House of Mirrors: Has Tim Donaghy Changed Your View of the NBA?

by DCScrap, Our Book of Scrap

History is full of great debate. Questions that remain unanswered like "what came first the chicken or the egg?" or "can you get pregnant through anal?" Luckily for you - the huddled masses - Epic Carnival is here to settle these arguments once and for all. House of Mirrors is your favorite Carnies taking a look at one another and debating the mysteries of the universe. This week the EC writers take a stab at another interesting topic: How does the Tim Donaghy scandal change your view of the NBA, if at all?

DMtShooter, Five Tool Tool: It gives air to every conspiracy theory. It adds a distraction into a game that didn't need one. It might be the catalyst for better days, because the officiating is the worst part of what is actually a fantastic league.

And it won't be the last, because NFL and MLB refs are subject to the same temptations, and boy howdy, the NCAA is even worse and more susceptible.

Just wait for it -- "Pulling a Donaghy" will be on the lips of every sore loser moment, every shaky call that hurts your team, and because the media won't talk that way for fear of killing their own golden goose, it'll be one more thing that drives people to alternative news sources -- hello, live podcasts of games, the live variant of sports blogs!

Just like, you know, people don't pay attention to television news! anymore, because they further the lie that we all supported the war from day one, and only fringe people want it to stop. The fringe 70%. But I digress.

dswinder, Sons of Sam Malone: I think, if anything, the ref scandal piques my interest in the NBA. I'm not going to go on and on about how the NBA has been steadily losing fans; that's been done before. But I think it's kind of hard to argue that anyone kinda sorta on the edge of do I watch or not was definitely intrigued by the magnitude of the story. I really do think in a way it's exactly what the NBA needed to shift it out of the complacency it's been sitting in for years. Maybe this wasn't the best thing to spark a change, but it sparked it all the same.

Don, With Malice...: This was inevitable. There's no way that something of this magnitude wasn't going to happen, eventually, in one of the 3 major sports (sorry Hockey). It definitely makes a mockery of David Stern's assertions that any one decision doesn't affect the outcome of sports (gogo Cheap-shot Rob), and without-a-doubt, I'm a little more cynical about the league.

However, there are a lot of good stories going on as well. I'm still a fan.

DCScrap, Our Book of Scrap: In all honesty, it might actually make me watch a couple more games. I was a huge NBA fan back when Bird, Magic, Dr. J, Isiah, and Mike were playing -- couldn't get enough. In the last several years though, my interest in watching a regular season basketball game has gone down with each passing season. I find that every year I lose more and more interest. If I thought someone might be throwing a game maybe I might tune in more. I guess you could say it's like when everyone slows down to see the big car crash. Truth be told though, the NBA with a crooked ref really doesn't shock me. Nothing bad in sports shocks me anymore. Pro sports is about thismuch above pro wrestling in my book. Sports is all just one live-action video game to me so this doesn't change my perception much at all. And since I really don't gamble on the games, I don't have much of a personal stake in the outcomes. It's strictly entertainment to me -- no different than going to see a movie. Unless the White Sox are in the World Series, then it matters.

Davey, Blown Coverage: The Tim Donaghy scandal really does not change my view of the NBA. With all the talk about teams "tanking" and seeing the likes of Kevin McHale, Danny Ainge and Isiah Thomas swiftly running their teams into the ground, I didn't really get too riled up about a ref fixing games.

I mean, it's not that far-fetched. Ref likes to gamble, gets in a little over his head, starts to crap his pants uncontrollably, has to find a way out and ends up fixing games so that he don't sleep with the fishes at the end of the day. Really, if you'd see that plot in a movie, it would not be far-fetched at all.

Now, did Donaghy cost the Suns a championship? I don't know. Some people will say yes, some will say no...but I really would not know. All I know is that he cheated and that he deserves whatever punishment he gets. And yes, it won't affect my view of the NBA at all. While Donaghy plays dress-up in cell block A with Bubba and Pork Chop, I'll be watching Isiah Thomas give a max contract to a dead squirrel. Nothing changed there...

Sooze, Babes Love Baseball: I always thought the NBA was rigged by the league, now I know it was rigged by the officials. It's comforting and has definitely helped me cut down on the gambling.