NBA Insider with Ken Berger

I told you a few days ago that Tim Donaghy’s guilty plea would not be the end, but rather the beginning of David Stern’s trouble.

Score one for 1050 ESPN Radio’s Mike Missanelli, who has reported that Donaghy plans to squeal to federal prosecutors about the alleged gambling activities of about 20 other NBA refs.

The league and Donaghy’s attorney, John Lauro, wouldn’t comment on the report to me today. The type of gambling Donaghy supposedly is going to detail reportedly includes wagering in casinos. While such activity isn’t illegal, it is against NBA rules and could potentially result in expulsion from the league.

I used to play hoops with Missanelli in media pickup games at the Palestra when we both worked in Philadelphia a few years ago. I’m sure he would not deny that he was known as a shoot-first, ask-questions-later kind of player. The standard for unselfishness in those games, run by longtime Philly hoops expert Jack Scheuer, was quite high, as are the standards for reporting facts about one of the biggest scandals in NBA history.

I have no idea who Missanelli’s sources are, nor do I have any reason whatsoever to doubt his reporting. (He’s a former newspaper guy, and I always give the former newspaper reporters who are now doing radio or TV the benefit of the doubt. Sal Paolantonio, another unashamed perimeter launcher from my Palestra days, and Rachel Nichols come to mind.)

But I do know that a development like this was entirely predictable, given the fact that Donaghy’s fate before a federal judge when he is sentenced on Nov. 9 depends to a large degree on the level of cooperation he provides to prosecutors and the NBA between now and then.

I was far from blown away by the charges Donaghy pleaded guilty to. In addition, I tend to believe that his activities were isolated, given that the oversight of bookmakers in the illegal sports betting world is far more sophisticated than that of the sports leagues they monitor. They would’ve caught anything widespread long before the feds or the NBA did.

But given the climate, and Donaghy’s predictable attempts to spread the blame, this won’t be the last story like this we see between now and Nov. 9.

Which brings us to several points about Stern. First, the harsh manner in which he treated Donaghy in his July 24 news conference addressing the scandal may be coming back to haunt him. Stern called Donaghy a “rogue, isolated criminal” that day, and the rogue, isolated criminal now has the better part of three months to do everything in his power to prove Stern wrong. Donaghy may have been forced to hang up his whistle, but that doesn’t mean his whistle-blowing days are over.

Second, Stern was more careful than most people are giving him credit for in the way he couched his accusation that Donaghy acted alone. He repeatedly used the phrase “that is my current understanding” when making the case that this was an isolated incident.

Presumably, Stern has commissioned an internal investigation of gambling in his league, including not only Donaghy’s activities but also whether other referees or anyone else affiliated with the NBA might have been involved in this or other gambling activities. As in other cases when corporations face whistle-blowing former employees trying to cut themselves a better sentencing deal by pointing the finger at anyone else with a pulse, such an investigation most likely would be conducted by a legal team hired by the corporation.

To date, we have not heard a peep about the outcome of such an investigation, despite Stern’s promise to be “completely transparent” in his top-down review of the scandal. If and when one is completed, Stern owes it to his own credibility and that of his sport to make the results public in a way that can be independently scrutinized. If his “rogue” comment about Donaghy is validated, the public would be able to inspect the evidence and move on.

If not, this could get a whole lot uglier.

One more observation: What will Stern do if more referees are found to have violated their NBA contracts by engaging in gambling? Even if none of Donaghy’s colleagues are found to have bet on NBA games, Stern will be under tremendous pressure to deal harshly with anyone who is found to have gambled on other sporting events or wagered in a casino, for example.

If he has to fire a significant number of the league’s 60 or so refs, he would face a mountain of lawsuits and further strain his relationship with the majority of refs who do their jobs well and conduct themselves honorably. Not only that, but if more refs go down, the quality of officiating in the league will be compromised. As any NBA fan will attest (and feel free to let me know if I'm right), that is something the league can ill afford.

You want information? You got it. There’s an AP story out today that says the Maricopa County prosecutor wants to know if Tim Donaghy was betting on two Phoenix Suns playoff games he officiated this past season. If he was, Donaghy could be brought up on state charges.

It’s an interesting twist in the case, and has the potential to open quite a can of worms. Local prosecutors all over the country could delve into games Donaghy officiated in their jurisdictions in an attempt to find out if he violated any local statutes.

From the AP story:

Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas has sent letters to NBA Commissioner David Stern and the head of the FBI in Washington, saying he wants to know whether Donaghy gambled on the two Suns road playoff games, provided inside information to gamblers or helped determine the outcome by making bad officiating calls.

