The cover of Personal Foul by TIm Donaghy
Tim Donaghy visted The Drive with Steve Jaxon yesterday, the day after Game 5 of the 2016 NBA Finals. The former NBA referee lost his career when he was discovered to be involved with gambling on basketball games. He talked frankly about basketball refereeing and the current series.
Steve asked Tim Donaghy to summarize his downfall, for listeners not familiar with his story. He began, “It was a situation where I was in over my head and started gambling. Because of my obsession with it I started gambling on the NBA and on NBA games where I officiated. [I was] passing along inside information to people associated with the Gambino crime family. Because of a wiretap it was overheard and the FBI started an investigation. It basically began my downfall. Basically I did some time in a Federal prison because of wire fraud and gambling.”
Steve noted that he is doing better now, and Tim agreed: “Basically I got a second chance in life with the website refpicks.com. It wasn’t my first choice of professions but it’s a profession that took off for me. Basically I’ve got about ten sports handicappers who work for me. I give advice to people who are gambling legally. Knock on wood it’s been very successful for me. I’ve got about ten guys, some specialize in different areas, and I of course handle the NBA.”
Steve mentioned that Tim had picked the Warriors to win in Game 5 the previous night, the same as Steve and most of his friends. Tim confirmed, “Even though the NBA’s best interests was to get to that Game 6, I thought that they struggled a lot on the road. They shot poorly on the road throughout the playoffs and were going to play poorly. We all know that didn’t happen. But I’m lucky because I also had the over, so it kind of evened out for me.”
Steve mentioned the article in Sports Illustrated that was headlined NBA Suspended Dramond Green to Prolong the Finals, saying that he and his friends we were wondering about that. He asked, “This seemed a little, I don’t know, fishy to us, that they suspended him for this game in the NBA finals. So you’re saying that for financial reasons among others, the NBA really wanted this to go to six or even seven games?”
Tim replied with an opinion that drew a lot of comments from sports commentators nationwide. “Well definitely, look at the history of Green and what he did and how he kicked Adams. It was more overt. What he did with Le Bron, (who basically walked over him and taunted him) you have to allow him as a man and as an NBA basketball player to jump up and react to that. I thought it was an accident. The contact that he made with him and the contact that he had with Adams was definitely unnecessary and excessive. I felt he should have been suspended for that one and he wasn’t; this one, you’ve got to let him react as a man and as an NBA player… but if you look at the scenarios, they’re up 3 games to 1 when they suspend him so it adds another game… kind of a fishy situation to say the least.”
Steve later asked more about officiating, noting that Tim Donaghy has written about whether the NBA officials and the league may try to make a series run longer. He confirmed his opinion, stating, “No doubt about it, I wrote about this at length in my book, Personal Foul. When a team is up 3 games to 1 in a series, when somebody has a big advantage, the league comes in. It shows the officials plays in the previous games and shows some things that they want them to concentrate on in that night. And it always puts that team that’s down in the series at an advantage…”
Steve said, “That is shocking in many ways, in some ways it’s not…” Tim confirmed, “Trust me, when I went through this whole scenario in meetings with FBI agents, their jaws dropped and hit the ground. But after a thorough three or four month investigation, they came back and told me that I had told the truth at every turn. And that’s why Phil Scala who is the supervisory special agent who arrested me, wrote the forward to my book. This gave me a lot of credibility in the whole situation.”
Steve read a passage from Donaghy’s book about the league favoring teams that are down in a series and he then gave this example. “I’ll never forget. Maybe 10, 12 years ago, I was the alternate official in a series between Dallas and Houston. We moved to Houston for the series and Houston was up 2 games to none. We were going to Houston’s home court where you would think they would have the advantage. The league comes in. The tape session tells us to concentrate on Yao Ming setting illegal screens and travelling with the ball when he has it in the post. We left that meeting laughing, knowing basically that Dallas was going to get the benefit of most of the calls and Dallas goes on to win the series in 7 games and goes to the NBA Finals that year.”
When Steve asked, “How come this hasn’t been investigated by Congress or somebody?” Donaghy replied, “The way the FBI explained it to me is the NBA markets itself as NBA entertainment so it’s similar to pro wrestling in a way, the way the rules and legalities are set up, but for the most part people think it’s like college or high school basketball where everybody’s on a level playing field. But really the referees are refereeing the names on the front and back of jerseys rather than the violations that occur based on the rules.”
Steve remarked, “I have Warriors fans, thousands and thousands of them, in the Bay Area right now, about to drive off the road or something.” Tim Donaghy replied, “Well they shouldn’t be, because I think they’re going to get their second championship. They may have a little bit of a hard time in Cleveland. But they’re certainly going to be able to take care of business on their home floor in a game 7.” *
Then Steve mentioned talking to San Jose Mercury News sports guy Mark Purdie earlier. He asked if he wanted it to end in 6 in Cleveland or end in 7. “The only reason I want it to go to 7 is I want the Warriors to do it here at home and watch that arena explode.”
Tim Donaghy pointed out, “The only problem with that is, you have to be careful of that because you never know when somebody’s going to go off, and players are going to have a game above what they usually have, like they did in game 5. You have to be careful because some guys can really go off like Irving or Le Bron did and it can cause some problems for you.”
* UPDATE: A few days later, the Warriors did lose Game 7 at home and the Cavaliers won the championship.
For more about Tim Donaghy:
Visit his website https://www.refpicks.com/