"Look Out Kid. You're Gonna Get Hit By Users, Cheaters, Six-Time Losers ..."

[cruelnails]

Lord knows, I'm not inclined to agree with the NBA Commissioner but, these claims by Donaghy are kinda' hard to buy.
I guess it's possible that the NBA wanted a Game 7 of the Lakers/Kings series in 2002 but ... if they were going to fix Game 6 by giving the Lakers 27 fake free throws, wouldn't they have sent someone other than Shaq to the line?

Comments

[christastrophe]

I think you've hit on the real thing here, which is the breadth of this corruption. I don't buy that the whole NBA is corrupt, but it makes more sense when you imagine a few dirty execs working with dirty refs without the widespread knowledge/intervention of the league. I can't imagine there being an annual company-wide "Fixing the Playoffs" meeting. And certainly no one's arguing that the Lakers really sucked that year and made it to the Finals only by the grace of the dirty league; just that (if these allegations are true) they were helped along the way. Which sucks for everyone involved because it takes away from the achievements of teams and players that work hard all year to punch Mike Bibby in the face. I kid. They were practicing bending time and space to get off shots in 0.4 seconds. I kid again

[cruelnails]

Off the top of my head - I can't think of someone being tossed for the exact same scenario.

I can think of Rasheed Wallace getting a technical for "looking like he was about to say something" during that first Trailblazers/Lakers playoff series (just as I remember Pippen not being suspended for walking on court during a fight in that same series).

Which is kinda' my point - some refs are dicks and some are dirty, just as much as some people at my work are dicks and some are surely skimming some money. Doesn't mean there's a conspiracy to do so.

Here's the part where I'm all two-faced. I'm all for not ejecting stars. Like, if I paid a couple hundred dollars to see the Mavs and Lakers play and Kobe or Dirk got ejected I'd be hella' pissed. So ... I guess I'm all for that corruption :)

[christastrophe]

I'm totally with you on this, mostly because I just in general am opposed to tossing players/coaches. I mean, if there's a fight sure. But I hate things like what happened to Sheed (which, if I recall, was also Joey Crawford). I hate seeing guys ejected for pretty much anything other than overt physical violence. T up a guy for telling you to fuck off, fine, but don't T him up again for not cooling off immediately or whatever.

[cruelnails]

Yep, I'm with ya' 100%.