Today the NBA may have just received its biggest black eye ever. Reports have just surfaced stating an NBA referee has bet on NBA games including games that he had officiated it. Fans have always made comments that the refs throw games and that the games are "given" to certain teams. Well, now former, NBA referee Tim Donaghy may have just given substance to these arguments. The FBI is currently investigating these allegations but this is still a massive problem for the NBA. It is also under investigation if Donaghy has ties to organized crime.This is a problem for the League that cannot just go away. This is something that could tarnish the NBA forever. If games were thrown this means that no one can truly know how credible all the games were that this ref officiated. This will most likely cause fans to be outraged, especially fans of the teams that could be found to have been harmed by this. I just can't believe how bad this can turn out for the NBA, if games were being thrown this is a serious issue and should not be hidden from the public eye.
The NBA will need to come out and apologize to the teams and fans of the league if this turns out to be true. Also they will have to now seriously look into the other referees and see if this is an ongoing issue still. I feel this is something that the NBA may never be able to recover from. There are some serious side effects that can come out of this. Also, if this is tied to organized crime, this is going to get very ugly. Hopefully the NBA will be able to sort this issue out and return the leagues image to one of a respectable sort.
More to come on this later…