Some dude just sent me the following link to a pretty funny vid lampooning the Donaghy situation. I know another man's hardship shouldn't become joke fodder, but I had to share this. It is well done and entertaining, with a surprise ending. As Alan Hahn would say, check it:

Glad to see some of Alan Hahn’s loyal fans have come over to the dark side. Alan isn’t the only one with a basketball blog around here.

Welcome aboard, starburyfan, and anyone else who wants to join me for what is going to be a wild couple of months before training camps open. I will know I have arrived as a Newsday blogger when Ali G starts posting here.

It is cool that Alan’s blog has grown to the point where it is spawning a whole subculture from which I can now benefit. Well, benefit in the sense that it must be very satisfying to interact with those readers who care about basketball and the NBA. Ol’ Hahnsey (I still can’t separate Alan from hockey, and in hockey, they give everybody cutesy nicknames like that) works really hard at his blog. He’s got some deep stuff going on there, with lyrics and things that are way over my head. But he does know his basketball. If you ever saw us stand side-by-side, you’d know instantly that he could dunk on me. I doubt he could get out to stop me from three, though.

Anyway, in addition to getting your fix for the Knicks and dark lyrics on Alan’s blog, stop by here to tell me what you think about one of the most eventful NBA summers in memory. And it’s only going to get more interesting.

As Tim Donaghy continues cooperating with federal authorities, we will get closer and closer to finding out exactly what he did and how long he was doing it. As another informative NBA blogger wrote Wednesday, Donaghy will get a huge break on his sentence if he cooperates not only with the feds, but with the NBA. It is in his best interests to tell them everything. And all of it will come out at his sentencing hearing, scheduled for Nov. 9.

Then we have the basketball news: Team USA getting ready for the Olympic qualifying tournament in Vegas, Kobe contemplating a training-camp holdout, Jermaine O’Neal still a Pacer (but for how long), and the Knicks possessing the inside track in a Ron Artest deal.

Interesting times. Glad to have you aboard.

Now that the first shoe has dropped with Tim Donaghy’s guilty plea today, I’ve started taking in all the reaction. David Stern said nothing of substance in a previously scheduled interview with Dan Patrick on ESPN Radio about 45 minutes ago, except to say, “It’s a sad day for the NBA and for [Donaghy] and his family.”

Michael Lee and Ivan Carter have a pretty good Wizards blog at WashingtonPost.com, and they asked their readers if anyone cares about this Donaghy mess. A few said they did, but the prevailing opinion was that D.C. hoops fans are much more interested in the Wizards’ offseason moves and preseason schedule.

One dude began his comment by saying, “Ivan, it is August, you should be drinking lemonade and otherwise recreating.”

What about you? Are you wringing your hands about this scandal, fearing that all NBA games are fixed? Or are you more interested in how Zach Randolph and Eddy Curry will work together and whether Isiah has a shot at getting Ron Artest or Kobe?

An eight-page federal criminal complaint detailing the two felonies to which Tim Donaghy has pleaded guilty is available for your review on Newsday.com.

A couple of very interesting details jumped out at me when I just read it: Federal prosecutors wrote in the complaint that Donaghy had to repay all money he made in this scam. The restitution amount ordered was $30,000.

Evidently it was revealed in court that Donaghy was paid $5,000 for each correct pick he gave to his alleged co-conspirators. So that means Donaghy was correct six times, giving us the first direct evidence of how many games might have been compromised.

The only specific games mentioned in the complaint were on or about Dec. 13, 2006 and Dec. 26, 2006. Donaghy was on the officiating crew for Boston’s 101-81 victory at Philadelphia on the 13th and the Wizards’ 116-101 home victory over Memphis on the 26th.

The complaint also states that Donaghy met with a co-conspirator in Toronto on March 11, 2007 and received a payment. Donaghy reffed the Raptors’ 120-119 home victory over Seattle that night.

This will take some time to sort out, including some rugged work by Newsday’s Tony DeStefano and Bob Kessler at the U.S. District Court in Brooklyn.

As I am writing, NBA Commissioner David Stern just released the following statement:

“As expected, former NBA referee Tim Donaghy pleaded guilty today to betting on NBA games, including games in which he officiated, and providing confidential information to others who bet on NBA games. We will continue with our ongoing and thorough review of the league’s officiating program to ensure that the best possible policies and procedures are in place to protect the integrity of our game.”

After a month of soul-searching and fear throughout the NBA that the Tim Donaghy betting scandal could bring the sport to its knees, the league appears to have gotten the best possible news this morning.

