
How Former Ref Tim Donaghy Conspired to Fix NBA Games - laurex
http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/25980368/how-former-ref-tim-donaghy-conspired-fix-nba-games
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kodablah
If the calls are so subjective that one can't tell the difference between a
ref accidentally being way off and on purpose being way off, then maybe your
sport/rules are the problem when being way off is either excusable or
indeterminable. (in the NBA and some other sports, you can basically call a
foul every play)

~~~
metabagel
Game 3 of the NBA Finals in 2008 was pretty darn obvious. Anyone who watched
that game had to have known that the game was fixed.

[http://www.espn.com/nba/news/story?id=3436401](http://www.espn.com/nba/news/story?id=3436401)

“The Lakers attempted 40 free throws to the Kings' 25 in that game, and Los
Angeles made 21 of 27 from the line while Sacramento converted 7 of 9 in the
fourth quarter alone.

In addition, a foul was called against Mike Bibby of the Kings after he was
shoved and elbowed by Kobe Bryant, denying the Kings an opportunity to try for
a tying basket. Also in that game, Kings centers Vlade Divac and Scot Pollard
fouled out, and Kings coach Rick Adelman was highly critical of the
officiating afterward.”

It’s actually worse than that. Bryant drove into Bibby, committing an obvious
offensive foul with an elbow to the nose which gave Bibby a nosebleed. Bibby
was called for a personal foul for his nose fouling Kobe in the elbow.

~~~
tabtab
I would like to see a more objective scoring. Lopsided foul ratios are not
solid evidence of bias by themselves. Teams play different styles and
sometimes have bad defensive nights.

Nor is a single bad call evidence of bias, such as the nosebleed incident.

An example of a good evaluation would be several professional referees, not
employed by the NBA, observe the videos of that game from different angles,
and score the accuracy and fairness of each call and potential non-call,
including which referee made the call and/or was closest.

I don't wish to accuse people of conspiracies without strong and detailed
evidence. And, too many teams habitually blame the refs for bad results to
deflect their own shortcomings as a team. I've heard "wolf" far too many
times.

There is human error and thus randomness in referee calls. But as they say,
luck favors the prepared. If you don't want bad calls deciding the game, then
get good enough to have the margin of error in your favor.

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metabagel
You can be the judge. Here is the video. This wasn’t a close call. It was an
egregiously wrong call. There was no way that ten out of ten impartial
referees wouldn’t call this a foul on Kobe.

[https://youtu.be/mbWgWZjo1nI](https://youtu.be/mbWgWZjo1nI)

~~~
tabtab
Referees sometimes miss solid calls. No human can get 100% right when things
happen in a fraction of a second. The Rams/Saints playoff game had a famous
example (although there are conspiracy claims surrounding that also). I'll go
with Hanlon's razor until something solid comes up.

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harry8
The nba clearly wants the refs to be bent, it's a requirement. They actively
encourage seeing it the home teams way, favouring the big stars and call it to
keep it close as this is all good for marketing. The question is not whether
the refs are bent it's merely who is paying them to be so. I doubt anyone
thinks the nba refs honestly try to enforce the rules with an even hand. Do
any adults think this? NBA is a mix of sport and Pro wrestling, which seems a
shame given the immense skill levels and training on display.

~~~
jds375
I don't think it's that simple and I don't see why it's a given that refs are
bent.

There is far more money at stake in maintaining the legitimacy of the the NBA
(player salaries, tv deals, team valuations - all of these easily trump all
the money made off of betting). Wouldn't that money fight a lot harder than
any bent refs in order to fight corruption and maintain the legitimacy of the
NBA?

If a bigger story about bent refs got out it would destroy the NBA and a lot
of the associated revenue. I'm sure the NBA is aware of this.

I'm not arguing that there is no corruption, but I don't see why it's so
'obviously' commonplace as you and others suggest. I'd like a more concrete
reason why than 'its good for marketing' since that seems like a weak argument
in the bigger picture of money made from the NBA.

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avn2109
This isn't a ref throwing games for kickbacks, but it's surprising that
nowhere in this thread has anyone mentioned the most blatant game-fixing in
league history, which was the 1984 Lakers-Celtics finals.

In this series, the league thought their predominantly-White fanbase needed to
see Larry Bird (who is White) win the series. (Spoiler alert: Celtics won in
7).

