Cobb Posted December 7, 2009 Report Share Posted December 7, 2009 Anyone get a chance to watch it? If so, how was it? I totally forgot about it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OldChili Posted December 7, 2009 Report Share Posted December 7, 2009 I wasn't aware he was going to be on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NJNJ Posted December 7, 2009 Report Share Posted December 7, 2009 Neither was I. Just knew his book was going to be released very soon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Legacy Posted December 7, 2009 Report Share Posted December 7, 2009 I watched a bit of it. He was talking about how referees had certain relationships with players, which affected their calls and how he would bet. The NBA denies it. He also said he rigged some games for the mafia or else they would have killed his family. He would get $2000 while they got millions. Another interesting thing he said was how the referees try their hardest to make the playoffs go as long as possible, to make more money for the league. Same for big market teams and how they would get more favorable calls. NBA denies this as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Built Ford Tough Posted December 7, 2009 Report Share Posted December 7, 2009 (edited) I found an online link to it and am watching it right now. Here is the link if anybody is interested in watching it. http://www.cbs.com/primetime/60_minutes/video/?cid=60%20Minutes/60%20Minutes%20Full%20Episodes&pid=UHMI_aAl1bF4grHiBD1x1CTwxUJvoKDi&play=true The Donaghy portion starts about 14 minutes into the video, if I recall correctly. If you don't feel like watching the video (I think that it is well worth the time) then here is some of the major points of the interview: Basically, Donaghy says that he bet on over 100 games and a lot of them were games that he was reffing. He says that even though he had bet on a certain game, he wouldn't make calls to sway the game in the favour of one team or the other and always tried to be as impartial as possible. An example of this is in a game between the Spurs and Hornets he had bet on the Spurs but still ejected Gregg Popvich early in the first quarter, as the Spurs would eventually go on to lose the game. He says that he had a 70-80% success rate on the games that he betted on because he knew that certain refs had certain bias for certain players, both positive and negative. He used Iverson as an example and said that if the ref liked Iverson he would tend to favour him and make more calls to benefit him, but if the ref didn't like him then he wouldn't make as many calls for him because of his personal opinion of AI. Basically, he knew that relationships refs had with certain players would effect the point spread of the games and bet accordingly. He also made note of a situation where Iverson was fined $25,000 for criticizing the officiating but the refs felt that he should've been suspended for his comments so they decided that the next game they would "teach Iverson a lesson". He then went on to say that he bet against the Denver Nuggets in that game because he knew that the refs would make every single possible call against Iverson that they could, including numerous palming violations and not giving him any foul calls unless they were blatantly obvious. They showed clips from this game and Donaghy talked about specific examples. Here is a quote from him about a specific incident with Kobe Bryant and the Lakers: "The Lakers had sent in a CD of 25 plays that they felt calls were missed when Kobe Bryant went to the basket. I understood from the NBA office that 22 of those plays were missed by referees. I knew that Kobe Bryant was basically going to be given the opportunity to go to the foul line if somebody so much as breathed on him." He was basically inferring that because of how many missed calls the refs had on a prior game that he knew the next game that Bryant played in he would get plenty of free throws. He used this information to help him with his bets. He would call refs before games and talk to them about certain players and such and how they felt about them and use the infor that they told him to help him make his bets. He bet on his games through a friend because he was scared to get caught. They went on for 3 years but during the 4th year his friend let slip that he was getting inside information from an NBA ref, to which the mob found out and told Donaghy that he would tell the mob all of his picks or else they would go down to Florida and visit his family. They had a code that if the bet was on the home team Donaghy would mention his brother Chuck and if it was the away team he would mention his brother Johnny. Donaghy made $200,000 per correct pick despite the fact that the mob was making millions of money off of him. It was Donaghy's connection with the mob that eventually brought him down and got him caught. He cooperated with the FBI in order to get a lesser sentence and as a result he was getting death threats from the mob and he even got attacked by somebody because of it. He claimed that in the playoffs the NBA would do everything possible to extend series and help big market teams advance because it would make the NBA more money. He said that over the course of 4 years he profited around $100,000. When asked why it was so little he said that he wasn't in it for the money, but for the high and thrill that betting on NBA games gave him. He didn't really deny being called a "rouge referee" and says that he did some very shady and terrible things, but the culture that existed withing the NBA enabled him to be able to bet on games at a very successfull rate. His wife divorced him and has sole custody of his 4 daughters. He said that he feels that this incident has actually improved the officiating in the NBA because the league has made changes to prevent refs from allowing their bias to have an effect on calls. He hasn't watched a game for 2 years. That is most of the major parts of the interview. I definitely suggest that you watch the interview for yourself because it is a lot more telling than simply reading my post. I definitely feel like Donaghy was telling the truth about every single question that he was asked. He answered them all in a very calm and collected manner, there wasn't any sort of nervous behavious on his part (like a lot of blinking or looking around the room) and even the FBI has not once caught him in any sort of lie. I really do belive that Donaghy is telling the 100% truth about every single question that he was asked. Again, I highly suggest that you watch this interview. It is about 30 minutes long, and it will be a 30 minutes well spent if you are a fan of the NBA, which all of us are. Edited December 7, 2009 by Built Ford Tough 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PapaDoink Posted December 7, 2009 Report Share Posted December 7, 2009 Makes you really think differently about the referees and wondering if games are rigged because refs don't like a certain player. Like how they all were against A.I. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Owner Real Deal Posted December 7, 2009 Owner Report Share Posted December 7, 2009 Wow Sean, thanks for the summary. That was perfect. Going to watch the video anyways...but that helps tremendously with the discussion. I find this funny... Basically, Donaghy says that he bet on over 100 games and a lot of them were games that he was reffing. He says that even though he had bet on a certain game, he wouldn't make calls to sway the game in the favour of one team or the other and always tried to be as impartial as possible. An example of this is in a game between the Spurs and Hornets he had bet on the Spurs but still ejected Gregg Popvich early in the first quarter, as the Spurs would eventually go on to lose the game.Now, from discussing this with other members here a while back, they believed that Donaghy altered those games he bet on and was a referee in. Guess that's not the case anymore, and I'll go ahead and use a quote many others were posting: "Why would he lie?" Now, here's an inconsistency... "The Lakers had sent in a CD of 25 plays that they felt calls were missed when Kobe Bryant went to the basket. I understood from the NBA office that 22 of those plays were missed by referees. I knew that Kobe Bryant was basically going to be given the opportunity to go to the foul line if somebody so much as breathed on him."But he says this...He also made note of a situation where Iverson was fined $25,000 for criticizing the officiating but the refs felt that he should've been suspended for his comments so they decided that the next game they would "teach Iverson a lesson". He then went on to say that he bet against the Denver Nuggets in that game because he knew that the refs would make every single possible call against Iverson that they could, including numerous palming violations and not giving him any foul calls unless they were blatantly obvious. They showed clips from this game and Donaghy talked about specific examples.Doesn't exactly make sense. What's the difference between those two situations? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest N4S Posted December 7, 2009 Report Share Posted December 7, 2009 The NBA is still shady and there are no calls and calls made on player favoritism. This goes on in all sports. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNextBestThing Posted December 8, 2009 Report Share Posted December 8, 2009 Doesn't exactly make sense. What's the difference between those two situations? In Kobe's case, the referees truly missed those calls, so they tried to atone for them by giving Kobe a free lunch in the next game. They felt that Iverson was just complaining, and they wanted to get back at him for it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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