Yes Tim Donaghy is a lying cheating gambler. No, I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him. Why then does everyone I know believe he’s telling the truth when it comes to his accusations of the NBA fixing games?

The NBA has been a farce of a league for a long time. Instead of a officiating with consistency as a goal, these refs put an obvious bias towards veterans with star power. This much is undeniable.

Isn’t traveling supposed to be against the rules? A foul should be a foul regardless of the player’s number of years in the league. The credibility of the game has been sacrificed for power matchups between big market cities. That’s a sacrifice I’m sure Stern saw as acceptable in the name of good business. Long before anybody in black and white stripes called foul on the league we knew. We all knew.

Now what?

I think Tracy McGrady should sue, for one. If you watched the ads for the playoffs this year then you definitely saw the NBA pimping McGrady’s inability to make it out of the first round. They talked about it every single game the Rockets played. “Can he overcome?” Now we find out that it’s the NBA’s fault he never advanced. In 2005 the Rockets were spanking the Mavs. They were up 2 games to none and on the way back to Houston for games 3 and 4. According to Donaghy the refs were encouraged by the League to manipulate games by making bogus calls. Low and behold the Mavs came back and won in 7.

T-Mac’s livelihood has been tampered with. Trade value, salary, reputation… the NBA has tarnished them all. Homeboy’s got a good case and I think it would hold up in court just fine (especially in a trial by jury).  McGrady and the Rockets aren’t the only ones that got the shaft. Poor Mike Bibby and those Kings that just couldn’t quite get past the Lakers got the short end of the stick too. I think they need to join in on this law suit. I think everyone in Sacramento needs to sue the pants off the NBA for geographical discrimination. Why should SoCal get all the championships? Oh yeah… bigger market.

Sport is not supposed to be about markets. It’s supposed to be about the game. When you start fixing outcomes the NBA becomes purely about entertainment. We might as well be watching the WWF. Stern needs to address these issues now and publicly to restore faith in professional basketball. He needs to step down. The officiating staff needs to be replaced from the bottom up. I certainly don’t think Donaghy’s the worst out of that bunch.