The Donaghy scandal grows.

I think it's becoming sort of like when scandal "rocks" the WWE.

 

ESPNnews had a great story yesterday about the referee scandal. They had video of (the old guy who raced barkley) giving the full on "handshake and hug" to Kobe, Lamar and another Laker before the game. Full on hugs. Who on earth thinks this is a good idea?

Another NBA person mentioned that on the floor of an NBA playoff during the fourth quarter, a referee (still active) asked MJ, "After the game, can I have your shoes?"


I think the most damning piece of evidence is Stern trying to discredit Donaghy a month ago. After all that happened, he needs to come up with something more credible than saying that Donaghy is a liar and a felon. He did all that stuff on your watch, David.

 

I don't give half a shit about figure skating, but I paid attention when there was the scandal at the Olympics six years ago.

I hate the NBA. But this is still a huge story and it's being widely ignored.

 

I thought Stern's "thorough" investigation would have found this stuff out. You know, Donaghy was a lone wolf and all.

 

Stern may be the most corrupt commissioner in the history of sports.

 

Plus, Donaghy now has a criminal past. The media isn't very willing to embrace what he says verbatim. Maybe that's why the story hasn't had as much traction.

I admit I'm a little surprised too. Then again, steroids in baseball only seemed to get any traction once McGwire and Co. went to Washington and the Mitchell Report list came out. To me, I really didn't care what a millionaire ballplayer was putting in his body.

This though, goes to the very heart of the game.

 

Football is the biggest sports bet in this country. If something's not kosher with the NFL, you'll hear much more about it.

I still say Stern is crafting an exit strategy before introducing the next Kenesaw Mountain Landis.

 

This is way different than Patriots taping a walkthrough, or half the MLB juicing. Referees fixing games, for chrissakes, nothing can be bigger.

 

One reason the NBA sucks: David Stern with his holier-than-thou bullshit before this went down. Even though he seemed humbled for a minute after it broke, his league has seemingly done little to stop the shit from hitting the fan.

The whole Spy Gate thing happens, Iron Roger lays down the hammer early. Granted, he probably should have forced the Patsies to forfeit their Super Bowl title and suspend Belicheat for a year, but IMO, he moved much more quickly to address Spy Gate in a substantive way.

 

Exactly. Nevermind that the NBA has been accused of cheating on different levels since oh, roughly the day Stern took over as commissioner...

 

I think it's all about name recognition. People care about Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire etc. Nobody knows Tim Donaghy, even if his story is, IMO, more important than baseball's steroids scandal. Mizzou, you referenced that nobody knows Matt Walsh's name, but I would contend that they cared because it was about Belichick, not Walsh. Walsh was similar to BALCO, while Belichick was similar to Bonds if you want to compare it to the steroid scandal.

 

"An isolated incident".

Heh, heh, heh.