sportsblog

This whole Tim Donaghy saga is incredibly disturbing. If he’s telling the truth, the NBA will have to go even further to fix (no pun intended) their image and reputation than Major League Baseball has over the Steroid issue. Yet, at this point, I’m not entirely engrossed by the situation. I would say this is for two reasons.

The first I could write a whole book about (not that anyone would actually read the book): I have a hard time with negativity in sports. I have no problem admitting that. I know that there is negativity and a dark side (or sides) to the sports world, but I just can’t be fascinated by it. I know it is a naive view of the sports world, but there is still so much good about the world of sports that I have such a hard time getting wrapped up in the scandal. I had no interest whatsoever in Spygate, very little interest in the Mitchell Report or the Clemens hearing (which I admittedly watched, but couldn’t stomach after a while) and even less in this Donaghy scandal. I’d much rather hear about Leon Powe overcoming all odds to make it to the NBA and have the game of his life on the biggest stage than hear legal pundits argue about whether or not Donaghy is telling the truth.

The second reason for my relative indifference to the Donaghy Scandal is the fact that we haven’t heard all of the facts yet and the guy remains a convicted felon with little or no credibility. I know people said the same thing about Jose Canseco and Brian McNamee, but neither of them are convicted felons. (And with the number of times he’s changed his story I’m still not 100% sold on all of McNamee’s story either. Clemens definitely isn’t on the up and up, but I wouldn’t say McNamee is entirely trustworthy.) Donaghy has spent years and years lying so what has changed to make me think that he’s stopped lying? Because he got caught, confessed and was convicted? I’m sorry, but that just doesn’t scream truth to me.

Now, if these allegations are proven true, it will certainly be a big deal and I will have to pay attention to it. I still won’t turn my back on the NBA because of it (assuming they take steps to ensure it’s not happening anymore, most importantly, more transparency in officiating), but this will really hurt the NBA on a larger scale and it will cause a lot of fans to walk away. Even worse: we’ll have to listen to Skip Bayless and Stephen A. Smith yell about it for 5 years. Seriously, how have their heads not exploded yet?

Even if the allegations really aren’t true as the NBA contends, David Stern needs to take steps now so that people see that the NBA is committed to not having anything like this happen again. These are easy steps like making the referees available after games and having independent reviewers of every game during the season and keeping record of questionable calls. These steps show that the NBA is committed to the integrity of the game going forward despite what may have happened in the past. It allows Stern, if any of these allegations are proven to be true, to say, “This was an egregious mistake by the NBA. We did a poor job of policing the referees in the past. We were not as diligent as we should have been in monitoring the officials and we have done a poor job with our transparency. But, as you can see, we have already gone to great lengths to correct these mistakes and will continue to do so on an ongoing basis.” It’s not perfect and it is still a reaction, but it will be a better reaction than Good Ol’ Bud and MLB. David Stern needs to get off of his high, bureaucratic horse and take action now instead of just saying the same old things about Donaghy being a liar. It can only make his league stronger.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS