Huge day in Vegas = Higher probability of fixed games

[cleaveland]

This is one of the biggest days of the year for Vegas so watch out...

More action usually means more fixing...(Isn't that the first law of sports betting?)

According to BetCris the top picks for today are:

Indiana -1, New York -4.5, Boston -4.5, Clippers +12 (in that order)

IMHO, if you have to take a favorite ATS take Miami.

[face]

last 2 days favorites been winning. last 2 days i have been winning.

[vyomguy]

...this thread makes no sense...just coz there is superbowl...they fix nba games

[riskyProps]

Being a Perennial losing team, I highly doubt the Clippers would be into throwing games and being the subject of jokes and scorn. I'm sure the Cavs are throwing all their games too. And the Wizards on the road.

I wouldn't doubt their is fixing going on on some level but I don't see the Clippers throwing this game. LOL! They can try hard and lose it on their own. LOL!

[vyomguy]

very important games for boston and new york...why would they throw the game

[Bradyd]

Great, another "games are fixed" thread...

[politicin]

Seriously... the games aren't fixed... just because you lost your mortgage doesn't mean Stern had to do with it... /end rant

[Power Play]

If you want to find games that might be fixed look in the college ranks. Players are generally too wealthy/risk too great for them to be fixing games in the NBA.

[cleaveland]

Somebody like Donaghy sticks his neck out to try and enlighten people and it's all forgotten so quickly.

For the sake of somebody who may be open minded, I will post an article which should be read by all. There should be no copyright issues with me posting this article as the site that it was originally published at seems to offline:

http://www.bet2gamble.com/PlayerResources/Columns/Air_Judden/Air_Judden_NBA_Fix_1.html

The NBA: I Love This Fixed Game!

Part 1 of 3: Incompetent or Corrupt Referees?

By Air Judden
January 9th, 2003


I ran across a recent quote:

"I've always thought the most likely targets of gamblers would be the referees. They make peanuts, they're highly abused both by the fans and players, and they have more control over a game than anyone else. Moreover, the normal incompetence of NBA referees would be a perfect disguise for a corrupt one. It seems to me that the NBA has gone out of its way to keep its referees poor and incompetent - and I mean clear around-the-barn-out-of-the-way."

Now, I know what you might be saying, "Insane ramblings from another conspiracy theorist. Why don't those people get a life?" Who wrote these silly words: Jim Rome? www.nba-is-fixed.com? Yours truly? How about some bitter Kings' fan who hates the Lakers? No, the quote above is from Bill Russell and it was from his book Second Wind published in 1979. Russell did not have to be bitter and blame officials for losses because the man rarely lost. He won 8 championships in a row and 11 in 13 years. The context of his quote pertained to his being approached by a gambler during his playing days. He points out that high player salaries are a great buffer against gamblers, since only an idiot would take the chump change of gamblers compared to that of their contracts - and remember, this is 1979!

After last year's playoffs, I read many articles from fine writers such as David Aldridge of ESPN and Michael Wilbon of the Washington Post. Both of them said that they put absolutely no stock in the conspiracy theories about the NBA being fixed, but both go on to basically say 'However, the officiating was horrible and it seemed like the Kings or Lakers got whatever calls were needed to extend the series to seven games.' Uh, hello guys? Are we missing something here? As Dan Rather might say, 'if it walks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, do you think it might be a duck?' Are you familiar with the phrase, "where there's smoke, there's fire?"

Most writers seem to think if you believe the NBA has a conspiracy to fix games then you are a fan of the Kings, Mavericks, or Spurs, and you are a bitter about the Lakers and/or Bulls (or should I just say "Phil Jackson?") beating your favorite team. Let me explain my background: I am a Sixers fan since the days of Dr. J. In the late 80s, I went from being a casual fan to a full-fledged NBA fanatic. I read every book I ran across, past and present and became something of an authority on basketball history. I knew every player on every team - height, weight, college, strengths, weaknesses, and salary. I knew every team's strength and weakness. I spent 45 minutes a day combing through the box scores. I didn't necessarily care how Larry Bird and Michael Jordan did. They dominated every night. I was more interested in seeing how guys like Willie Burton and Alec Kessler did, because I studied Miami's plan for building their franchise. I wanted to see how players developed, and how traded players performed in new environments. Yeah, I was still a Sixers fan most of all, but let's face it, the Sixers had 2 chances of winning the title back in those days and Slim had already left town. Therefore, I sat back and enjoyed the league as a whole. I enjoyed parity and I enjoyed watching different teams claw their way to the top. If the Internet had been as popular then, I would have been one of the very best fantasy players in the business.

Another point writers make is that fans will point out how their team was screwed by the refs, but turn a blind eye to every favorable call their team receives. (Nebraska fans: if you bring up the 1998 face mask, I will bring up the Frank Murphy non-fumble that you guys got 7 imaginary points from, so don't even go there!) Conspiracy theorists, according to profiling, are quick to point out every Shaq charge while ignoring steps on Mike Bibby, right? Well consider this: in the 1994 playoffs, I was cheering for the Knicks. The Sixers were not in the playoffs and my father was a life-long Knicks fan, so I wanted to see his team win. I really disliked the Bulls. I had grown tired of their winning and how they ruined the parity of the league. I especially disliked Scottie Pippen. I thought he was a prima donna who rode Michael Jordan's coattails to fame and fortune. I grew tired of the press calling him the 2nd best player in the league, when it was obvious that players like Patrick Ewing, David Robinson, Clyde Drexler, Hakeem Olajuwon, Karl Malone, and Charles Barkley were all superior players. With this in mind, I was ready to see the Knicks destroy the Jordan-less Bulls in the conference semi-finals. To their credit, the Bulls surprised a lot of people that season. They went 55-27, which were only two less wins than the previous season with Jordan. They nearly won home court advantage throughout the Eastern playoffs, losing it in the last two days to the Knicks. Still, the regular season means little, and without Jordan, the Knicks were simply going to clean their clocks in the playoffs. Seattle had been upset in the first round, and the only team that could stop the Knicks from winning it all was the Houston Rockets. These Bulls were simply an annoying gnat that would eventually be crushed by the hungry Knicks.

