Donaghy Scandal Continues To Damage The NBA's Credibility

Yesterday, I wrote a post regarding the NBA hiring a private investigator a year ago to look into referee Tim Donaghy's gambling habits. One of the most potentially damaging aspects of this incident is not whether the NBA knew of Donaghy's problems, but when they knew. Obviously they had some idea that there was a problem before the regular season started.

I believe that we can assume the NBA was watching Donaghy for the entire season(or longer), and that they were keeping a close eye on any game that he officiated. If that's the case, then why did they continue to allow him to referee games, including the playoffs, when the numbers relating to his games showed an obvious bias?

What bias you ask? Check out the numbers from gambling expert RJ Bell, president of PreGame.com:

"Over the last two seasons (reportedly the focus of the FBIs investigation into this matter), the games refereed by Tim Donaghy scored more points than Las Vegas expected over 57 percent of the time (79 of 138 games). The odds of that happening randomly are 19 to 1.

Premise #1: The more fouls a referee calls, the more he affects the game.

Premise #2: There is an absolute correlation between the number of fouls a referee calls in an NBA game and the number of points scored by the teams. (The logic being that fouls result in free throws, which stop the clock and add points).

Conclusion: An NBA ref who intended to illicitly influence a game would do so by calling more fouls, and thus his games would be higher scoring than average.

Not only have Tim Donaghys games the last two seasons been higher scoring than average, they have been so to a degree that would happen naturally only quite rarely. Which means it can be stated fairly that Tim Donaghys on-court behavior the last two seasons has an over 95% probability of being abnormal!

Maybe Tim Donaghy has always called lots of fouls, some may suggest. In the two years prior to the two years the FBI is investigating, Tim Donaghys games scored more points than Las Vegas expected only 44% of the time!

Assuming 44% "over" is Donaghy's natrual tendency, the odds of being "over" 57% for two full seasons are about 1000-1 against!"

Bell is putting this detailed summary together with the statistics that are readily available to him, so imagine what the NBA concluded with the information that they had gathered.

Either they didn't go very deep, or they didn't like what they found and hoped that this would never be made public. Unfortunately I have to go with the latter because it's been reported that Donaghy was forced into retirement due to these allegations. It appears that the NBA wanted to keep this quiet, and now that it's a full-blown scandal they're going to have a hard time convincing people that what they discovered over the course of last season wasn't enough to pull Donaghy off of the court.

NBA Commissioner David Stern is holding a press conference at 11AM this morning, and it will be interesting to see if he discloses exactly when the NBA became aware of Donaghy's problems. Personally, I think that's more important with regard to the NBA's image than Donaghy's own actions.

Allen Iverson Definitely Made The Right Choice With Basketball

Yesterday, a jury awarded Marlin Godfrey $260,000 as a result of the pain and suffering and medical bills he incurred after being beaten by Iverson's bodyguard Jason Kane in July 2005.

Godfrey and his friend, David Kittrell, were assaulted by Iverson's entourage after they refused to leave the VIP section that had been reserved for Iverson at the Washington nightclub, Eyebar. Iverson was included because:

"The lawsuit said Iverson was responsible for the brawl because he failed to properly supervise Kane and Williams - but it did not claim he took part in the fight. The suit also accused Kane of assault and battery for allegedly beating Godfrey with items that included a bottle."

This is the same trial that the plaintiff's legal team was going to call 50 Cent in as a character witness against the security guards involved. However, 50 argued successfully that he couldn't be called to testify since he wasn't involved in the fight or named in the lawsuit. 50 Cent as a character witness? That's a new legal strategy.

While this lawsuit has been resolved, don't confuse it with the other one from 2005 that involves four plaintiffs. They allege that Iverson hired a "security" team with people that he knew had a propensity for violence. Allegedly they were leaving "Crabber's", a restaurant/sports bar in Hampton, Va., when they were attacked by Iverson's security detail for the night, also known as "The Horsemen". Each plaintiff in that case is seeking $600,000 in damages.

Imagine if Iverson had gone the football route instead of basketball. Right now he would probably be looking at a multi-game suspension with the possibility of more games being added. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell would have already lectured him about wasting his opportunity to play pro ball, and he would be calling up PacMan to see if he could get on that suspended stars flag football team.

Instead, since he's in the NBA, there's a good chance Iverson won't miss any games next season. Looks like he did make the right choice in choosing basketball.