Tim Donaghy (之前因為賭博被抓的那位裁判) 在獄中寫了一本"要揭露NBA所有秘密的書" 但因為大部份指控都沒有直接的證據 所以現在出版社決定不出了 不過還是有一部份書中內容洩露了出來
重點: (全文翻譯可能要等之後)
原文
裁判們間的互賭
裁判們之間會互相小賭一下: 例如: 最先給某些壞脾氣球員技術犯規的就贏了 (Rasheed?)
吹比賽第一個犯規的就輸了
Donaghy 說他自己為了避免吹比賽的第一次犯規 當他面前有明顯的犯規時 他會吹莫名奇妙的走步或三秒違例
明星待遇
(書中用的例子是Kobe 跟 Raja Bell)
裁判們會針對防守型球員 尤其是跟明星球員放對的時候 防守型球員幾乎不可能得到有利的判決
裁判們會特別禮遇明星球員 當明星球員第一節即兩犯時 裁判們會互相提醒明星球員已兩犯 除非必要絕對不要吹第三犯 在明星球員兩犯後 若是發生了他犯規但play中還有別的球員 一定要把犯規給別人
當比賽肢體碰撞太激烈時裁判會吹些小球員無關緊要的犯規 這是為了讓比賽不要太失控 但這種小犯規絕對不會吹在明星球員身上
裁判們的個人喜好
Donaghy 可以根據裁判們的個人喜好而很容易猜出比賽結果
Steve Javie 很討厭Iverson, 他參予Iverson的比賽時 Donaghy 一定會賭Iverson的隊輸
Joe Crawford 的孫子很喜歡Iverson, 他參予Iverson的比賽時 Donaghy 一定會賭Iverson的隊贏
Joe Crawford 總是希望比賽盡快結束
*** Bavetta 希望比賽越久越好 因為他喜歡得到眾人的注意
*** Bavetta 喜歡比數接近的比賽 他吹的比賽輸家一定會輸在讓分裡
2002年國王跟湖人第六戰的裁判們是 *** Bavetta, Bob Delaney, Ted Bernhardt 聯盟一公佈裁判人選後 全聯盟的人都知道會有第七戰
Donaghy 說他跟著 Bavetta 學習如何當"裁判"的13年簡直就是在學Advanced Game Manipulation (先進比賽操控)
2000年湖人跟拓荒者第七戰 Bavetta 再次影響比賽結果
1993年籃網跟騎士季後賽也是 Bavetta 決定的
2007年太陽跟馬刺的系列聯盟是希望馬刺晉級的
Donaghy 還指出了很多很多的例子我之後補上
On gambling refs:
To have a little fun at the expense of the worst troublemakers, the
referees working the game would sometimes make a modest friendly wager
amongst themselves: first ref to give one of the bad boys a technical
foul wouldn't have to tip the ball boy that night. In the NBA, ball
boys set up the referees' locker room and keep it stocked with food and
beer for the postgame meal. We usually ran the kid ragged with a
variety of personal requests and then slipped him a $20 bill.
Technically, the winner of the bet won twice — he didn't have to pay
the kid and he got to call a T on Mr. Foul-Mouthed Big-Shot Du Jour.
After the opening tip, it was hilarious as the three of us
immediately focused our full attention on the intended victim, waiting
for something, anything, to justify a technical foul. If the guy so
much as looked at one of us and mumbled, we rang him up. Later in the
referees' locker room, we would down a couple of brews, eat some
chicken wings, and laugh like hell.
We had another variation of this gag simply referred to as the
"first foul of the game" bet. While still in the locker room before
tip-off, we would make a wager on which of us would call the game's
first foul. That referee would either have to pay the ball boy or pick
up the dinner tab for the other two referees. Sometimes, the ante would
be $50 a guy. Like the technical foul bet, it was hilarious — only this
time we were testing each other's nerves to see who had the guts to
hold out the longest before calling a personal foul. There were
occasions when we would hold back for two or three minutes — an
eternity in an NBA game — before blowing the whistle. It didn't matter
if bodies were flying all over the place; no fouls were called because
no one wanted to lose the bet.