Some of the highlights (lowlights?) of Magic Johnson blatantly throwing the
series (especially the first play in this video, sending game 1 into overtime)
are here:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSlWNU5_JVc&t=91s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSlWNU5_JVc&t=91s)

The comments on the youtube are interesting, lots of people call it game
fixing. Nobody who has ever played even semicompetitive organized basketball
could mistake this for an honest performance.

Downthread there is also a reference to the infamous "Phoenix Suns Free Throw
Parade" 1993 game 7 WCF (in which the Suns went 57 for 64 from the line, not a
typo), which was also overtly thrown by the league for revenue reasons.

~~~
baumy
Former competitive basketball player here, still play pickup regularly.
"Nobody who has ever played even semicompetitive organized basketball could
mistake this for an honest performance" is blatant hyperbole.

I could not possibly disagree with you more re: 1984 Lakers/Celtics, and I'm a
huge Lakers fan who'd love to believe they were really the better team. I'm
not going to bother to click on the video, but I'm sure you're referring to
Magic dribbling the clock out at the end of game 2, and throwing the ball away
at the end of game 4? These are called mistakes, and they get made all the
time. Steph Curry threw the ball away similarly with a needless behind the
back pass in game 7 2016, almost exactly the same as Magic's game 4 (although
with a bit more time left in the game). JR Smith utterly forgot what the score
was at the end of Game 1 last year and did exactly the same thing as Magic in
1984 game 2. These examples are just from the past few years, there are
countless others. I'll also point out those 2 examples are both from the NBA
finals. If you just want examples of professional players throwing bad passes
resulting in turnovers or dribbling too long resulting in time running out,
the former happens about ~10 times in every single NBA game, the latter
happens a couple of times per week during the regular season.

You're talking about the highest pressure situation in the sport, players make
mistakes. You are sorely underestimating the competitiveness of these
athletes. I defy you to watch any interview Magic gave in the 80s and to this
present day about the 84 finals, and still argue that he threw the series on
purpose. His first NBA finals matchup with Larry Bird, who had been his rival
for 5 years at that point, going back to their college careers? Either he's
the the world's greatest actor, or that loss emotionally and mentally
devastated him for a year until he got redemption in 85.

You say the league needed the white fanbase's team to win, and it is
absolutely true there was a huge racial component to the Lakers/Celtics
rivalry in the 80s. How do you then explain the 85 and 87 finals? I consider
myself pretty knowledgable about NBA history dating back to the NBA/ABA
merger, and to be blunt your comments sound very uninformed.

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jaytaylor
What is a "competitive basketball player"? Did you play professionally? Or
were you just really competitive when you played ball? :p

~~~
thatcat
OP probably played AAU, the competative league for youth basketball which is
more intense than a local school league.

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jds375
I would love to get more people's opinions on if this is still happening in
the NBA and to what extent.

Naturally, I would assume that this rarely happens still if ever. Modern
methods of oversight and statistical methods ought to be enough to ensure such
things don’t happen. The NBA has a vested interest in maintaining the
legitimacy of the league and thus are naturally inclined to root out any kind
of cheating or illicit betting. Could you imagine if it got out that this was
still happening and a more intense, modern investigation happened? It could
destroy the NBA, which is something I’m sure the NBA is working hard to make
sure doesn’t happen.

However, at least on reddit’s r/nba it seems a common opinion (at least
according to upvoted responses) that much of this is still going on. Obviously
that’s not saying much, but it makes me wonder… Do I have it wrong? If so why?
And likewise, if so what’s the point in watching these sports?

~~~
tcoff91
This reddit thread definitely has me suspicious about current referee Scott
Foster.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/asciqn/serious_can_we_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/asciqn/serious_can_we_have_a_discussion_about_scott/)

~~~
rurban
Scott Foster is the worst referee for more than a decade. Even in 2007 when
the absurd number of phonecalls with Donaghy came out and most players
protested on his absurd calling nothing happened. The NBA really needs those
refs to fix games for the most important markets (LA, NY, Chicago).

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juddlyon
This is a messed up story, but the idea that the NBA is rigged is patently
ridiculous.

The refs are humans and are biased to crowd noise, and you can bet it harder
to stand up to LeBron James screaming at you than Quinn Cook.

What evidence is there that they "actively encourage seeing it the home teams
way?" What if a huge star is on the road, what's the call there?

Of course they want the bigger media markets to do well and competitive
gameplay.

Do you think they're rigging it so Milwaukee or Portland is good? What about
the 20 year run of the Spurs?

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Nelson69
He wasn't turning donkeys into race horses. He was tampering with the spread.

