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NEW
YORK—National Basketball Association (NBA) referees,
influenced by cozy relationships with league officials,
rigged a 2002 playoff series to force it to a
revenue-boosting seven games, disgraced former official
Tim Donaghy alleged Tuesday.
Without
identifying anyone or naming teams, Donaghy, who is at
the center of a gambling scandal, also claimed the NBA
routinely encouraged refs to ring up bogus fouls to
manipulate results but discouraged them from calling
technical fouls on star players to keep them in games
and protect ticket sales and television ratings.
The
allegations were contained in a letter filed by a lawyer
for Donaghy, who pleaded guilty last year to felony
charges alleging he took cash payoffs from gamblers and
bet on games himself. The 41-year-old Donaghy faces up
to 33 months in prison at sentencing on July 14.
In one
of several allegations of corrupt refereeing, Donaghy
said he learned in May 2002 that two referees known as
“company men” were working a best-of-seven series in
which “Team Five” was leading, 3-2. In the sixth game,
he alleged the referees purposely ignored personal fouls
and called “made-up fouls on Team Five in order to give
additional free-throw opportunities for Team Six.”
“Team
Six” won the game and came back to win the series, the
letter said.
Only the
Los Angeles Lakers-Sacramento Kings series went to seven
games during the 2002 playoffs. And the Lakers went on
to win the championship.
At the
time, consumer advocate Ralph Nader and the League of
Fans, a sports-industry watchdog group, sent a letter to
Stern complaining about the officiating in Game Six of
the Western Conference finals.
The
Lakers beat Sacramento, 106-102, in that game, which was
officiated by Dick Bavetta, Ted Bernhardt and Bob
Delaney, and shot 27 free throws in the final quarter
and scored 16 of their last 18 points at the line.
Speaking
before the start of the NBA finals Game Three featuring
the Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics, NBA
commissioner David Stern called the allegations
baseless.
“All I
can say is that he’s looking for anything that will
somehow shorten the sentence, and it’s not going to
happen,” Stern said.
“If the
NBA wanted a team to succeed, league officials would
inform referees that opposing players were getting away
with violations,” the letter said. “Referees then would
call fouls on certain players, frequently resulting in
victory for the opposing team.”
The
league called Donaghy’s allegations false and
self-serving, saying the scandal was limited to him and
two codefendants, both former high-school classmates who
also pleaded guilty to gambling charges.
Donaghy’s lawyer has sought to convince a federal judge
in Brooklyn that Donaghy, of Bradenton, Florida,
deserves more credit for coming forward before he was
charged to disclose behind-the-scenes misconduct within
the NBA. The letter, filed Monday, suggests prosecutors
have hurt Donaghy’s chances for a lesser prison term by
downplaying the extent of his cooperation.
Donaghy’s attorney John Lauro and prosecutors declined
comment.
“He’s a
singing, cooperating witness who is trying to get as
light a sentence as he can,” Stern said. “He turned on
basically all of his colleagues in an attempt to
demonstrate that he is not the only one who engaged in
criminal activity. The
US
attorney’s office, the FBI, have fully investigated it,
and Mr. Donaghy is the only one who is guilty of a
crime. And he will be sentenced for that crime
regardless of the desperate attempts to implicate as
many people as he can.”
The
letter also alleged manipulation during a 2005 playoff
series.
“Team
Three lost the first two games in the series and Team
Three’s owner complained to NBA officials,” the letter
said. “Team Three’s owner alleged that referees were
letting a Team Four player get away with illegal
screens. NBA Executive Y told Referee Supervisor Z that
the referees for that game were to enforce the screening
rules strictly against that Team Four player.…The
referees followed the league’s instructions and Team
Three came back from behind to win the series. The NBA
benefited from this because it prolonged the series,
resulting in more tickets sold and more televised
games.”
In that
same series, the letter says “Team Three” lost the first
two games of the series and that team’s owner complained
to NBA officials. The letter also alleges that the
opposing team’s coach later was fined $100,000 after
revealing an NBA official informed him of the
behind-the-scenes instructions.
That
would correspond with the 2005 first-round playoff
series between the Houston Rockets and the Dallas
Mavericks, in which Mavs owner Mark Cuban complained to
officials and Rockets coach Jeff Van Gundy was fined.
Van Gundy alleged officials had been targeting Rockets
center Yao Ming after Cuban’s complaint.
Donaghy’s letter said that in the first of several
meetings with prosecutors and the FBI in New York in 2007, he named names while describing “various examples of improper
interactions and relationships between referees and
other league employees, such as players, coaches and
management.” For example, it said, referees broke NBA
rules by hitting up players for autographs, socializing
with coaches and accepting meals and merchandise from
teams.
“The NBA
remains vigilant in protecting the integrity of our game
and has fully cooperated with the government at every
stage of its investigation,” Richard Buchanan, NBA
executive vice president and general counsel, said in a
statement. “The only criminal activity uncovered is Mr.
Donaghy’s.”
--AP |