The Bulls had hung in tough and evened the series at 4 games, after Scottie Pippen performed his "Sitting Bull" routine and Toni Kukoc had won the game on a buzzer beater. Still, I knew luck could only go so far, and the superior Knicks would destroy the Bulls. There was simply no way the Jordan-less Bulls could be that good. Game 5 was played at MSG with the Bulls clinging to a 1-point lead in the final seconds. Hubert Davis, a reserve guard, takes the final shot for the Knicks and misses. After the ball leaves his hands, Pippen touches his forearm. Pippen did not affect the shot in any way. Yes, it was a foul, according to the rulebook, but one thing about NBA refs is that in the finals seconds, they put away their whistles. If they called every foul or violation according to the rulebook, Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson would have been called for traveling at least 10,000 times.

The refs use a multi-tier system of calling fouls. Superstars receive favorable calls and no-calls. Veterans receive less favoritism than stars, and rookies and scrubs have numerous calls go against them. I guarantee that Michael Jordan would not have been whistled for a foul in that instance. If Hubert Davis, the guy from my team (Knicks), had fouled Pippen in such a way, I would expect him to be called for a foul. After all, Pippen was a superstar and Davis was a bench player. There is no way in the world that Pippen should have been whistled for that call. There is no way Hubert Davis should have received the benefit of that call - especially at the end of the game. However, Davis went to the line, hit the free throws, and the Knicks won the game. Chicago took game 6 at home and the Knicks finished out the series in New York in game 7.

Chicago should have won that series. At the time, I was relieved that the Knicks got a lucky call that they should not have received, and like any other fan, I ignored the favored call and complained about the calls that went in the Bulls favor. Any Bulls fan knows the name Hue Hollins, because of this call, just like fans of the St. Louis Cardinals know who Don Deckinger is after game 6 in the 1985 World Series. I was happy the Knicks won, but in retrospect, I wish the Bulls had won, as this was one of the early signs, to me, that the league was fixing games. Without Michael Jordan, the Bulls were not a "sexy" team to NBC. Scottie Pippen lacked the flair of Michael Jordan. He was always Jim to Michael Jordan's Marlin Perkins, Tonto to Michael's Lone Ranger. With Jordan in retirement, David $tern had to make sure that the large glitzy media city was in the finals. New York had more network appeal than the Jordan-less Bulls, so I believe Hue Hollins followed orders from $tern's office and remember, I hated the Bulls and was cheering for the Knicks!

That's strange that I would admit that the team I was cheering for cheated their way through a playoff series, no? You might be thinking that I am making way too much out of one bad call. After all, are refs not human - even incompetent refs? Go re-read that Bill Russell quote again. It would be easy to hide a corrupt ref because the refs are so incompetent. The league hires poor refs, so that it's easier to hide a fix. Observe what else Russell had to say in the same passage:

"It seems to me that the NBA has gone out of its way to keep its referees poor and incompetent...for years I tried to get the league to hire a black referee and recommended more than a dozen good ones. They always found a way not to hire the ones I recommended, but at the same time officials kept telling me they were looking for "qualified black referees." They always used that adjective: referees were either plain referees or were "qualified Negro referees." Finally, in frustration I sent in the name of a referee who was famous as a bumbling idiot, so the NBA hired him, of course, and he was terrible. He couldn't tell a rulebook from a slide rule, and was a walking argument against affirmative action. The protests against him were so universal that I finally got a call asking why I'd recommended him. "I got tired of recommending 'qualified black referees,'" I said, "So I decided to recommend an unqualified one for a change, and that's the one you picked."

Look no further than the Sacramento-Los Angeles series to see that the referees are horrible, that at times it is hard to tell if they are corrupt (Game 6, 4th quarter) or incompetent.

The rules of the NBA state that the referees cannot talk to the press about their calls and that coaches cannot comment about an official's performance. We have seen coaches fined for their comments. The NBA has a valid excuse for this rule: if coaches can rip a referee who is not allowed to defend himself, than that referee will be more likely to hold a grudge in future games, and that makes for biased officiating. That sounds nice until you see the next part in this 3 part series, how I prove that officials already have a bias. They are biased towards superstar players, towards home teams, and towards popular teams that bring in strong network ratings. Remember the Bill Russell quotes: it is easy to hide corruption behind apparent incompetence. Why have a referee trying to explain his awful call (and I will point to examples next week) to the press? That referee will sound like the French Olympic pairs figure skating judge who tried to say with a straight face, "I thought the Russians skated better." If a reporter corners a referee with a line of hard questions, and let's face it, they sometimes do this, then a referee may come across to the public as a fixer of games, or he may spill the beans that he was acting on orders. It is a coincidence, I will admit, but if my theory is correct, this would make for a perfect cover-up. Food for thought.

In the next part, I will present the six rules for fixing NBA games.

[cleaveland]

The NBA: I Love This Fixed Game!

Part 2 of 3: Incompetent or Corrupt Referees?


By Air Judden
January 10th, 2003


In the first part, I spoke of how I believe that the NBA hides its corruption behind the apparent incompetence of the referees. From what I have seen, I have observed what I believe are six rules for fixing NBA games.