We played this little game during the regular season and summer
league. After a game, all three refs would gather around the VCR and
watch a replay of the game. Early in the contest, the announcers would
say, "Holy cow! They're really letting them play tonight!" If they only
knew...
During one particular summer game, Duke Callahan, Mark Wunderlich,
and I made it to the three-minute mark in the first quarter without
calling a foul. We were running up and down the court, laughing our
asses off as the players got hammered with no whistles. The players
were exhausted from the nonstop running when Callahan finally called
the first foul because Mikki Moore of the New Jersey Nets literally tackled an opposing player right in front of him. Too bad for Callahan — he lost the bet.
I became so good at this game that if an obvious foul was committed
right in front of me, I would call a travel or a three-second violation
instead. Those violations are not personal fouls, so I was still in the
running to win the bet. The players would look at me with disbelief on
their faces as if to say, "What the hell was that?"
On star treatment:
Relationships between NBA players and referees were generally all
over the board — love, hate, and everything in-between. Some players,
even very good ones, were targeted by referees and the league because
they were too talented for their own good. Raja Bell,
formerly of the Phoenix Suns and now a member of the Charlotte Bobcats,
was one of those players. A defensive specialist throughout his career,
Bell had a reputation for being a "star stopper." His defensive skills
were so razor sharp that he could shut down a superstar, or at least
make him work for his points. Kobe Bryant was often
frustrated by Bell's tenacity on defense. Let's face it, no one
completely shuts down a player of Kobe's caliber, but Bell could
frustrate Kobe, take him out of his game, and interrupt his rhythm.
You would think that the NBA would love a guy who plays such great
defense. Think again! Star stoppers hurt the promotion of marquee
players. Fans don't pay high prices to see players like Raja Bell —
they pay to see superstars like Kobe Bryant score 40 points. Basketball
purists like to see good defense, but the NBA wants the big names to
score big points.
If a player of Kobe's stature collides with the likes of Raja Bell,
the call will almost always go for Kobe and against Bell. As part of
our ongoing training and game preparation, NBA referees regularly
receive game-action video tape from the league office. Over the years,
I have reviewed many recorded hours of video involving Raja Bell. The
footage I analyzed usually illustrated fouls being called against Bell,
rarely for him. The message was subtle but clear — call fouls against
the star stopper because he's hurting the game.
If Kobe Bryant had two fouls in the first or second quarter and went
to the bench, one referee would tell the other two, "Kobe's got two
fouls. Let's make sure that if we call a foul on him, it's an obvious
foul, because otherwise he's gonna go back to the bench. If he is
involved in a play where a foul is called, give the foul to another
player."
Similarly, when games got physically rough, we would huddle up and
agree to tighten the game up. So we started calling fouls on guys who
didn't really matter — "ticky-tack" or "touch" fouls where one player
just touched another but didn't really impede his progress. Under
regular circumstances these wouldn't be fouls, but after a skirmish we
wanted to regain control. We would never call these types of fouls on
superstars, just on the average players who didn't have star status. It
was important to keep the stars on the floor.
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 was 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.
Madison Square Garden was the place to be for a marquee matchup
between the Miami Heat and New York Knicks. I worked the game with Derrick Stafford and Gary Zielinski,
knowing that the Knicks were a sure bet to get favorable treatment that
night. Derrick Stafford had a close relationship with Knicks coach Isiah Thomas, and he despised Heat coach Pat Riley. I picked the Knicks without batting an eye and settled in for a roller-coaster ride on the court.
During pregame warm-ups, Shaquille O'Neal approached Stafford and asked him to let some air out of the ball.
"Is this the game ball?" O'Neal asked. "It's too hard. C'mon, D, let a little air out of it."
