Whistle Blowers

Is the NBA fixed?

How about a better question: does it even matter?

Whether or not the NBA is rigged has been the subject of a great deal of debate, amplified by Tom Donaghy's self-serving allegation that the Kings deserved to beat the Lakers in 2002. On Sportscenter at this very moment, they are questioning whether Donaghy is a legitimate whistle-blower, or is simply tossing out the idea of a conspiracy in order to serve his own ends.

Sure, I'd like to know the answer to these questions. It is undoubtedly important for us to know whether it's simply bad officiating, refs acting on their own (for gambling purposes etc.), or a concerted effort from the NBA to affect the outcome of its playoffs. I would certainly be interested in hooking Donaghy and David Stern up to a polygraph. But

Let's assume, in an extremely magnanimous gift to David Stern, that it is just bad officiating. At the very least that's what it is (it seems that no one who saw that Kings-Lakers game could believe otherwise), but let's start there, in the least troubling of the three scenarios. This bad officiating, if that's what it was, was seriously terrible officiating. Ralph Nader wrote in to complain. The Lakers were on pace to shoot over 100 free throws a game at the rate fouls were being called. It's not an exaggeration to state that this may have been the worst-called game in American sports history.

And that's why it doesn't really matter if what Donaghy says is true. If, at best, the NBA has the worst officiating in history, then the league is already in crisis mode. Finding out that it was all part of a massive conspiracy would certainly hurt, but most of the damage is already done. There's little point in examining the worst-case scenario when even the best-case scenario necessitates massive changes. Regardless of what Donaghy says, the NBA has to be fixed. So it kind of matters if he's telling the truth, but not really.