Tim Donaghy
[h2]Ex-ref says Rasheed was right and small-market teams like Portland are screwed.[/h2]
WHISTLEBLOWER: Don’t invite this man and the NBA commissioner to the same party. BY HENRY STERN |
hstern at wweek dot com
[May 5th, 201
![0]](/styles/default/xenforo/NTemojis/alien.gif "Alien 0]")
Here’s some news that may console Trail Blazers fans grumbling about the team’s second straight first-round playoff elimination.
Ex-NBA ref Tim Donaghy says it’s nearly impossible for a small-market franchise like Portland to make the finals. Donaghy says the NBA and its referees are wired to benefit large-market teams such as Boston and Los Angeles, and marquee players like Kobe Bryant and LeBron James.
Admitting he traded on knowledge of colleagues’ biases—as well as knowing the grudges refs carry toward certain players and coaches—to bet on NBA games that included contests he reffed, Donaghy pleaded guilty in 2007 to federal gambling charges.
Released from prison in late 2009 after serving nearly a year, Donaghy is far from the $275,000 a year he made as a ref with 13 years’ experience. He’s working for a gambling treatment center in New Jersey called Firststep and in a consulting business—Donaghy & Osborne—he hopes will enable him to speak on college campuses.
But it’s his book,
Personal Foul: A First-Person Account of the Scandal That Rocked the NBA, that grabbed the attention of the league and its fans. With the playoffs—minus the Blazers—now in the second round,
WW spoke with Donaghy about his allegations that the impartiality of his profession is B.S.
Willamette Week: Portland fans have long believed referee Steve Javie has had it in for the Blazers. True?
Tim Donaghy: When Portland had Bonzi Wells and Rasheed Wallace and some of those other players who were extremely difficult to deal with, the stronger referees like Steve Javie or Joe Crawford took pride in the fact they wanted to stick it to those guys and give them technical fouls to see what they can do to piss them off. That’s done in the NBA on a nightly basis.
Wallace was pretty pissed off when he got suspended for seven games in 2003 after you gave him a technical; he threatened you after the game.
He and other guys like Mark Cuban and Gary Payton picked up on what goes on with special treatment for special players, and it bothered them. My book supports things they’ve been saying all along. They just couldn’t hold in their emotions and they got fed up. And they were right.
You write about refs gambling on anything, even animated scoreboard contests during timeouts. Given that, how can you believe you were the only ref betting on NBA games?
Deep down in my heart, I don’t think I was the only one passing along information. But because I don’t have firsthand knowledge, it’s not right for me to point out somebody who I think did.
You say you never fixed a game. But if you were a compulsive gambler and you bet on a game you reffed, how could you resist the temptation not to fix that game?
I was winning at 70, 80 percent and that rate is unheard of. When I would lose, that actually relieved me. A loss would take the heat off me.
NBA Commissioner David Stern has said you’re a “rogue ref