The first rule is that you have to make it NOT look like a fix. If it is too obvious, then everyone will know it, and there is more damage in the long run, as fans turn away in droves. For instance, in the 1998 Eastern Conference Finals, Chicago vs. Indiana, one would think that if you were going to fix the series for Chicago, you would keep Reggie Miller in foul trouble, since he was the star and leading scorer for Indiana. However, if this happened, the signs point to a fix. An interesting stat in the series was that going into game 7, Pacers center Rik Smits had played very well at home and very poor on the road. Consequently, Indiana won all three home games. When Smits is on, he provided Indiana's only consistent low post offense, and his soft touch and 7'4" height was difficult to defend. As a result, when he is on, he demands more defensive attention, which opened up Indiana's perimeter game, since Miller and Chris Mullin were not nearly as strong at taking a defender off of the dribble and creating their own shots. Hence, the trick to keeping a low profile fix was to make sure that Rik Smits played poorly in game 7. To the league's chagrin, Smits came out and hit two quick shots, indicating that he was going to be a force to be reckoned with. Not surprisingly, right afterwards, Smits received two quick fouls calls against him. He came back in the second quarter, only to quickly receive another foul. Early in the 3rd quarter, he picked up foul number 4. Chicago won the series, but I had detected the fix.

The second rule is that it is possible to beat a fix, simply by playing so well that the referees have no choice, lest it be obvious to everybody that a fix is on. However, most teams do not play perfect, so they cannot overcome a fix. I often hear, "yeah, but the losing team missed that crucial free throw." However, if they weren't getting screwed, the free throw would be irrelevant. After the Knicks beat the Bulls in 1994, they moved on to the conference finals, where they played the Pacers. In retrospect, I realize that Indiana had even less chance of beating the Knicks than the Bulls did, due to their market size (I will explain later). However, a long series is good for TV ratings (witness: last year's LA-Sacramento series). In the pivotal game 5 (the famous Spike Lee "choke" game ), which New York was supposed to win at home, Reggie Miller went unconscious and had a 26-point 4th quarter. The man simply could not miss! Despite what the refs did, Miller hit. When he's hitting 30-foot shots, there is not much a referee can do. If Miller were a slasher, they could allow the defense to rough him up with no calls, or they could call charging, but when he's jump shooting 3-pointers, there is not much a ref can call, unless he wants the whole world to know that he is fixing the game. Indiana goes up 3-2 and they go back home. As a supporter of the Knicks, I was very nervous, and when the Pacers had a one point lead at the end, I was hugging the pillow and gnawing on the end. The inbounds pass went to Patrick Ewing, who stepped left, stepped right, did the moonwalk across the lane, shuffled his feet, and then hit the game winning shot. That was steps and there was no 'ifs', 'ands' or 'buts' about it. This was not a case of picking up your pivot foot before your dribble hits the ground, or a shuffle step. They don't call those violations in the NBA. Those are college calls. This was flagrant walking. This was grade-school-kids-in-gym-class walking! The press went ballistic. When asked about it, Ewing replied, "I thought I was Michael Jordan." I laughed and said, "True, true." But this was much more ominous. Jordan walks when there is 8:53 in the 3rd quarter, and he's dunking on someone. Ewing won the game by walking. The refs let steps violations pass, especially for superstars, but the line of the referees is that they only call steps if it gives the offensive player an unfair advantage. If it does not, they don't call steps. (you can read it from the head of the NBA officials own mouth in Terry Pluto's Falling from Grace). These no-calls allow the Jordans, Vince Carters, and Allen Iversons to drive through the lane and dunk, which gets the crowd excited. (Have you ever noticed how many times Allen Iverson - from my team, no less - palms the ball and gets away with it?) After all, the game has become more and more about entertainment and less about sports. People pay for excitement, and the refs make sure they get it. But anybody who saw that Knicks-Pacers game knew that Ewing's traveling gave him an "unfair advantage." It allowed him to shake Rik Smits and win the friggin' game! The refs cannot fall back on the "we don't blow our whistles at the end of games" line, because two weeks before, they called Scottie Pippen for a touch foul on Hubert Davis. Are you noticing that the call/no call is consistently in favor of the Knicks - the team that I was cheering for? I was not the stereotypical conspiracy theorist, finding bad calls to rationalizing my team's poor performance. My team was aided by these bad calls, and they were so obvious that I was noticing this. Of course, New York went back home and won the series on their home floor.

What you saw in that Indiana-New York series was desperation. The league badly needed New York to win; yet NBC (and hence, the NBA) needed the series to go 6 or 7 games. The Knicks blew their chance to keep control at home. If they had won, then Indiana could have won at their house, and the refs could call the game in such a way to make sure the series went to game 7. After all, everyone expects home teams to get the calls. But when the visitors get the blatantly bad call at the end of the game - can you say, "fix?" The refs knew it was steps, but if they call steps, the series is over. If Reggie Miller had not gone crazy in game 5, I guarantee that Patrick Ewing would have been called for steps. I have witnessed numerous bad calls in the NBA. NBA refs are far worse than college refs and even high school refs. They favor home teams and they favor stars. They are inconsistent about everything: zones, traveling, charging, no calls, etc. However, when they were so blatantly bad, that the entire media rises up to protest the bad call, it screams, "fix", and to me, this is when I started suspecting that the entire league was fixed.

If you are still in need of further convincing, check the home and away records over the last 10 years of all of the NBA teams. Have you ever thought it strange that teams who have been traditionally awful (Mavs, Clippers, Cavaliers, Kings) all play much better at home than they do away? That brings us to the third rule of the fix: the home teams get the calls. I believe it was 1997, when I noticed that nearly every team in the league had a winning record at home. What separated the Bulls from the Clippers was that the Bulls won on the road and the Clippers did not. The popular argument is that the home crowd pumps up the home team and they play better. Whatever! I can understand great teams play great at home.