Stafford then summoned one of the ball boys, asked for an air
needle, and let some air out of the ball, getting a big wink and a
smile from O'Neal.
On his fellow referees:
*** Bavetta
Crawford wanted the game over quickly so he could kick back, relax, and have a beer; [*** Bavetta]
wanted it to keep going so he could hear his name on TV. He actually
paid an American Airlines employee to watch all the games he worked and
write down everything the TV commentators said about him. No matter how
late the game was over, he'd wake her up for a full report. He loved
the attention.
I remember one nightmarish game I worked with Joe Crawford and Phil Robinson.
Minnesota and New Orleans were in a tight game going into the last
minute, and Crawford told us to make sure that we were 100 percent sure
of the call every time we blew the whistle. When play resumed,
Minnesota coach Flip Saunders started yelling at us
to make a call. Robinson got intimidated and blew the whistle on New
Orleans. The only problem was it wasn't the right call. Tim Floyd,
the Hornets' coach, went nuts. He stormed the court and kicked the ball
into the top row of the stadium. Robinson had to throw him out, and
Minnesota won the game.
[...]
Later that week, Ronnie Nunn
told me that we could have made something up at the other end against
Minnesota to even things out. He even got specific — maybe we should
have considered calling a traveling violation on Kevin Garnett.
Talk about the politics of the game! Of course the official statement
from the league office will always read, "There is no such thing as a
makeup call."
That very first time Jack and I bet on an NBA game, *** was on the
court. The team we picked lost the game, but it covered the large point
spread and that's how we won the money. Because of the matchup that
night, I had some notion of who might win the game, but that's not why
I was confident enough to pull the trigger and pick the other team. The
real reason I picked the losing team was that I was just about certain
they would cover the spread, no matter how badly they played. That is
where *** Bavetta comes into the picture.
From my earliest involvement with Bavetta, I learned that he likes
to keep games close, and that when a team gets down by double-digit
points, he helps the players save face. He accomplishes this act of
mercy by quietly, and frequently, blowing the whistle on the team
that's having the better night. Team fouls suddenly become one-sided
between the contestants, and the score begins to tighten up. That's the
way *** Bavetta referees a game — and everyone in the league knew it.
Fellow referee Danny Crawford attended Michael Jordan's
Flight School Camp years ago and later told me that he had long
conversations with other referees and NBA players about how Bavetta
propped up weak teams. Danny told me that Jordan himself said that
everyone in the league knew that Bavetta cheated in games and that the
players and coaches just hoped he would be cheating for them on game
night. Cheating? That's a very strong word to use in any sentence that
includes the name *** Bavetta. Is the conscious act of helping a team
crawl back into a contest "cheating"? The credo of referees from high
school to the NBA is "call them like you see them." Of course, that's a
lot different than purposely calling more fouls against one team as
opposed to another. Did Bavetta have a hidden agenda? Or was he the
ultimate company man, making sure the NBA and its fans got a
competitive game most times he was on
the court?
Studying under *** Bavetta for 13 years was like pursuing a
graduate degree in advanced game manipulation. He knew how to marshal
the tempo and tone of a game better than any referee in the league, by
far. He also knew how to take subtle — and not so subtle — cues from
the NBA front office and extend a playoff series or, worse yet, change
the complexion of that series.
The 2002 Western Conference Finals between the Los Angeles Lakers
and the Sacramento Kings presents a stunning example of game and series
manipulation at its ugliest. As the teams prepared for Game 6 at the
Staples Center, Sacramento had a 3–2 lead in the series. The referees
assigned to work Game 6 were *** Bavetta, Bob Delaney, and Ted Bernhardt.
As soon as the referees for the game were chosen, the rest of us knew
immediately that there would be a Game 7. A prolonged series was good
for the league, good for the networks, and good for the game. Oh, and
one more thing: it was great for the big-market, star-studded Los
Angeles Lakers.