Donaghy pleaded guilty to two felonies in Brooklyn federal court, copping to charges that he provided inside information to gamblers to help them profit from bets on NBA games he was officiating.

The court documents detailing Donaghy’s guilty plea aren’t available yet, but it appears that once they are, the only smoking gun will be in Donaghy’s hand. If that’s the case, it means there was no vast referee conspiracy – only one corrupt ref.

And if that is still the case once all the legal dust settles today, then everyone from Commissioner David Stern on down at the NBA headquarters in Olympic Tower should be doing two things: breathing an enormous sigh of relief and immediately outlining the steps the NBA is taking and will continue to take to guard against such a potentially catastrophic embarrassment ever happening again.

Not knowing what details are contained in the criminal information yet to be made public, here are the questions we still need answered:

How many games did Donaghy corrupt, and which ones? Were any playoff games compromised?

Did he affect the outcome, or merely the margin of victory?

How did he avoid detection by NBA security?

Who else is he bringing down with him?

How much did gamblers pay him for his services, which according to prosecutors included providing information on officiating crews and the condition of players?

Now that the federal probe of Donaghy’s activities essentially is over, the NBA can move full-speed with its own internal probe, which should include video scrutiny of every call he made in every game he officiated during the past two seasons. But the most important questions facing the league today involve how it is going to move forward to ensure better oversight of its officials.

This will be no easy task. NBA refs already have a strained relationship at best with the league office. Even before the Donaghy scandal broke on July 20, many refs were disgruntled with the secretive nature of their performance reviews. Some had become utterly frustrated with mixed signals from the league regarding their on-court conduct – for example, being asked to suddenly enforce the so-called zero tolerance policy with regard to player conduct toward them after having been forced to take most everything the players dished out for years.

The worst-case scenario for the NBA would’ve been other referees getting caught in the feds’ net. But the worst-case scenario for the clean referees – presumably all the rest of them – is going to happen regardless. They are going to be under more scrutiny and suspicion than ever before. Every bad call is going to be scrutinized as a possibly crooked call.

I’m told Stern is likely to provide only a prepared, written statement to the vast majority of media outlets in the country today, which is disappointing. He will, however, appear on at least one national radio outlet this afternoon. Here’s hoping he is ready to come forth with his plan for making sure this never happens again.

After two days off to take care of summer camp transportation and home improvement projects, it’s a good time to get caught up on a big week in the NBA.

* The Celtics can put their Big Three up against anyone else’s, but David Thorpe of Scouts Inc. is concerned that Danny Ainge hasn’t assembled enough complementary pieces to make a real championship push. The Celts have since added former Nets reserve Eddie House and guard Jackie Manuel from the D-League, but Thorpe says on this podcast that he’d be “scared” if he were in Ainge’s shoes.

* While everyone remains focused on the Tim Donaghy investigation, Joe Crawford quietly met with commissioner David Stern, president of basketball operations Joel Litvin, executive VP of basketball operations Stu Jackson, and director of officiating Ronnie Nunn on Tuesday in Manhattan. No word yet on Crawford’s future after he was suspended indefinitely April 17, two days after a heated confrontation with the Spurs’ Tim Duncan. Phil Jasner of the Philadelphia Daily News sums up the whole Crawford affair here.

* Henry Abbott of TrueHoop addresses the question of which teams have improved the most in the East – from Boston with Garnett, to the Knicks with Zach Randolph, to the Magic with Rashard Lewis. Henry posed the question to a bevy of basketball bloggers and gives their responses.

* Authorities are investigating whether the armed robberies at the Chicago homes of Eddy Curry and Antoine Walker are linked. Scary stuff. In the information overload age, anyone can find out where millionaires live and target them.

* The EEOC has sided with former Dallas Mavericks forward Roy Tarpley, paving the way for him to sue the NBA for reinstatement. At 42, Tarpley can’t hope to play any more, but he can hope to win the lawsuit in which he is seeking $6.5 million. Tarpley, banned in 1995 for repeated violations of the NBA’s substance abuse policy, has passed all drug tests he’s taken in the past four years. The EEOC ruled that the NBA’s failure to reinstate Tarpley was a violation of the Americans With Disabilities Act.

If Michael Vick wants to make the case that engaging in dog fighting is a disability, I’m sure the activist lawyers will be lining up to help him sue the NFL.

If it is any consolation to David Stern, his news conference Tuesday didn’t spend much time on the front burner.

