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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.

Never has a guy playing a "friendly" Nassau got himself in so much trouble.

Tim Donaghy, a man that will most likely be nominated into the Suns Hall of Fame after jail, got infected with his gambling bug from, of all places, the golf course.

"(Stephen) Block, a longtime New York-based gambling treatment counselor who interviewed Donaghy in January, traced his problem to 1994, when he started betting up to $500 a hole and playing card games at various golf clubs in his home state of Pennsylvania."

I have some buddies that would bet on anything from who hits the most trees in a round to which portion of the cart girl's shirt will be stained and even they don't toss $500 around the links.

Who is this guy, Charles Barkley?

"His gambling history demonstrates the need to gamble to fulfill the underlying need for 'action,"' Block said. "He continued to gamble despite the consequences and the fear of disclosure of his activities."

With Donaghy just being sentenced to 15 months in prison, I guarantee the need for "action" will indefinitely be fulfilled. "Hey Timmy, wanna bet on which guard I paid off to conveniently disappear for the next eight minutes?"

He better hope they send him to a jail near San Antonio, it might be the only place he's safe.

Never has a guy playing a "friendly" Nassau got himself in so much trouble.

Tim Donaghy, a man that will most likely be nominated into the Suns Hall of Fame after jail, got infected with his gambling bug from, of all places, the golf course.

"(Stephen) Block, a longtime New York-based gambling treatment counselor who interviewed Donaghy in January, traced his problem to 1994, when he started betting up to $500 a hole and playing card games at various golf clubs in his home state of Pennsylvania."

I have some buddies that would bet on anything from who hits the most trees in a round to which portion of the cart girl's shirt will be stained and even they don't toss $500 around the links.

Who is this guy, Charles Barkley?

"His gambling history demonstrates the need to gamble to fulfill the underlying need for 'action,"' Block said. "He continued to gamble despite the consequences and the fear of disclosure of his activities."

With Donaghy just being sentenced to 15 months in prison, I guarantee the need for "action" will indefinitely be fulfilled. "Hey Timmy, wanna bet on which guard I paid off to conveniently disappear for the next eight minutes?"

He better hope they send him to a jail near San Antonio, it might be the only place he's safe.

Notes from a trip to the NBA Summer League in Las Vegas.

The NBA couldn't have picked a more appropriate setting than Las Vegas for the Summer League. You know how when you're in a casino it's impossible to tell what time of day it is? That's exactly the feeling you get when sitting in the Cox Pavilion or Thomas & Mack Center all day. From the opening tip at 1pm until the last game tips at 7:30pm, it's one game after another, with barely 10 minutes between each contest to catch your breath.

Since my plane touched down on Wednesday morning, I've already seen the better part of seven games the last two days. My head is spinning, and yet I still feel like I've missed out for not seeing more. So what have I seen? For one, a helluva lot of fouls.

Some of the blame can be attributed to the players -- everybody is playing at max effort knowing that, at most, there are only one or two available spots per team. But really, the same can also be said for the refs.

Circumstantial, as it may be, there is a lot to be uncovered in these NBA referee scandals when it comes to the action that Las Vegas receives on particular games. Obviously, the 130 phone calls from Tim Donaghy to Scott Foster are in and of themselves very bad news. Donaghy = guilty, and those swell-piece hits define "by association".

As R.J. Bell of Pregame points out, there might be a lot more to the Foster business than just the phone calls too.

During the 2006-07 period under investigation, seven games refereed by Scott Foster had lopsided enough betting on one team to move the point spread by at least 2 points; those seven teams were undefeated against Vegas – meaning that the big-money gamblers won a 7 of 7 times on Foster's games; the odds of that happening randomly are less than 1%.

Statistics alone cannot convict, but it's certainly noteworthy that seven times in Foster's games one team was bet extremely heavily, and all seven times that team won," said RJ Bell of Pregame.com.

Two of those seven games stand out:

The NBA addressed Monday's Fox News report that disgraced referee Tim Donaghy called fellow official Scott Foster a suspicious amount of times during the period in which Donaghy has admitted to betting on games he worked.

"The government had complete access to Tim Donaghy's phone records and thoroughly investigated this matter, including conducting an interview of referee Scott Foster," the league said. "The government has said that they have found no evidence of criminal conduct aside from that of Mr. Donaghy."

The Foster story failed to pick up steam Monday, which is either an indication the connection (based on 134 brief calls over six months directly before or after games Donaghy or Foster worked, often interspersed with calls to Donaghy's middleman) isn't as strong as it looks to the naive eye, or it's an indication reporters and pundits are too hesitant to pass judgment following that Game 6 debacle ... which ended up embarrassing everyone.