They have a lot of pride and experience, but bad college teams play bad at home and on the road. As a KSU grad, I can attest that under the "leadership" of Tom Asbury, that there was no appreciable difference between home games and away games. KSU is 0-19 lifetime against KU at their home in Bramlage Coliseum. While KU has a strong program, during this 19-year stretch, there were seasons (1984, 88, 89) that KSU was better. Furthermore, KSU has defeated KU in Allen Field House (1988, 1993) and they nearly always play the better in Lawrence than they do in Manhattan. Go look at the bad teams in your high school and college conference and see if they play .500 at home and near winless on the road. You don't see this, do you? Bad teams are bad for a reason - they suck. They suck at home. They suck on the road. They suck on neutral courts. Yet, I think everybody would agree that college basketball crowds are much more enthusiastic and spirited than NBA crowds, so if anything you should notice this trend more in college than in the NBA. For starters, the NBA has priced the common man out of their arenas and made it a corporate event for entertaining clients. Remember the Nike "Fun Police" commercial where they made the old corporate fogies sit in the nosebleed seats and let the "real fans" sit down by the court? Who do you think cheers louder: the Cameron Crazies (Duke) or the Hollywood Elite (Lakers)? Home court advantage is not THAT strong in the NBA versus all other levels of basketball. No, the reason bad teams do so much better at home is because that sells tickets. If you know your team has a good chance to win, are you more likely to go? It's all about the Benjamins! It always has been, or do you really believe that a few thousand people, who have put up with 20 years of Clippers' futility, can somehow make that group of misfits rise up and win nearly half of their games at home?

A popular counter-argument is that there is more parity in the NBA than at any other level. I disagree that parity is a valid excuse. If there were so much parity in the league, then why is there such a great discrepancy in away records? The NFL has parity and every year, nearly every team can win. Upsets happen in the NFL: look at last year's Super Bowl. Upsets even happen in baseball. The Marlins, Royals, Twins, and Dodgers have all pulled upsets in the World Series since 1985. Why are there no upsets in the NBA finals in the last 17 years? San Antonio is the only team NOT to repeat in the NBA since 1987. We have seen Detroit, Chicago, Houston, Chicago, and Los Angeles repeat as champions. We have seen THREE three-peats in the last 12 years. How many three-peats have there been in the NFL (zero)? In the NFL, nearly every year sees a new champion. THAT is parity. The NBA does not have parity, hence, parity does not explain why nearly every team has a winning home record.

The most important rule is that I believe the NBA fixes games for favorable television matches and to promote the league as a whole. After 1994, the corruption continued: Michael Jordan came back in 1995 and the Bulls played the Charlotte Hornets in the opening round. Chicago won in the series in 4 games. At the end of the finale, Michael Jordan mugged David Wingate as Wingate was attempting the winning shot. No call. Like the Ewing call from the previous season, the press noticed the flagrant no call and went crazy. I even heard it compared to Diego Maradonna's "hand of God" goal in soccer, where he hit the ball with his hand and then claimed it was the hand of God (God complex, perhaps?). Michael Jordan was asked about it, and his attitude was basically, "Yeah, I fouled him. So what?" That season, Orlando was THE up-and-coming team. Let's see: who does NBC want to televise: Larry Johnson vs. Shaq or Michael Jordan vs. Shaq? David $tern knew that he had to promote his youth, so that the league would continue to succeed after Michael Jordan retired (again). The NBA was pushing Shaq hard and with he and Penny Hardaway on the same team, it did not surprise me when Michael Jordan's dream run ended in Orlando.

Remember what I said about teams being able to overcome a fix if they play perfect? There is a flip side: if the team the refs favor play too poorly, the refs cannot help them, which is the 5th rule. Observe: in the finals of that very year (1995), in game 1, with a 3-point lead, Nick Anderson missed 2 free throws, either one of which would have given Orlando the victory. By a fluke, he got his own rebound, missed, and the refs blew the whistle again. Anderson missed the next 2 shots. Kenny Smith goes down and sinks the 3 to send it to overtime. If Anderson, a 70% free throw shooter, can't hit one out of four free throws, there isn't anything more the refs can do. What did surprise me was that the series was a sweep. That is not good for the networks. I don't know if it is because Houston outplayed Orlando so badly that the refs were helpless to fix the games. After all, Houston took the first two games in Orlando, and that pretty much put a dagger through the hearts of the young and inexperienced Magic, who gave up after that. Houston played brilliantly, as Hakeem Olajuwon thoroughly outplayed Shaq, and while he and Clyde Drexler were brilliant as expected, the small name supporting cast: Kenny Smith, Sam Cassell, and Robert Horry played huge, while Penny Hardaway, Dennis Scott, and Nick Anderson all but disappeared.

The last rule of the NBA fix is that the star players get the calls because people pay to see the stars. In 1998, we saw an incident in Washington, where the referee called a foul on Mitchell Butler. Washington coach Bernie Bickerstaff went ballistic because Butler was nowhere near the ball. The referee told Bickerstaff that the foul was actually on Chris Webber, but he already had 5 fouls. However, he did not tell that to Bickerstaff in private. He said it from the court. The courtside media heard this and reported it. The referee was suspended. The NBA writers mentioned it in passing, but they know that this stuff happens all the time. After all, that is part of the "old boy" network in the NBA. However, these same guys (Wilbon, Aldridge, David DuPree, etc) refuse to believe that games are fixed. They are saying, in essence, that refs aren't fair, but they aren't dishonest? And these guys think that people like me are reaching for straws? Why do referees treat Chris Webber different than Chris Anstey? The reason why is because fans pay a lot of money to see guys like Webber, Shaq, Jordan, Malone, and Iverson play basketball. They don't pay to see them sit on the bench with foul trouble. $tern and his guys know this. Rules? What rules? This is entertainment! Sports Entertainment! (Or as I add, "Kind of like the WWF!") Do you really believe that this preferential treatment of superstars is NOT sanctioned from the league office? Are you really that na�ve? And if $tern is simply giving the paying public what they want to see, why is it so hard to believe that he is not giving the viewing public what they want to see in the form of the NBA champion? Especially when there is such a mountain of examples that point to this?