In the pregame meeting prior to Game 6, the league office sent down
word that certain calls — calls that would have benefitted the Lakers —
were being missed by the referees. This was the type of not-so-subtle
information that I and other referees were left to interpret. After
receiving the dispatch, Bavetta openly talked about the fact that the
league wanted a Game 7.
"If we give the benefit of the calls to the team that's down in the
series, nobody's going to complain. The series will be even at three
apiece, and then the better team can win Game 7," Bavetta stated.
As history shows, Sacramento lost Game 6 in a wild come-from-behind
thriller that saw the Lakers repeatedly sent to the foul line by the
referees. For other NBA referees watching the game on television, it
was a shameful performance by Bavetta's crew, one of the most poorly
officiated games of all time.
The 2002 series certainly wasn't the first or last time Bavetta
weighed in on an important game. He also worked Game 7 of the 2000
Western Conference Finals between the Lakers and the Trail Blazers. The
Lakers were down by 13 at the start of the fourth quarter when Bavetta
went to work. The Lakers outscored Portland 31–13 in the fourth quarter
and went on to win the game and the series. It certainly didn't hurt
the Lakers that they got to shoot 37 free throws compared to a paltry
16 for the Trail Blazers.
Two weeks before the 2003–04 season ended, Bavetta and I were
assigned to officiate a game in Oakland. That afternoon before the
tip-off, we were discussing an upcoming game on our schedule. It was
the last regular-season game we were scheduled to work, pitting Denver
against San Antonio. Denver had lost a game a few weeks prior because
of a mistake made by the referees, a loss that could be the difference
between them making or missing the playoffs. Bavetta told me Denver
needed the win and that it would look bad for the staff and the league
if the Nuggets missed the playoffs by one game. There were still a few
games left on the schedule before the end of the season, and the
standings could potentially change. But on that day in Oakland, Bavetta
looked at me and casually stated, "Denver will win if they need the
game. That's why I'm on it."
I was thinking, How is Denver going to win on the road in San
Antonio? At the time, the Spurs were arguably the best team in the
league. Bavetta answered my question before it was asked.
"Duncan will be on the bench with three fouls within the first five minutes of the game," he calmly stated.
Bavetta went on to inform me that it wasn't the first time the NBA
assigned him to a game for a specific purpose. He cited examples,
including the 1993 playoff series when he put New Jersey guard Drazen Petrovic
on the bench with quick fouls to help Cleveland beat the Nets. He also
spoke openly about the 2002 Los Angeles–Sacramento series and called
himself the NBA's "go-to guy."
As it turned out, Denver didn't need the win after all; they locked
up a spot in the playoffs before they got to San Antonio. In a twist of
fate, it was the Spurs that ended up needing the win to have a shot at
the division title, and Bavetta generously accommodated. In our pregame
meeting, he talked about how important the game was to San Antonio and
how meaningless it was to Denver, and that San Antonio was going to get
the benefit of the calls that night. Armed with this inside
information, I called Jack Concannon before the game and told him to
bet the Spurs.
To no surprise, we won big. San Antonio blew Denver out of the
building that evening, winning by 26 points. When Jack called me the
following morning, he expressed amazement at the way an NBA game could
be manipulated. Sobering, yes; amazing, no. That's how the game is
played in the National Basketball Association.
In a follow-up email to the referee staff and the league office,
Crawford railed about the lack of respect players had for referees and
the NBA's failure to back him up. Then, in a direct shot at the
league's embracing of referees like *** Bavetta, he fired a sharp
rebuke:
"I also told [Stu Jackson] that the staff is an
officiating staff of *** Bavetta's — schmoozing and sucking people's
asses to get ahead. Awful, but it is reality."
Crawford also touched on the fact that he was being excluded from working the playoffs that year:
"Look on the bright side everybody, MORE playoff games for you guys
and ***, maybe you will get to be crew chief in the 7th game of the
Finals, which is a travesty in itself you even being in the Finals."