By the time I got stuck in traffic on the LIE, less than two hours after Stern finished speaking, the breathlessly anticipated media event already had been bumped out of the leadoff spot in sports talk radio updates by another circus act – a news conference scheduled for later in the day by Falcons owner Arthur Blank to discuss horrific dog-fighting charges against NFL quarterback Michael Vick.

The shelf life of sports scandals isn’t what it used to be.

A lot of our readers post comments on Newsday stories online. Stern should take solace from the fact that when I checked at one point Tuesday afternoon, there were five comments on my breaking story about Stern and 298 comments on our story about Lindsay Lohan getting arrested again.

If LiLo were a referee, maybe more people would’ve watched the NBA Finals.

This isolated, unscientific poll of reader interest could be good or bad for the NBA. On one hand, sports fans and the public in general get bored with scandalous news a lot faster than ever before. But if the lack of online chatter about the NBA referee scandal Tuesday was any indication, Stern’s league may brushing up against an enemy even worse than Donaghy.

Apathy.

When interest wanes, there are no more customers. When there are no more customers, there is no more sport.

So what happens next? Donaghy now isn’t expected to surrender until sometime next week, so the scandal probably will die down for a few days. If and when Donaghy or his attorney speaks publicly, there will be more stories, more speculation, and more facts about what actually happened here and how widespread it was.

By that time, Lohan might have gotten arrested again or Britney Spears might have been caught engaging in some new form of bizarre behavior. In the court of public interest, rampaging starlets beat white-collar criminals 99 times out of 100 – although there is no official Vegas line on that. But maybe there should be one on how many days its takes the sporting public to completely forget that Tim Donaghy ever existed.

Whether that is good or bad for Stern and his league is even money at the moment.

The most interesting aspect of David Stern’s news conference was also the most scary.

While Stern made it clear that based on information he received from federal investigators and is permitted to discuss, the FBI gambling probe is focused on only one referee, Tim Donaghy.

But he left the door open to a far more damaging possibility – that other refs could be implicated.

Stern called Donaghy a “rogue, isolated criminal,” but added, “Let me make it clear that’s my current understanding.” When pressed on the matter later in his hour-long briefing, Stern said, “If that understanding changes tomorrow, I will so inform everybody.”

Translation: Federal investigators have told Stern essentially what they’ve told our reporters working the case. That Donaghy, 40, a 13-year NBA veteran, is the only official currently believed to have gambled on games and provided information to gamblers.

But federal authorities led by Eastern District prosecutors in Brooklyn are examining all possibilities, including the idea that Donaghy could bring more people down with him. No one will know until the investigation is concluded, which is why Stern – obviously shaken and lacking his typical combativeness in the face of scandal – was unwilling to say just yet that his battered league will be able to avoid a wide-ranging scandal.

“This proves that I can’t be sure of anything,” Stern said.

You can read my first story on the Stern news conference here, but a few other things stood out during the somber briefing in the inappropriately named for the occasion “majestic ballroom” of the Westin hotel at 43rd and 8th this morning:

· Warren Levinson of The Associated Press asked perhaps the best question. I’m paraphrasing here, but Levinson essentially asked Stern: “Donaghy hasn’t been convicted or even charged, so what evidence do you have that he bet on games?” Stern thought for a few seconds and said that Donaghy’s attorney, John Lauro, informed him that the ref is contemplating a plea in the case.

· Chris Sheridan of ESPN.com stopped Stern in his tracks when he asked him if the Nevada Gaming Commission had ever alerted him to any possible betting improprieties with respect to NBA games. Stern tried to avoid the question, but eventually said quite vaguely that the behavior of a timing official had been questioned “20 years ago” in a game that had been taken off the betting line. He didn’t give any specifics.

· Chris Broussard of ESPN The Magazine forced Stern to be more specific about Donaghy’s alleged activities, at which point Stern removed any qualifiers and stated as follows: “It is my understanding that amongst the allegations are that he bet on games which he officiated and possibly which he did not officiate, and that he gave information to others for the purpose of allowing them to place bets on games that he was officiating and games that he was not officiating.”

· A Wall Street Journal reporter whose name escapes me asked Stern if he’d consider raising the referees’ salaries so as to reduce their chances of getting involved in illegal money-making activities. Stern then revealed that Donaghy’s salary last season was $260,000.

· I thought I asked one of the most important questions (if I do say so myself). Stern had made it clear that his current understanding is that the allegations are limited to one referee. I asked him if he’s just as confident that no player, team, or league official is under investigation or suspicion. He said, “I know of no such suspicion.”

