Sports

This week the commissioner tried to reassure the people that the scandal involving Tim Donaghy will be taken care of and will never happen again. Yet, some people are not convinced and are even doubting the commissioners ability to take care of anything that may happen in the future.

Why are they worried? It was made known to the public that the NBA were concerned about Donaghy and his gambling problems awhile back and had brought him to New York to investigate. Then Stern and his staff were enablers in an apparent rogue ref becoming vulnerable to the mob. An unnamed source says that the league had no reason to believe he was betting on basketball games or point shaving, so they let him return to work.

To think that the league would give a pass to a referee immersed in gambling is beyond belief, never mind one with the violent and irrational behavior that is now surfacing about Donaghy. Even if the league’s collective bargaining agreement protected his job under these circumstances, you’d have to believe the NBA would’ve gone on full alert to monitor Donaghy’s activities.

And even if the league had no idea about any of this, if it never called him in, how could some friends and associates be so aware of his gambling problems but miss the tentacles of NBA security? Before Stern starts spinning his story, he needs to be prepared to tell everyone what the league knew about Donaghy’s life, his activities, and when it knew it.

Sooner than later, Stern and his underlings need to be accountable for this scandal. Until the FBI makes its arrests, until the Feds lay out the case against Donaghy and his mob co-conspirators, no one can be sure that he wasn’t blowing a dirty whistle in Game 3 of the Suns-Spurs series in the Western Conference semifinals.

Go back to that game on May 12, see Donaghy’s work and your stomach sinks. Perhaps the Feds know precisely which of the apparent 10 to 20 games were tainted across these past two seasons, or perhaps, they’re counting on Donaghy and the mob to give them up. Until further notice, the de facto championship series between San Antonio and Phoenix is tantamount to tainted.

For the longest time, the NBA had suffered crises of credibility with its officials. Much of the public, including people within the league, believed the games were controlled on some levels, that officials on the floor carried out agendas beyond making the right calls. The refs have been seen as league pawns so that big-market teams could stay alive in the playoffs for television purposes, or used to keep superstars on the floor. There have long been conspiracy theories and that’s so much of the reason the NBA will struggle to overcome this scandal. Truth be told, everyone wanted to believe there was a Tim Donaghy out there.

And always, Stern delivered a smug dismissal, challenging you to bring him proof. Those are wild accusations, he would say. Bring me evidence. Now, Stern has lost the moral authority to talk that way ever again. His arrogance about the league’s officials always bothered people, and now, it comes back to haunt him.

This isn’t the time for defiance out of the commissioner, nor cocksure promises about the future that he can’t keep anyway. For the good of the league now, and maybe for his own ultimate survival, he needs to deliver a humbled concession that the NBA could’ve done more to stop Tim Donaghy. He’s the CEO, the emperor of the sport. Above all else, Stern needs to say that, “This one’s on me.”