Blow the Whistle or How the NBA Got Juiced

Christmas must be coming because it seems every celebrity and sports star is hocking a book.  First, it was Bill Simmons selling his uberfan take on the NBA “The Basketball Book”. Then tennis great Andre Agassi’s book “On the Line” details his crystal meth use and describes his hatred for the game that made him millions. The Lakers Magic Johnson writes a tell all autobiography “My Life” that pretty much ended his friendship with Isiah Thomas, accusing him of spreading rumors about Magic Johnson acquiring HIV through relations with male sexual partners.  These guys used to kiss before games, its baffling.  But the book that has everyone talking is one that may never be published, disgraced former NBA referee Tim Donaghy’s tome “Blow The Whistle” is an insider’s look at the alleged corruption and game manipulation by the NBA officials.

Deadspin.com posts a large excerpt of the book, if you haven’t read it do so it’s gripping.

http://deadspin.com/5392067/excerpts-from-the-book-the-nba-doesnt-want-you-to-read?skyline=true&s=x

In one excerpt of Donaghy’s book, he alleges that NBA referee Steve Javie had it in for Allen Iverson while Joe Crawford liked Iverson and their opinions of the 165 lbs fireball affected the outcome of the games.

“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 were 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.”

I’ve placed a few calls and I’m waiting for some more data to come in but here is a quick comparison of the results of the Iverson games refereed by Joey Crawford and Steve Javie from March 1 2004 to the final game of the 06/07 season.

Steve Javie
Record with Philadelphia: SU 5-9 ATS: 4-10
Record with Denver: SU 1-2 ATS: 1-2

Joey Crawford
Record with Philadelphia: 5-7, ATS: 5-6-1
Record with Denver: 2-1, ATS: 1-2

While this is a small sample but it does give a little credence to the claim, remember those Philly teams were bad before Iverson was traded.

It’s going to be very interesting to see how these allegations play out. The NBA at first denied any plausibility of the referees manipulating the outcomes but by Friday afternoon, David Stern said the NBA would do a full investigation into the claims. I believe this as much as I believed OJ was looking for the real killers.

Another thing to watch as we follow this story is the press coverage the story receives from ESPN whose parent company ABC has a huge television deal with the league. Yahoo, Fox and CBS have all made the Donaghy story front-page material with their best columnists all writing opinion pieces on the story. If you haven’t read Dan Wetzel’s column on Yahoo! Sports it’s one of the best so far.  As of yet ESPN wrote a small piece about the book’s publisher refusing to print it and none of the ESPN NBA writers have commented on the allegations.  Maybe they don’t want to cook the goose that lays the golden egg.

Personally I tend to believe Tim Donaghy’s stories, some may be embellished or exaggerate but they all seem plausible. What Donaghy has going against him is that he’s a convicted felon and holds a grudge against the league but that doesn’t make him a liar. “Blow the Whistle” has lot of similarities to Jose Canseco’s explosive tell all “Juiced” dealing with the steroid epidemic in baseball. Baseball knew there was a steroid problem but chose to ignore it as the huge homerun numbers were bringing fans back after the 94 strike.  Everyone thought Jose Canseco was a scumbag but he wasn’t a lying scumbag.

If even a portion of Donaghy’s allegations are true, this could be a much bigger problem for the NBA than steroids were for baseball. Steroids in baseball were a result of players cheating and manipulating the system for bigger contracts but “Blow the Whistle” implicates the NBA in the cheating for higher TV ratings and ensuring big market teams have the most success.

We’ll continue to update this story as more details become available but enjoy this NBA season because it could be the last of the NBA, as we know it and in fairness that may not be a bad thing.