Again, I say: what about the Lakers-Kings series last year? Do you really believe it was a coincidence that on one night, Shaq was called for charging, and on the next night, with the same set of referees, the same move was called a defensive foul? Shaq has been knocking people over for years, and suddenly it is a foul? Was it not strange that Sacramento got the calls when it looked like L.A. was taking control of the series - thus, keeping the series close, and extending it to the full 7 games? Then, when it looked like Sacramento was going to put L.A. away in game 6, L.A. got to shoot a ridiculous 26 free throws in the fourth quarter? If the refs were calling a close (no hard fouls) game, why did they not shoot so many free throws in the first 3 quarters? Do you really believe the referees are selectively incompetent - they have a switch on their necks that make them suddenly change gears and start calling a game close, or changing the definition of Shaq's move from an offense to a defensive foul from night to night, or in the case of game 6, changing the criteria of a foul from quarter-to-quarter? I am not going to deny that Doug (or as I call him, Dog) Christy and Predrag Stojakovic missed crucial shots. Like I said, to overcome a fix, you have to play a perfect game. They should not have to play any more perfect than the Lakers do, simply because the Lakers are a more popular team and David $tern and Dick Ebersol want the Lakers to win. Most of all, do you think it is any coincidence that Shaq got nearly ALL of the calls only AFTER Michael Jordan retired? Don't chalk it up to experience. Shaq had played 5 years when Jordan retired. In 5 years, Larry Bird had 2 titles and a MVP. Michael Jordan had 3 scoring titles, a MVP, and a defensive player of the year. By his 5th season, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar had been to the finals twice and won 2 MVP awards.

You may be wondering why the players do not report the fix to the media. I believe that the players are intentionally not told about the fix. $tern could not trust the players. Look at the lockout. $tern united the owners. Under a penalty of a million dollar fine for speaking out individually, the owners let $tern speak for them as a group. $tern, a former league attorney, is smooth with interviews and spin control. Meanwhile, players like Karl Malone and Gary Payton were running their mouths about how poor they were, while making their millions, and their comments turned the public against them. With this much lack of common sense from testosterone driven jocks who do not guard their comments, $tern could not trust over 1,000 players to keep a conspiracy secret. I believe he keeps this very much under control, and only a few people know of it. I have heard it theorized that former Deputy Commissioner and current New Jersey Nets general manager Rod Thorn knew of the fix, and that is why his team went from the lottery to the finals in his first season. I do not agree or disagree with this theory at this time. However, I do believe $tern has a very small circle of people who know of this fix, and the players ultimately don't care because they as a whole have made a lot of money from the success of the league. Jason Williams in his book Loose Balls said that the players knew better than to give Michael Jordan a hard foul because he was their meal ticket. Even the players don't try their hardest to win!

Another point to consider with the players concerns the star of my team, Allen Iverson. In 2001, he wrote a rap album that included lyrics that was considered offensive to gays and women. Many people were upset about this and ESPN even compared him to John Rocker. After a pre-season game, a representative from a human rights group spoke to Iverson about the content of his lyrics in a private meeting. Iverson would not relent. Why would he? He was exercising his free speech and besides, controversy sells records! Then, David $tern summoned Iverson to NBA headquarters (cue up the Darth Vader theme music). After the meeting, Iverson told the press that he was not going to release the record because he realized that it brought embarrassment to the Sixers organization and to the NBA. Huh? What gives? Why would A.I. sell out to the man? (and trust me, if there ever was "the man," David $tern is he). Iverson's maverick spirit and non-conformity has made him extremely popular. He has always "kept it real" no matter how much fame and fortune he has achieved. This has cost him appearances on Team USA three times, but he has never sold out. He meets with a human rights group and he won't sell out, and yet one meeting with David $tern, and he suddenly "sees the error in his ways?" I will not deny that $tern is one silver-tongued devil, but come on! I simply do not buy this. I would bet a good chunk of change that $tern reminded Iverson that the referees can call palming a lot closer, and a lot of those hard hits he takes on the way to the basket could suddenly become "no calls." If the refs go against Iverson, his star power falls and the endorsement deals drop. What do you think?

I do not know if the owners know of this league-sanctioned fix in which I have theorized, but they have certainly profited from the popularity of the league that has come with keeping the most popular teams on top. Furthermore, remember, these guys share their revenue, so they would have no reason to be upset about a fix if they did know, since they stand to each make more money if the most popular teams win. However, consider who the biggest "fan" is out of all of the owners: Mark Cuban. Who has been the most vocal about the inconsistencies of officiating? Cuban. Why? Because he wants to win more than any other owner. Jerry Buss wins, but he is very cost-conscious and has made trades in order to stay below the luxury tax threshold. Cuban does not care about luxury taxes. Basketball is his toy and he wants to win more than he wants to make money. You would think if every owner had his passion, they would also hire people, like Cuban has, to track the officials and determine if the referees are consistently bad or are cheating less popular teams. After all, everybody has known about the inconsistent officiating in the NBA, yet Cuban is the first owner to vocalize it. How has the league responded - by doing everything in their power to censor him! If the refs were fair, Cuban would simply look like a paranoid, raving lunatic. I believe the league knows he has hit a potential sore spot and threatens to blow their conspiracy wide open to the media.

