DON'T BELIEVE THE HYPE, THE NBA IS NOT FIXING GAMES

by T, The Angry T

I had a friend ask me yesterday if I was at all surprised about embattled former official Tim Donaghy's allegations that the NBA is using the referees to fix games. When I said I wasn't surprised, he nearly jumped out of his chair in telling me that it didn't surprise him at all. He used Dywane Wade's 475 free throw attempts in the 2005 Finals as a perfect example of the NBA's fixing practices. He could have used one of 100 questionable games and series that fans pick apart in an attempt to find a conspiracy amongst NBA higher ups.



I started to think I was just blind to the potential fixes, especially after reading this story. I was perplexed, because I thought I was a pretty astute study of the game. I thought I had an idea of what was going on and more importantly, I thought that there was no way the NBA would go the way of the WWE. The game creates fantastic drama without having to set up matchups or hit people with chairs, take this years' finals for instance.

Thankfully, my "knowledge" of basketball has been confirmed by none other than some of best friends, dirty, stinky degenerate gamblers. There are some great points made in this article, including the fact that the San Antonio Spurs, the New Jersey Nets, the Indiana Pacers and the Detroit Pistons have been allowed to make the NBA finals in the last 10 years. The authors point, which I tend to agree with, is that if the NBA is fixing games, they are doing a pretty terrible job. Also, even with all these sub-par match-ups, the NBA still brings in 25 percent more TV revenue than baseball, the other potential #2 sport in America.

Chuck Klosterman wrote a great article on ESPN.com about how fans and non-fans alike love to point out that the NBA is in trouble. Not enough white stars to relate to white fans, the hip-hop / thug culture, the lack of stars, the lack of a Michael Jordan like personality, and now the fixing of games are issues that are consistently brought up as problems with the NBA. However, the NBA keeps chugging along as basketball becomes the world's second most popular sport.

So don't believe the hype, don't believe the phantoms calls are part of some nefarious cloak and dagger plot to put Kobe Bryant in the finals. David Stern doesn't care because David Stern's league brought in around one billion dollars this year in TV revenue alone. Just like Stern, I don't take Donaghy's allegations as gospel truth, or even truth at all. Shockingly, I think the felon might be lying, like he did his entire career.