Friday, October 30, 2009

It's Faaaaaaaantastic!!

For those of you who think many NBA games are rigged by the refs, this book is for you. Blowing the Whistle talks about referee favoritism for teams, star players, and TV ratings. Say what you want about author (and prison inmate) Tim Donaghy, these excerpts make it hard to sound like it's all fiction. It's pretty much what we all assumed, only here's some tangible proof. Maybe Donaghy is spreading shit and just trying to sell books, or maybe this type of stuff goes on every night in the "Association," I'll guess the latter.

Allen Iverson provides a good example of a player who generated strong reaction, both positive and negative, within the corps of NBA referees. For instance, veteran referee Steve Javie hated Allen Iverson and was loathe [sic] to give him a favorable call. If Javie was on the court when Iverson was playing, I would always bet on the other team to win or at least cover the spread. No matter how many times Iverson hit the floor, he rarely saw the foul line. By contrast, referee Joe Crawford had a grandson who idolized Iverson. I once saw Crawford bring the boy out of the stands and onto the floor during warm-ups to meet the superstar. Iverson and Crawford's grandson were standing there, shaking hands, smiling, talking about all kinds of things. If Joe Crawford was on the court, I was pretty sure Iverson's team would win or at least cover the spread..

2 comments:

  1. After watching the IU @ Iowa game, I'm fairly certain that college football is fixed now too.

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  2. Hard to believe anything coming from Donaghy.

    ReplyDelete