Something else to consider is that referees make more money from working playoff games. In order to work playoff games, they are selected on a grading system and the best referees advance. You would think the players and coaches would have the ultimate say on who the best referees are, but instead, the league office has the most power, with the players and coaches having a limited say. Do you think the refs have a reason to make calls that they think will please the front office? If fairness were the only criteria, shouldn't the coaches and players have the only say, since they as a group, recognize fairness more than $tern and his cronies? Can you see the politics that are involved?

I have shown six rules I believe the NBA uses as guidelines for fixing games. In the next column, I will point out why I believe the NBA fixes games (from a historical perspective) and I will present multiple examples of these six rules applied to real NBA games.

[cleaveland]

The NBA: I Love This Fixed Game!

Part 3 of 3: Incompetent or Corrupt Referees?


By Air Judden
January 14th, 2003


A few days ago, I pointed out how easy it is to hide the corruption of referees behind the incompetence of referees. In the last part, I pointed out the 6 rules of fixing NBA games. In this part, I will point out the reasons for the fix and numerous examples that fit into the six rules.

If you look back to the history of the league, you can see why $tern would fix the games. Basketball was a victim of unstable popularity. Think of it as a dot-com. It had an inflated value (in popularity), but it was not founded on anything of substance. The game of football sells itself. It doesn't matter if Dallas and Oakland play in the Super Bowl or if Houston and Carolina play in it - the Super Bowl will remain the most watched event of the year. Football does not need star players and star teams. Yes, teams like the Super Bowl Shuffle Bears or the Troy-Emmitt-Michael-Deion quartet provide a shot in the arm, but at the end of the day, football reigns supreme in popularity, no matter which teams play. Players come and players go, but the game sells itself. Football has grown slowly, and to their credit, the NFL has crawled in bed with the gambling industry to further its popularity while appearing to distance itself. We all know that point spreads have a lot to do with football's popularity.

Basketball does not have the same luxury as football. Basketball was hit twice with major gambling scandals, so basketball has gone out of its way to distance itself from gambling. When the league studied expansion into Canada, David $tern required a province to cease NBA gambling. Furthermore, with 82 games, the games lack relevance. (In my opinion, the best season was the lockout-shortened season, because every game mattered). None other than Charles Barkley in his autobiography Outrageous has admitted that players coast during the 82 game season. Their intensity level picks up in the playoffs, as every game matters. However, they don't give their all every night, so you see strange results, such as Golden State knocking off the Lakers, or such. Upsets are more frequent in the NBA regular season, and the common person finds the NBA too difficult to gamble on, unlike football, where everyone thinks they know how to pick the spreads. Also, with 16 games, rather than 82, each football game matters, so the intensity level increases, and you don't see the worst teams knock off the top teams as frequently.

Without gambling to support its popularity, and without the rich tradition that baseball and golf live on, the NBA is kind of a redheaded stepchild of major sports. Furthermore, basketball was not heavily televised during the era in which it grew from a bush league to a major establishment - the 1960s, when Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Jerry West, Elgin Baylor, and Oscar Robertson took the game to a whole new level. When these players retired, the NBA picked up a bad public perception. The public thought of basketball in a quaint Hoosiers-type of way, and players like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (a Muslim!), and Dr. J (that afro!), David Thompson (a reefer addict!) and World B. Free (that name!) were a shock to people who wanted an old-fashioned game. Basketball had gone from a game of figure 8's and set shots to 3-pointers, fast breaks, and slam dunks - in other words, too "urban" (and we know what that really means!) As a result, the NBA almost went bankrupt.

Fortunately, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson went from the most popular basketball game in history (Michigan-Indiana State) to the ideal NBA situation: east coast/west coast on the two winningest teams in history. No, I do not think this was fixed. The Lakers nearly selected Sidney Moncrief instead, and Larry Bird was the 2nd pick of the Boston Celtics. Shortly afterward, NBA commissioner Larry O'Brien came up with the salary cap (of which the media has tried to credit with David Stern) and basketball had its feet again. David $tern then became commissioner. $tern milked the popularity of the Bird/Magic rivalry for all its worth and in the process he laid the foundation for the unstable popularity. He promoted individual players, rather than teams. (Have you noticed how people will say, "Who is the next Jordan?" but they don't ask, "Who is the next Walter Payton/Joe Montana?") $tern used the polarizing differences and perpetuated the stereotypes: the Celtics were supposedly a "gritty, hard working, 'white' team" and the Lakers were a "flashy, athletic, 'black' team." He and media kept the real truths hidden that would shatter this image, such as the Lakers hard-nosed defense, or the fact that Larry Bird was quite possibly the biggest trash talker of the 80s, or that Magic Johnson's game was built on intelligence far more than athleticism. $tern did what he could to keep this rivalry going.

When it became apparent that the Celtics could not afford Bird, Kevin McHale, and Robert Parish under the salary cap, he let them break it. He created a "Larry Bird Exception" that said that a team could exceed the salary cap in order to sign its own free agents. $tern did not feel the need to pass this rule when the Knicks were trying to re-sign their own free agents a few years earlier. Instead, he created an exception to the rule in order to help the Celtics, the league's most popular team, sign the league's most popular player. Are you seeing what is going on here? $tern plays favorites in order to help popular teams win! And yet these numerous awful calls that help popular teams win is just a coincidence of inept officials? I don't think so. The Bird Exception was the reason for the 1998 lockout. $tern and his owner buddies decided that they didn't like players making that money. Larry Bird and Michael Jordan were o.k, but Kevin Garnett? No way! That's not fair! "You reap what you sow, David $tern!"

