Kleeman's Last Word

NBA has an officiating problem, but don't trust Donaghy

Has hell frozen over? Is he serious? The same guy who slammed the NBA for the surly manner in which it responds to conspiracy theories is now sticking up for the refs?

Hardly. This is much less about referees than it is about the game. If the players stunk, the officials decided the oputcomes, and the contests were boring, I would not watch. As Tim Donaghy reiterated pieces of evidence that say games are fixed—whicha government investigation has already debunked—commissioner David Stern faces some tough problems.

A fixed game is not one of them. The agony of the inconsistent whistle is.

On a night when Donaghy sought to further injure professional basketball, the league trotted out two of its most questioned officials to call a pivotal Game Three. Bennett Salvatore and Joey Crawford are probably not the best refs to convince anybody the league's officiating is fine.

The only one missing who would have completed a suspicious triumvirate was supposed road-team supporter Steve Javie. Crawford has a poor reputation as a boiling pot. He ejected Tim Duncan for laughing—and that was only one of his sorry incidents.

Mark Cuban knows about Salvatore's work. The Dallas Mavericks owner went berserk after a seemingly phantom foul allowed Dwayne Wade to ice a pivotal 101-100 Game Five win in the 2006 NBA Finals. Wade earned more trips to the line, 23, than the entire Mavs team (21).

Players appreciate Javie, despite alleged his anti-home team bias, because he doesn't swallow the whistle during key plays. Where some refs would be cowards and bow to the crowd and the home team's fuming coach, Javie answers only to himself.

Every league has its bad rats—but do not believe Donaghy when he says they own the NBA.

Maybe something happened in the Sacramento Kings-LA Lakers series that did not involve the players. I didn't see it. Blown calls in Game Six? There were plenty. The Kings also blew some opportunities.

The worst part of Donaghy's re-allegations is it forces me to revisit a painful Rockets-Mavericks series. Jeff Van Gundy complained that referees were singling out star center Yao Ming. It's hard to disagree that Yao received little respect in the series.

He didn't get any this season, as the officials spent three to four months botching the verticality rule they promised to enforce.

The telltale signs that the refs did not win that series? (And damn Donaghy for forcing me to reprint this again as a Rockets fan!) The Rockets won Game Six by 18 points, and lost Game Seven by 40 points.

I doubt the refs forced a 40-point spread—unless of course, one of them traded places with Jason Terry and nailed more than seven threes. Dirk Nowitzki scored a dismal seven points, and Yao and Tracy McGrady combined for 62. It is hard to win a winner-take-all contest on the road when the rest of team combines for 12-14 points.

Does the NBA sport an official flaw? You can guess my answer from reading my other columns.

Is an official flaw the same as a sure-fire fix? Don't count on Donaghy for a trustworthy answer.

posted by Robert Kleeman @ 4:18 PM