Just calling or not calling traveling, say 3 or 4 times and calling or not
calling charging a couple times and you're easily looking at nearly a 10point
swing. Lebron doesn't have to lose, just not win by 15 points...

~~~
cladari
Donaghy told his handler (allegedly) that he could swing a game by 6 points,
anything more and it would be too obvious.

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ctime
2006 Western Conf semi finals with Suns/Spurs was pretty much the last straw
for me and last time for me actually taking the game serious. Wasnt at all
surprised to find out later that Donaghy made money off such a shitty
performance. Such a shame as Nash never won a title and this year was arguably
had his best chance. The sort of reckless officisting caused a ton of damage
both physicaly and mentally to the Suns (as it encourages benifiting teams to
be dangerously aggressive and can mentally breaks down the opposing teams,
leading to technicalities)

This Youtube vid has a bit of the horror:
[https://youtu.be/fvkKdXLwt0U](https://youtu.be/fvkKdXLwt0U)

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Gpetrium
It is fascinating to see the crowd mentality that comes from sports team,
political groups and other areas.

Rationally speaking, it is entirely possible for at least some games to be
rigged from time to time. It does not mean that the whole game has to be
rigged, just parts of them.

I think someone who is emotionally invested in a team will find it
substantially harder to make objective assessment of a game that involves
their team or a team they have cognitive bias towards.

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Agustus
The NBA is in desperate need of a complete overhaul. We have this article that
talks about the refs not making the sport fair. Franchise players are given
leeway that would not be shown on a peewee court. And then this is
complemented by last year’s article about which plays the players say they are
actually going to participate in.

The NBA has become an entire Randy Moss organization: I will play when I want.

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hnrodey
This story is years old - why is it back the news? What changed? The publish
date on the article is February 19th, 2019.

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agarden
The author put two years of work into reporting it. A lot more detail and
strong evidence that contrary to what was claimed 12 years ago, Tim Donaghy
was throwing games.

~~~
DigiMortal
100% worthwhile to be in the news. The NBA I think is mostly alright. I wonder
if James gets the Lakers into the playoffs, its LEBRON JAMES

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larrik
I feel like dropping the "How" from the title makes it sound far less
interesting than it is.

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dang
Fair enough. Have a how.

(Most leading 'hows' are worth dropping, I can tell you, having looked at a
lot of data before writing the code to decapitate them.)

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AtlasBarfed
I remember the year Donaghy was caught. That was a bizarre playoffs where
every single series seemed to be going 7 games, with home teams basically
never losing. Then Donaghy story explodes right before the playoffs, and
suddenly the finals were over in 5 or 6 games and the entire appearance of the
games changed.

On top of the suspicious "stolen" playoff series with Sacramento and Miami and
Phoenix in previous years.

I am convinced Donaghy was just side betting manipulation orders that were
coming down from David Stern. Once caught, the league had to stop manipulating
the refereeing and Donaghy became the scapegoat.

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daenz
Bill Burr has an excellent high-level overview of gambling in the NBA and how
refs influence it
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvVgHXF6V9A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvVgHXF6V9A)

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throwaway06871
I worked for a tech company in the professional sports scene. A well known NBA
official drunkenly provided details on how this stuff goes down and more
importantly how critical it is for NBA's longevity as entertainment. He
mentioned that most other sports are rigged, but NBA is the worst.

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bfrog
I'm guessing most games are won or lost by the ref than by the players. A
disheartening thought.

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RickJWagner
Yet another reason not to gamble.

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epynonymous
this is exactly the reason why i feel the nba getting into gambling is such a
problem, it’s true that gambling on the nba happened before the nba decided to
get involved, but i dont see how the nba can totally regulate match fixing.

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gowld
Wikipedia coverage, if ESPN's story is too much:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_NBA_betting_scandal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_NBA_betting_scandal)

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mxcrossb
ESPN seemed to work hard to manipulate those statistics. I see the old “well
the most clear statistical test said there was a 23% chance of it being
random, but then when you exclude a bunch of games...”

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chinesegoldfarm
Same thing happened with Soccer Match fixing, you can read all about in Declan
Hill's book called The Fix

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epynonymous
fyi, i thought about creating a product to automate officiating of sports, but
it’s quite complicated to get right, especially for extremely faced fast paced
sports, like basketball, you basically need to take video of different angles
and process that frame by frame. sportsvu was technology that is able to track
things like whether the shooter is behind or on the three point line, but
hasnt gotten to the point where it can monitor fouls and such.