Tommy Nunez
My favorite Tommy Nunez story is from the 2007
playoffs when the San Antonio Spurs were able to get past the Phoenix
Suns in the second round. Of course, what many fans didn't know was
that Phoenix had someone working against them behind the scenes. Nunez
was the group supervisor for that playoff series, and he definitely had
a rooting interest.
Nunez loved the Hispanic community in San Antonio and had a lot of
friends there. He had been a referee for 30 years and loved being on
the road; in fact, he said that the whole reason he had become a group
supervisor was to keep getting out of the house. So Nunez wanted to
come back to San Antonio for the conference finals. Plus, he, like many
other referees, disliked Suns owner Robert Sarver for
the way he treated officials. Both of these things came into play when
he prepared the referees for the games in the staff meetings. I
remember laughing with him and saying, "You would love to keep coming
back here." He was pointing out everything that Phoenix was able to get
away with and never once told us to look for anything in regard to San
Antonio. Nunez should have a championship ring on his finger.
Derrick Stafford and Jess Kersey
Of course, Stafford had some friends in the league, too. I worked a
Knicks game in Madison Square Garden with him on February 26, 2007. New
York shot an astounding 39 free throws that night to Miami's paltry
eight. It seemed like Stafford was working for the Knicks, calling
fouls on Miami like crazy. Isiah Thomas was coaching the Knicks, and
after New York's four-point victory, a guy from the Knicks came to our
locker room looking for Stafford, who was in the shower. He told us
that Thomas sent him to retrieve Stafford's home address; apparently,
Stafford had asked the coach before the game for some autographed
sneakers and jerseys for his kids. Suddenly, it all made sense.
Referee Jess Kersey was another one of Isiah
Thomas' guys. They'd talk openly on the phone as if they had known each
other since childhood. Thomas even told Kersey that he was pushing to
get Ronnie Nunn removed from the supervisor's job so that Kersey and
*** Bavetta could take over. This sort of thing happened all the time,
and I kept waiting for a Knicks game when Stafford, Bavetta, and Kersey
were working together. It was like knowing the winning lottery numbers
before the drawing!
Steve Javie
And then there was the ongoing feud between Javie and 76ers
superstar Allen Iverson. The rift was so bad that Philadelphia general
manager Billy King often called the league office to complain about Javie's treatment of Iverson during a game.
Iverson was eventually traded to Denver, and in his first game
against his former team, he was tossed after two technicals. Afterward,
Iverson implied Javie had a grudge against him, saying, "I thought I
got fouled on that play, and I said I thought that he was calling the
game personal, and he threw me out. His fuse is real short anyway, and
I should have known that I couldn't say anything anyway. It's been
something personal with me and him since I got in the league. This was
just the perfect game for him to try and make me look bad." The league
fined Iverson $25,000 for his comments, but most of the league referees
thought the punishment was too lenient and were upset he wasn't
suspended. As a result, we collectively decided to dispense a little
justice of our own, sticking it to Iverson whenever we could.
Shortly after the Javie-Iverson incident, I worked a Jazz-Nuggets
contest in Denver on January 6, 2007. During the pregame meeting, my
fellow referees Bernie Fryer and Gary Zielinski
agreed that we were going to strictly enforce the palming rule against
Iverson. Palming the ball was something Iverson loved to do, but if he
so much as came close to a palm, we were going to blow the whistle.
Obviously, our actions were in direct retaliation for Iverson's rant
against Javie. True to form, I immediately excused myself and made an
important phone call.
Sticking to our pregame pledge, each of us whistled Iverson for
palming in the first quarter — we all wanted in on the fun. The
violations seemed to affect Iverson's rhythm and he played terribly
that night, shooting 5-for-19 with five turnovers. After getting
repeatedly whistled all night long, Iverson approached me in an act of
submission.
"How long am I going to be punished for Javie?" he quietly inquired.
"Don't know what you're talking about, Allen," I responded.