· I had another question but didn’t get called on to ask it. Stern made a point of saying that the NBA has consultants in Las Vegas, where sports betting is legal, who report any funny business going on with betting on NBA games. Such funny business could include large amounts of money coming in on a particular team for a particular game. But does the NBA also monitor the illegal sports betting world in the same way? It should, because the gambling that Donaghy is alleged to have been linked with – like most sports betting in the country – was illegal gambling not located in Nevada.

I love newspapers.

Newspapers are one place of employment where you could lock yourself in your home office for, oh, four hours straight, squinting as you pore over columns upon columns of data that you have gone to great lengths to obtain – only to have it cut out of the article you wrote because it didn’t fit in the little white space assigned to it.

So before I drop off my son at summer camp Tuesday morning – my son who turned 3 Monday and whose party was occurring while I was holed up in a local Starbucks writing about impending federal indictments and John Doe warrants – here is the information that you would’ve gotten if the space in the newspaper were unlimited, as it is on the Web site you are now reading.

During the 2006-07 season, Tim Donaghy reffed eight games in which at least 72 free throws were attempted – or 20 more than the league average. Of those eight games, six had final scores exceeding the “over/under” by an average of 26.8 points.

This seems significant to me. According to sports betting sources, calling fouls would be the easiest way for an NBA official to influence the number of points scored in relation to the over/under. In addition to wagering on the point spread, or margin of victory, some bettors put money on whether the total number of points scored will be greater or less than the over/under set by bookmakers.

According to Covers.com, a sports wagering Web site that tracks referees’ tendencies, Donaghy officiated the fourth-highest scoring games in the NBA last season with a 201.2 average. In addition, 43 of the 73 games he officiated hit the over, the third-highest percentage in the league.

People familiar with the Donaghy probe have been telling us that they are not really focused on particular games and the statistical anomalies that may seem to have occurred. They are building their case through old-fashioned law enforcement techniques – like evidence gathered through wiretaps and apparent admissions by Donaghy, who is cooperating with investigators.

But certain facts about games officiated by Donaghy don’t seem right. That’s not good enough for a federal indictment, but it’s good enough to make the average fan say, “Hmmmm.”

I’ll check in again after David Stern’s news conference today at the “majestic ballroom” of a Manhattan hotel. What an appropriate venue!

Like everyone else, I would love some answers.

I would love to hear from Commissioner Stern about this little gambling/point-shaving scandal, a thorough embarrassment that has shaken the NBA.

I’d like to take a break from poring over every game Tim Donaghy refereed in the past two years to see if anything strange happened. Chances are, it did, because something strange happens in almost every NBA game – a missed call, a Rasheed Wallace meltdown, some give-and-take between superstar and official. It is part of what makes covering the NBA so entertaining, particularly in the not-so-distant past, when reporters got a courtside seat at every arena.

Whatever happened with Donaghy happened right under the noses of reporters who, even now, have the best seat among any professional sports writers. It also happened without misplacing a single hair on a single head of a single bookmaker or oddsmaker in Las Vegas, which is hard to believe.

That is why the gambling sources I have – suddenly, I have gambling sources – are warning me to be careful not to leap to conclusions. A lot of conclusions are being leapt to, such as civilization is about to be brought to its knees by a single crooked referee, but let’s be patient. The feds will let us know what they know soon enough, and then we’ll know how serious the damage is.

There is speculation about Donaghy blowing the whistle on players, team officials, and other referees. Funny, no one involved in the investigation has mentioned anything of the sort to our news-side reporter who is occasionally pitching in to help me with this story. And his information from law enforcement sources has been ironclad so far. So on that count, too, let’s wait and see.

If this scandal goes beyond Donaghy, it could bring total devastation to the NBA’s credibility. But if this is just one troubled, misguided ref, as my esteemed Tribune Co. colleague, Sam Smith, writes, we will have to turn the hysteria down a notch.

Everything is always hysterical when it comes to the NBA. Carmelo Anthony punched someone? Heavens, no! Ban him for life! Never mind that Barry Bonds is suspected of being juiced up and Michael Vick stands accused of something as disgraceful as electrocuting dogs. If those two clowns were in the NBA, the league would have folded last week.

I am told we won’t be hearing from the Commissioner today, which means that the NBA has to endure another day of every enterprising reporter in the country and beyond digging beneath every rock imaginable in search of the bottom of this story. But we won’t hit bottom until we hear the evidence the feds have in its entirety. Then, and only then, will we know how far the NBA will have to climb up to regain its credibility.

Now, excuse me while I return to researching whether Amare Stoudemire picked up two quick fouls in the second quarter of a Donaghy-officiated game that nobody remembers.