Furthermore, in 1986, David $tern alerted the Celtics to quickly closing tax loophole that allowed them to generate a lot of money by making the team a master limited partnership and selling shares of the team to crazed fans who could say that they "owned their favorite team." In order for this to work, a team had to have a huge following nationwide. Two teams met this criterion (the Lakers were the other). $tern helped one, but did not help the other, nor did he even offer this advice for any other team who might want to try it.

$tern got incredibly lucky when his ship came in, in the form of Michael Jordan. Here was the player of dominating athletic ability, a strong college background, good looks, and most of all, non-offensive. He did not have an objectionable hairstyle, unlike Allen Iverson and young Dr. J. He wasn't a radical who did things like boycott the Olympics because of racial injustice and change his name to that of a "middle eastern terrorist," unlike that Abdul-Jabbar fellow. He didn't speak out on anything, really. He just entertained people and made a lot of money. When Larry and Magic got old, it was time to thrust the new golden calf in front of the worshipping masses, and worship they did! Michael Jordan brought in more money to the NBA than anybody could have ever imagined. The people who watched because of Magic and Larry kept watching and as the Bulls popularity grew, more and more fringe sports fans jumped on board.

There were two problems: these people were not true basketball fans. They were Michael Jordan pop culture fans. They liked Dennis Rodman's hair, but didn't appreciate his hard work. Most of these "fringe" fans did not appreciate the strategy behind the game. Unlike baseball, hockey, and football fans, NBA fans were pretty ignorant about the strategy of the game. I wrote the Strat-O-Matic game company and asked why they haven't put more development into the computer version of their excellent board game. They told me that apparently basketball fans are more into buying merchandise than they are into studying the game. It is so true. I see countless Jordan jerseys worn by people who have no clue what a pick-and-roll is. David $tern panders to these type of fans, but the problem with them, is that they have no loyalty. Their support is fleeting. They will follow the next "big thing", whether it is Britney Spears or "American Idol." In the meantime, $tern alienated a lot of hard-core fans, who left for college basketball.

The other problem with $tern's method of building popularity through individual players is that there was no rivalry. Magic and Larry were very similar in talent, and that made their rivalry special. However, finding two dominating players of similar talent is rare. There is no other Michael Jordan. There is no other Shaquille O'Neal. Therefore, it was important to keep Michael on top, just like it is important to keep Shaq and Kobe on top. Based on $tern's history, it was no surprise that a lot of shady officiating revolved around the Bulls and Lakers, although I have shown that it also applied to the Knicks when they were the league favorite in 1994 and also to home teams, in order to generate more revenue.

More corruption from 1988: during the stretch run of that season, the Bulls and Pacers were playing a hard fought game. Normally, a regular season playoff game is meaningless, but Jordan, who I always believed played for his scoring stats as much he played for winning, was in a tight race for the scoring crown against Shaquille O'Neal. During one series, Mark Jackson was bodying up on Michael Jordan defensively, going down the court. The refs blew the whistle and in frustration, Jordan threw the ball off of Jackson's head. Jordan is a superstar, so he gets preferential treatment, that is understood, but in the 1980s, I would say that Larry Bird was the preeminent star of the NBA, and read what he said in his autobiography Drive about what happens when a star player throws a ball at another player - in a PLAYOFF game, no less.

"I felt that Bill [Laimbeer] was trying to hurt me on that play [in Game #4 of the 1987 Eastern Conference Finals] and out of sheer frustration I threw the ball at him. Even under those circumstances, I shouldn't have done that and of course I was kicked out of the game."

Even with the preferential treatment that Bird received, even he was ejected for throwing a basketball. Remember, this was a playoff game and if anybody ever deserved to have a ball thrown at him, Bill Laimbeer was that person. However, Bird was thrown out, and even adds "of course I was kicked out", meaning this is understood. Throw ball/get ejected. Pretty simple. What happened to Jordan? Technical foul. Why? Because it was fairly early in the game, and getting ejected would hurt his scoring average. He would get credit for the game, but his scoring average would actually decrease! Jordan ended up winning the scoring title by 0.4 ppg, to put it into perspective. $tern and Ebersol wanted to make sure that Jordan carried away his 10th scoring title and 6th NBA championship, and $tern was not going to let Jordan be ejected, especially on NBC!

Another example of the refs blatantly ignoring the rules to help the popular player was in the 1996 finals. Jordan had 1 technical foul, along with a lot of players, by an officiating crew that was hypersensitive. Earlier in the game, David Wingate rolled his eyes and walked away and was called for a technical foul. In the 4th quarter, Jordan was making a move and was called for a double dribble. To his defense, he did not double dribble - the ref did not have the angle to see that Jordan's hand did not touch the basketball. However, Jordan went ballistic and got in the refs face and screamed. NBC commentator Snapper Jones pointed out that as sensitive as the referees were that game, Jordan should have been ejected. Bill Walton said that there was no way that Michael Jordan (said in reverence) would be ejected from a NBA finals (more reverence) game. The corrupt officiating was so obvious that even a numbskull like Walton, who rarely makes an intelligent statement on the air, could point out the obvious.

