaghy's phone records) and found it to be meritless.
If you'll recall, a FOX Sports report over the summer raised suspicion of Foster when phone records revealed how often he and Donaghy spoke on game days ... and how often those calls were followed by calls between Donaghy and his gambling connections. An analysis of Foster's called games also indicated funny business.
Pedowitz also finds no evidence that Donaghy made calls to affect games he bet on, a claim backed up by federal prosecutors who pinched the ref. The report does offer recommendations to improve the NBA ref program, but to be honest they aren't very strong and have little in the way of public outreach or transparency for the fans.
Basically, the report backs the NBA's line that the hiring of a new oversight guy will fix everything, and that really folks, there's nothing to see here. I have a hard time believing the paying public will buy it.
Today's reminder that the Tim Donaghy scandal will not go quietly into that dark night comes from Arizona. A prosecutor in Arizona is following up on an earlier request for the documents pertaining to Donaghy's case. The prosecutor was told to wait till after Donaghy's federal trial concluded before processing his request. Donaghy's been sentenced, and now the prosecutor, Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas, wants his shot.
The claim is that he wants to explore whether Donaghy broke any state laws during his happy go funtime dancing with betting on games he worked. But in reality, we know the real reason behind the inquiry.
There's no doubt that the real reason behind the inquiry is to discover if Donaghy admitted to shenannigans during the Suns notoriously questionable playoffs series against the Spurs in 2007. It's likely that the investigation has very little to do with actually pursuing Donaghy, seeing as how he's, you know, already in the clink. But ever since people started pointing out that Donaghy was involved in that, um ... interesting series, there have been blood cries from the desert.
As someone that was as outraged by that series as anyone, I'll still say someone should tell Phoenix that this won't put Steve Nash's nose back together in Game 1, nor will it keep Amare Stoudemire on the bench after Robert Horry cheapshot 1.0. It's done.
The New York Daily News has a wild set of quotes from retired FBI special agent Philip Scala, who led the team which uncovered the Tim Donaghy betting scandal (as well as a number of other profile cases involving things like Gotti and al Qaeda). Scala discusses a talk he had with Donaghy following the ref's indirect but incendiary statements about Game 6 of the 2002 Western Conference Finals being fixed.
"Donaghy, for some reason, looked up to me," Scala said. "He came to me one day and said, 'It means a lot to me if you could answer this question: Do you believe that I've told the truth?' I told him, 'I believe you.' ... Donaghy told us the truth."
As someone who is not an elite interrogator, I have no idea if there's some greater narrative in or purpose of Scala's belief of Donaghy's accusations. I imagine David Stern will ignore this story completely -- he has been begging for Donaghy to disappear into a cell for a few years, something that will happen very soon.
But Stern may not be able to ignore it forever. Scala tells the Daily News he has started up a private investigation firm focused on uncovering sports corruption. Good news for fans, possibly bad news for the NBA (and maybe Scott Foster) ... if Donaghy really was telling the truth.
I was glad to see my FanHouse colleague Brett Edwards pick up the discussion string concerning the disturbing attendance data uncovered by Peter Nussbaum last week at Supersonics Soul. What was disappointing, however, was his failure to grapple with the data presented and how he instead pointed the finger back at hockey fans like me and our "hilarious" insecurities.
Perhaps more than any other pro major league, the NBA has flirted with Las Vegas in recent years. 
Today's release of the Pedowitz Report -- which, among other things, backed up the league's assertion that 
Something we touched on briefly in 
In echoing the NBA's stance that 
Everyone's been waiting for the independent report on the NBA's referee program from former federal prosecutor Lawrence Pedowitz. It's out -- big ol' PDF file 
Today's reminder that the 
The New York Daily News has 
