Tim Donaghy is a disgraced former NBA referee who was convicted of making bogus calls and betting on basketball games. He did a year in the slammer for it. The scandal and subsequent fallout were supposed to cleanse basketball, but anyone who has tuned into the 2012 Playoffs knows the game's as tainted as ever. The crack staff at Complex Sports has worked tirelessly to unearth the most telling footage and prove once and for all that the league is broken. Click through to see what a Pulitzer looks like.
Tim Donaghy is a disgraced former NBA referee who was convicted of making bogus calls and betting on basketball games. He did a year in the slammer for it. The scandal and subsequent fallout were supposed to cleanse basketball, but anyone who has tuned into the 2012 Playoffs knows the game's as tainted as ever. The crack staff at Complex Sports has worked tirelessly to unearth the most telling footage and prove once and for all that the league is broken. Click through to see what a Pulitzer looks like.
The Flop
The Problem: If the NBA is a league of trends, then “flopping” is the Ed Hardy muscle tee; a showy, desperate attempt to prove what an ass you are in order to get a cheap score. In Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Quarters LeBron James flopped on a high screen from Tyson Chandler (see above). Even after getting a whistle, "The King" rambled about the court wincing in pain and holding his neck like a paparazzo who’d been nudged by an irritated Justin Bieber. It's a type of pathetic theater that makes dives in the Spanish Premier League look honorable by comparison. Growing up on Chicago's Southside, Dwyane Wade would've been shot if he was calling his own fouls after jumping into defenders he'd faked into the air. That's not a joke. You try that shit in a L.A. Fitness open gym, you'll get stomped out by a pack of weekend warriors and you absolutely deserve it.
What Needs To Be Recognized: In this case, the NBA doesn't have an officiating problem—it has a culture problem. On the offensive end, for some reason, it’s OK to scream to the rafters and stare down whatever Eastern European import you dunk over. But on the defensive end, six-foot-nine supposed hard-asses drop to the ground like they’ve fired a bazooka into a brick wall at point blank range. So, which is it? Is basketball an exhibition in Tarzan-like machismo or is it grown men falling to the hardwood like they’re trying to score settlement checks? Attention Ginobili, LeBron, and Pierce, maybe you’ll get a whistle, maybe you wont, but you will definitely look like a pussy. Just stop.
The Technical
The Problem: Tim Duncan’s committed close to three thousand fouls in his NBA career and has reacted to every single one as though he’s discovered a frosty glass on his coffee table without a coaster. That’s really annoying and referees should have the go-ahead to T-up groaning prima donnas. But the 2012 Playoffs have been a total embarrassment, with refs asserting themselves on the game like they're trying to impress a new girlfriend in the crowd. Celtics Coach Doc Rivers got a technical foul for literally saying, "C'mon, Eddie" to referee Ed Malloy. The league is arresting guys for going a few miles per hour over the speed limit when they should be declaring anarchy on the freeway.
What Needs To Be Recognized: Technicals are being called at bizarre times, for seemingly random reasons, and without balance. Since the playoffs began, opponents of Miami have 24 technical fouls, while the Heat have four. With a discrepancy like that, no wonder there are conspiracy theorists who think the NBA is fixed. What makes the Playoffs infinitely more watchable than the regular season is aggressive defense, hard fouls, and a little hand-to-hand combat amongst diva millionaires. Whatever's tolerated during the regular season should be doubled during the playoffs but, right now, it's going the other way.
The Flagrant
What Needs To Be Recognized: Flagrant fouls should be reviewed on the court, during the game. NBA refs make roughly $150K per season to officiate 82 games. That’s like making $732 per hour for a seasonal job. *looks at pay stub as a freelance writer* *punches own groin* When you’re on that kind of pay grade you should be able to discern, with replay, the difference between a flagrant one and a flagrant two in a timely manner. It’s that simple. Officials make a truckload of money, so why the league determines foul severity in the days following a game is beyond us.
The No Call
The Problem: The Celtics complaining about “not getting calls” is like irony fucking deceit and having a truth baby. It’s like Peter Rosenberg calling out Nicki Minaj for not being “real hip-hop” or Dr. Phil writing a weight loss book. It’s a painfully accurate assessment from a laughably ridiculous source but, sometimes, even hypocrites are right. In overtime of Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Finals, Rajon Rondo had his face scraped off by Dwyane Wade while finishing a reverse layup (see above). There was no whistle, a fast-break led to a Miami bucket, and the four point swing potentially cost Boston a game. Inexcusable.
What Needs To Be Recognized: Many fouls occur four feet above the hair gel-soaked head of a referee. The players are fast, most fouls are judgment calls, and human error is part of basketball. That said, the action of a game is concentrated on half of the court at a time. Between three refs, each is responsible for a small bedroom's worth of square footage. That's it. If the NBA expects to be taken seriously, it can't miss calls this badly.
The Free Throw Gap
The Problem: This year's playoff leaders in free-throw attempts per game are (in order) Dirk Nowitzki, LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, Kobe Bryant, and Kevin Durant. Aggressive scorers? Sure. But the correlation between free-throw attempts and star power is way too close to not be taken seriously. In their second round series against the Thunder, the Lakers took 42 free throws in a single game. If you think a 33-year-old, hobbled Kobe Bryant's drawing nine legit fouls on the athletic Thunder defense, you're out of your mind. These guys get whistles whenever they're in the paint and it's become an accepted part of the game.
What Needs To Be Recognized: It's hard to argue for the virtue of basketball when the sports' purists basically brag about how corrupt it is. The "star call" is right next to athletes comparing themselves to "soldiers" and letting pitchers bat as the most ridiculous practices in pro sports. And, rather inexplicably, it's universally accepted by basketball's players and fans. Somewhere in Boston, there's a guy with a Larry Bird throwback, who thinks David Stern is fixing the playoffs and, simultaneously, screaming, "How does Paul Pierce not get that call!?" at his television.
What's Really Going On Here?
Let’s talk about what’s really going on here: the Miami Heat might be champions. Unless you’re a fat dude sitting court-side with “YMCMB” printed across your crewneck, the "Big 3" colluding for a ring totally bums you out. We get it. The Heat are ratings behemoths and they've benefited from a lot of calls which seem to set the stage for something sinister. But they've also been targeted by the Pacers, Celtics, and Knicks who want to put an elbow through Dwyane Wade’s smug sneer as much as you do.
Saying professional basketball is fixed is like claiming 2Pac is still alive or that Barack Obama is the love child of Osama bin Laden and Jane Fonda, it’s conspiracy porn for lunatics. Referees in the NBA are just really bad at their jobs. Like clumsy waiters or drunken pilots, they just totally suck at what they do. The NBA would be better off cleaning house or handing the reigns over to some of those finalists from the Scripps Spelling Bee—those kids seem to have their shit together.
Tim Donaghy was able to fix games under the same supposedly intense performance standards that today's NBA referees are measured against. That's scary. But if you look at the Heat-Celtics series there's nothing to suggest that game's are being fixed to beat a spread or get Miami a ring. Take, for example, Game 4 of the Eastern Conference Finals. In overtime, Paul Pierce received his sixth foul for sort of bumping Shane Battier on the offensive end. A minute later, Michael Pietrus grabbed LeBron James' crank, dragged him to the floor with it, and "The King" fouled out as a result. The game is being destroyed but not to benefit the Heat, or the Celtics, or David Stern. What you're watching is bad officiating begetting bad officiating, that's all.