In addition, to the two incidents in 1998, in Game 6 of the 1998 Finals, we saw the favored officiating at its worst. With Utah giving Chicago all it can handle, the refs decide to swing 5 points in favor of the Bulls. First, they wave off Howard Eisley's 3-pointer, by claiming he did not get it off before the buzzer, even though the ball must have been 10 feet out of his hands when the buzzer went off. Then, Ron Harper gets credit for a 2-point shot that went off after the shot clock buzzer went off. Then, to top it all off, Michael Jordan shoves Bryon Russell to the ground to hit his famous career-ending jumper (or so it was thought). All throughout the end of the game, Bob Costas was saying things like, "This could be the last time that Michael Jordan ever wipes sweat from his brow in an NBA uniform!" With all of his sickening melodramatic drool, was it at all surprising who was going to win that game? I like one mock headline I saw (I think from ESPN) that said, "Jordan hits final shot. Bulls lose by 4!" in reference to the bad calls.

With Jordan gone, I thought the corruption might be gone - wishful thinking. Without Jordan and because of the lockout, ratings were down 21%. San Antonio was the obvious favorite, especially after they mowed through the Western Conference. While they were a good team, they were not an exciting team. Face it, Tim Duncan does not have a flashy game nor does he have a flashy persona. David Robinson is no Dennis Rodman. Mario Elie? Avery Johnson? Sean Elliot? Fuhgetaboutit! Indiana was obviously the best team in the East, but I knew there was no way that David $tern would allow TWO small market teams to play in the post-Jordan finals. Do you think I am imagining things? How many times during David $tern's tenure as commissioner have 2 small market teams played for the title? Answer: Zero. Every year, one of the following cities has been in the finals: Boston, Los Angeles, Detroit, Chicago, Houston or New York. Despite the parody that the salary cap was supposed to bring (remember what the baseball owners have been saying), only one small market team has won the NBA finals during David $tern's tenure. Salary cap = competitive balance? Not! Keep in mind, that the unwritten rule of referees is that they don't like to decide games (a convenient excuse not to call Michael's push-off on Bryon Russell in 1998, but not followed when Scottie Pippen fouled Hubert Davis in 1994). However, they didn't let that principle stop them from giving Larry Johnson a 4-point play. With Patrick Ewing out, and New York rallying, this gained media interest, and $tern was going to milk it for all it was worth. However, even bad officiating could not make up for the disparity between San Antonio and New York.

After that season, I pretty much quit watching the NBA completely. I followed it from a distance, but I didn't care to watch games that I was convinced were fixed games and full of dishonest officiating. I enjoyed parody and competitive games, but David $tern did not. He liked large market teams and popular players and did what he could to keep them on top.

I do not think that the 2001 finals were fixed. My team, the Sixers, was in the finals for the first time since 1983. Because of that, I watched the series. I was hoping the Sixers would win, which would completely destroy the evidence that I had seen that the league was fixed. However, the Sixers did not win. Heck, if they did win, it would have meant their playing a perfect series, or else the refs bending over backwards to help them, but it did not make sense that they would go against the most popular team. No, the truth is, the Lakers were simply a better team. The Sixers, and especially Allen Iverson, played valiantly, but despite their injuries, and their beating the Lakers in the regular season, I do not think they could beat the Lakers when it mattered: in a 7 game series for the championship. But this last year - woah! I sat back and smiled, as I read the outcry about the officiating during the Lakers-Kings series. The media acknowledged that the officiating was horrible. The people like Aldridge, DuPree, and Wilbon all admitted that while they did not believe the league was fixed (even though they do believe that the league does not want even officiating between stars and non-stars), they did admit that the NBA has an image problem. A large number of people believe that it is fixed or is fishy, and that is something that they need to correct. They believe the quality of officiating needs to improve. Again, go read the Bill Russell quote (part 1) - it is easy to hide corrupt officials among the large numbers of incompetent referees. I believe the refs know exactly what they are doing. After all, when the refs were locked out and replaced with CBA refs, we saw more even-handed officiating. Players like Charles Barkley and Michael Jordan were irate because the refs dared to call them for steps and fouls that they were not accustomed to. This point was covered up in the fact that the CBA refs had difficulty maintaining control on the court, and fights were more common, however, the real key was that for the first time, we saw fair, though violent, basketball.

Every year, I keep giving David $tern a chance to prove me wrong. I keep waiting for the popular team to get knocked off in an upset. It happens in other sports, why can't it happen in the NBA? For example, last year, going into game 7, I decided if the Kings won the game, this would destroy my theory. There were many traditional reasons why the Kings should have won: Better record during the season and home court advantage, for starters. If the Kings would have won, I would have had faith in the league, and I would have watched every game of the finals. $tern did not disappoint me, though, and I kept the television off. This is one of many examples where I keep telling myself, "I hope I am wrong. Here is a chance to prove me wrong," but it never happens. I realize this attitude is as na�ve as baseball fans who swear they will never watch another game after a strike, but always come back. I keep hoping I am wrong, but I have not seen any evidence to the contrary. Considering how David $tern saw a near bankrupt league build success through television popularity and also how he has traditionally played favorites with popular teams dating back to the early days of his tenure as commissioner, it is not hard to see why I am never proven wrong. If $tern did not indisputably aid the Celtics in the 1980s and if the league did not have a dishonest 2-tier system of calling fouls on stars and non-stars, my theory would look a lot like grasping at straws. Instead, I have a rock solid foundation to build the rest of the theory on.

Back in 1995, I suspected that something was not kosher in the league. Now, the rest of the media is suspecting the same. They think people who believe the league is fixing games are crazy. This is called "denial." Trust me, seven years ago, I did not want to believe it, either, and a part of me still doesn't want to believe it. These guys have even more reason to disbelieve it: they make their livelihoods from the NBA. If the NBA is exposed and declines in popularity, these guys are looking for a job. The way I figure, these guys are seven years behind me, so by the end of the decade, they may finally figure out that the league is fixed.

[esulima]

vagas and bookies got killed yesterday!

[vyomguy]

all favs won yesterday.