Still, isn't there a bit more meat here? Is anyone involved going to explain the calls?

Fox News has a rather incendiary report by Jana Winter digging into disgraced NBA referee Tim Donaghy's phone records. Winter reports Donaghy made 134 phone calls to fellow ref Scott Foster over a six-month spread during which Donaghy has admitted betting on games. Donaghy made no more than 13 calls to any other ref, and only phoned betting middleman Thomas Martino more frequently.

Based solely on Winter's account, it's hard to imagine there isn't something here. The bulk of the calls were shorter than two minutes in length and came directly before or after either Donaghy or Foster worked a game. Some of them are bookended by calls to Martino. The calls "stopped abruptly in mid March 2007, when Donaghy is believed to have stopped his gambling," Winter writes.

Foster worked two games in the NBA Finals (Games 1 and 5), and has reffed in the NBA since at least 1996-97. He's not one of the referees from Donaghy's hometown of Philadelphia.

While the basketball-loving world is completely distracted by the start of free agency, the NBA quietly tried to sneak a relatively major development under the radar. They've created the office of Senior Vice President, Referee Operations to oversee (wait for it ...) all things pertaining to referees, including "recruiting, training and development, scheduling, data management and analysis and work rules enforcement."

Those responsibilities previously fell on the shoulders of Stu Jackson, the league's VP of Basketball Operations, but the NBA is clearly hoping that the creation of a new office will convince everyone that officiating decisions are not being made by the same people whose job it is to ensure the game stays competitive and marketable. The office will report to NBA president Joel Litvin, David Stern's right-hand man.

So who is heading up the new position? U.S. Army Major General Ronald Johnson, who has 32 years of combat engineering experience and recently retired from heading up the Army Corps of Engineers. Is that outside the box enough for you?

Johnson admittedly has no basketball experience outside of being a fan, but no one can deny that someone with his resume has the ability to train, manage and lead large groups of people in mission critical projects. After helping coordinate billion dollar reconstruction efforts in Iraq, surely making sure that a couple of guys with whistles know to stand in the right spot to see the difference between a blocking foul and a charge will be a cake walk, right? Here's to hoping that's the case.

I thought I had my finger on the pulse of the internet gambling world, but props to Eddie Sefko at the Dallas Morning News, who apparently gets more updates from BetUS than I do. He posted some pretty ridiculous odds today, revolving around the Tim Donaghy case.

Some of these are obviously ridiculous (particularly the pet name one) but I think the juxtaposition of the odds between Donaghy lying and another ref coming forward is pretty fascinating.

Odds on another NBA ref to come forward with allegations: 9/5.

Odds that Donaghy is lying: 7/2.

Odds on pet name he is given in prison by Bubba (really, I'm not making this up):

Mary, 3/2; Sally, 3/1; Tina 14/5; Chrissy 2/1; Moira 5/2; Melinda 8/1; Beth 10/1.

Who knew that Moira was such a prison favorite?

Anyway, we got more. The odds on Donaghy's favorite activity while he's in prison:

Crying 4/1; Making paper doll cut outs 7/1; Talking to himself 10/1; Feeding pigeons 3/1; doing "favors'' 1/1.

And, finally, the over/under on amount of weight he'll lose in prison: 30 pounds.

Again, some are ridiculous (how the hell are you supposed to win "crying" -- does he admit that?). It's the top two that get me; Vegas apparently thinks it's more likely that another ref comes forward and admits that there was gambling than Donaghy is just straight up lying.

Of course, that could deal with public perception, since the majority of the people out there willing to vote in an online poll think the NBA is fixed. But then again, the possibility that Donaghy never caves isn't great so neither is a spectacular bet at all.

We've been discussing the referees a lot lately, so something would be amiss if I failed to mention the assignments for this evening's Game 6. And here they are, in all of their controversial glory:

Joey Crawford, Eddie F. Rush, and Bennett Salvatore.

Wow. Where do I begin? All three of these guys have a history of being involved in their share of controversies over the years. Let's just hit on the most recent for each, shall we? Crawford was the one suspended last season for ejecting Tim Duncan for laughing, then was assigned to the infamous Brent Barry-Derek Fisher game in this year's Western Conference Finals. Salvatore was the one that basically gave the Miami Heat the championship in 2006 with about eight controversial calls that favored the Heat in Game 5. And Rush has been called out for his inconsistency as recently as last season.