NBA News – Donaghy to be Released Wednesday

It seems that the NBA referee who bet on games he worked is going to see the sun for the first time in 15 months. Hedging his bets has always been Tim Donaghy’s forte/downfall, and he’s done so by spending his time behind bars writing a memoires of sorts entitled “Blowing The Whistle: The Culture Of Fraud In The NBA”. Donaghy’s attempt to join Jose Conseco in the ranks of whistle blowing, malignant outcasts took a turn for the worse when Random Publications cancelled the release of his book.

An excerpt of the book revealed that Donaghy and his fellow refs would play a game to see who could go the longest without calling a foul. Sure it’s all fun and games when you’re screwing with people’s legitimate bets, but it’s also seriously mucked up that Donaghy appears to derive pleasure from this game. If there’s any fraud in the NBA, Donaghy is its poster boy. But outside of him, the NBA’s image is cleaner than it ever has been.

Sure the departure of the Sonics from Seattle remains a black eye on the recent record of the NBA, but Donaghy’s actions take such a shot at the credibility of the game itself that it staggers me he could think of making money off a book that only a few people will read.

Think about the ramifications of his book. There aren’t any. What could he possibly reveal as fraudulent in the NBA that we don’t already know? The steroid scandal absolutely murdered baseball, and Jose Conseco was the spear head on that campaign. The difference is that Conseco had hard proof that his league mates were juicing up. What is Donaghy going to reveal other than what he did? 

The NBA’s lone enemy in the wings is the snake’s head in the commissioner’s office. Between the outrage of the draft that brought Patrick Ewing to the Knicks, and the heart stomping bullcrap that went down in Seattle, Stern has a clean record. Sure, he’s a malignant wart in the face of professional sports, but so are three of the four commissioners heading the American leagues right now. Donaghy’s book wouldn’t reveal anything about the NBA that we aren’t aware of. The fact is that David Stern is evil, but basketball is bigger and better than it ever has been.

That reputation deserves to be kept intact, and all Donaghy is doing by pimping his book is a thinly veiled attempt at selling copies. He’s not crusading against a league that is covering up secrets – he’s just shamelessly whoring out his life story to make a quick buck. This is yet another bet that Donaghy is going to lose, and that couldn’t make me happier.