Donaghy

I was watching a replay of Game 6 of the 1991 Western Conference finals the other night, the game where Magic throws the ball away to try and drain the clock in the final seconds. Essentially, it was Magic’s last stand as Magic. Before HIV and the comebacks and the coaching. Sad, really when I think about it.

It was interesting though because late in the game, Portland’s Clyde Drexler is called for a couple of seriously cheap fouls. I had the sound down so I’m not sure, but I think Jake O’Donnell was one of the officials.

The history between O’Donnell and Drexler is well known. O’Donnell’s quick, two-tech hook of Clyde in a 1995 Western Conference final game pretty much cost him his job. He never worked another game. O’Donnell was also thought to hold a grudge with Buck Williams, one of Drexler’s teammates in both 1991 and 1995.

Many NBA fans assume referees have biases and hold grudges toward certain players. When I was younger, I would cringe when I heard Mike Mathis or Steve Fucking Javie (as my friends and I called him) was assigned a Laker playoff game. After New Jersey’s 1984 playoff series with Philadelphia, we referred to Jess Kersey, Kess Jersey because we felt he was favoring the Nets. Referee bias, whether it means superstars like Dwyane Wade getting all the calls or players like Allen Iverson getting none, has always been acknowledged as part of the game. Just ask the 1994 Chicago Bulls about Hue Hollins or Tim Duncan about Joey Crawford.

Over the past several days, former NBA ref Tim Donaghy has adamantly denied fixing games, saying he bet, for the most part, according to referee tendencies. The folks at TrueHoop and economist Joe Price have done a great job in debunking some of Donaghy’s claims (Price runs into the problem that which of three refs makes a call in a game is not quantifiable. Not even watching the game on tape can always reveal that.) But what exactly is the point in doing this? Is it to establish Donaghy as a liar? Is it to call into question whether or not he fixed games? Maybe, as Price postulates, Donaghy’s claim that betting on blowouts when Dick Bavetta is calling a game, does not make for a winning formula. Although to be clear, one can fix a game by not making calls as well. That's something I haven't heard anyone bring up, probably because it's nearly impossible to quantify non-calls.

But refuting Donaghy’s claims how he won money doesn’t erase the fact that he won. This has been established not just by Donaghy, but by his money source, James Battista. According to Battista and Donaghy, they won between 70-80 percent of the time. This, of course, is an incredible number for any professional gambler. And they weren’t the only ones. In a piece by ESPN’s Wayne Drehs, R.J. Bell, the president of Pregame.com, a sports betting info site, cited 10 straight games in 2007 that Donaghy refereed where the line moved by 1.5 points or more, a clear tipoff that a lot of money was being bet, and conceivably won.

The example of Donaghy is not necessarily proof that referee bias does exist, but the fact that he and Battista won money seems to prove the former did indeed fix games. Battista won't come out and say it. But he doesn't have to. When Battista states he won money only on the games Donaghy called and not as a result of Donaghy's theories on various refs, one can only draw one conclusion: The fix was in.