Or should he resign anyway, like yesterday!!! Yea

:hoops:

Might be a good job for Flip Saunders...........Or Joe Dumars...........

Stern should step down irregardless. His act is old. The game gets worse. In time it will catch up. You cannot have increasing revenues with product getting consistently worse.

What does stern have to do with corrupt referees. Are you saying the Falcons manager or coach should step down for the Vick allegations??

What does stern have to do with corrupt referees. Are you saying the Falcons manager or coach should step down for the Vick allegations??
Good point, wait a mintue, he didn't run the dogfight, didn'y he ?

At least David Stern is an intelligent cat.

He handles situations like this like a pro, time in and time out.

Meanwhile Bud Selig has problems making it to the bathroom in the morning.
If he was dealing with this kind of situation he would have likely shown up to the conference half dressed.

I think Stern has done a good job of damage control so far.

Interesting piece I hear on NPR about the scandal from Frank Deford. He thinks it's a lot of hype.

NPR : Gambling on the NBA, Oh My! (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12207414)

Stern may have done damage control, but he ain't fooling people that know the game.

Remember, too, that the NBA has provided fodder for conspiracy theorists for years, from frozen draft lottery envelopes, to draft lottery ping-pong ball peculiarities, to questions of out-and-out favoritism toward stars.

Stern and his underlings spent the past couple of years nibbling around the edges of issues. He imposed a player dress code and fined Mark Cuban for %%%%%ing and mandated that his referees "T" up Rasheed Wallace more often, believing that would keep everybody in line.

Meantime, they all but ignored the one area that potentially has the greatest effect on games - the zebras.

Others have correctly pointed out that basketball is most subject to the whims of officials, simply because of the sheer volume of split-second decisions required of NBA referees during the course of a game.

Still, as much as fans griped about officials, at least there was the implied confidence that even if they made bad calls, they at least were consistently and honestly bad. No more.
Stain on the NBA -- dailypress.com (http://www.dailypress.com/sports/dp-91582cm0jul25,0,6739503.column)

I didn't think it was possible to feel sorry for David Stern, certainly the most pompous commissioner in professional sports. But seeing him trying to explain official Tim Donaghy and his betting on NBA games, including ones in which he worked ... sheesh!

Have you ever seen the commish so beaten down, so vulnerable? I thought he was going to cry, right up there on the stage. Suddenly, I quit wishing on him a pulled groin. The guy was suffering. And I don't blame him.

Major League Baseball has Barry Bonds. The NFL has Michael Vick. But for the NBA to come out with a ref possibly on the take and in hot water with the mafia ,,, that's the stuff of fiction!

If the corruption involves only Donaghy, as Stern told us roughly 17 times in a 13-minute address, the league can survive it. But do we really know he's it? Remember the scandal a few years ago, when a few officials were caught abusing their travel stipends for cash? Maybe Donaghy is the only one. But for Stern to assert that Donaghy is a rogue referee is the same as President Bush declaring the end of American-military involvement in Iraq some 1,500 days ago. Let's see what the investigation turns up, Dave, before we make that conclusion.
HeraldNet: Wow ... That was Stern?? (http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20070725/BLOG16/70725003)

I don't want to push it under the rug like Deford:


So now we have a situation, to listen to the Chicken Littles, where the very integrity of the National Basketball Association is being threatened because one lousy, rotten referee apparently tried to manipulate game scores

But some of these articles are making too much of it. After this plays out I hope the officiating is improved. No more "Good Old Boy" hires. Get some former players in stripes and crack down on the star calls...this could have a net positive effect.

Here's Sheridan's look. Althought I don't think of him highly as a sports writer, there may be some interesting points here:

On damage control, I'll say David Stern did OK. He wasn't great. He wasn't bad. He did what he had to do, and for the most part he was humble, earnest and contrite.
But he came up short of taking control of the situation as we've seen him do on so many occasions during past times of crisis, this situation being too big, too messy and too soon into the process for even Stern to get it under wraps.
Having seen Stern untangle so many different types of knots in the past, it was striking to see him so limited in his ability to be a fixer.

ESPN - Sheridan: Even Stern uncertain about latest NBA crisis - NBA (http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/columns/story?columnist=sheridan_chris&id=2947549)

Or, how about this proposal?



Stern needs to act now.
While the FBI continues its investigation into Tim Donaghy's betting habits, specifically whether the veteran referee gambled on NBA games and shared information with others for the purpose of improving their odds, Stern should respond with a forceful, symbolic gesture. Strike at the heart of the matter, at the very Mecca of gaming. Divorce his league from Las Vegas, placing an immediate chill on what has become an increasingly warm, cozy relationship.
No more exhibition games. No more Olympic-qualifying tournaments. No more summer-league competitions. No more selling franchises to casino owners -- the Maloof brothers and other owners with existing casino ties are exempt -- and absolutely no more conversations with Mayor Oscar Goodman about the possibility of locating a franchise in southern Nevada.
Further, while NBA referees are banned from casinos, during the season the same rule should apply to coaches, players and team personnel. (The NCAA might think about this as well; its highest-profile coaches are frequent visitors to the craps tables.) Just applying a little logic here. (A) Las Vegas exists because of gaming. (B) The NBA exists because of the games. Pairing these elements in the same city is an insanely dangerous, potentially fatal liaison. The combination essentially projects the league and the gambling industry as a nurturing couple -- a crippling perception at a time when the league must be obsessed with repairing its image and reputation.


Stern, NBA must cut ties with Vegas | ScrippsNews (http://www.scrippsnews.com/node/25634)
Does that mean no more summer league???

Good thing Donaghy was betting on us in 2004!

Good thing Donaghy was betting on us in 2004!
Maybe I should approach a ref in the next playoffs and say that I'm with Russian mafia and that we're betting on Pistons winning it all.
:pound:

The solutions are just raining down now:


Stern was right about one thing: If an official is intent on breaking the rules, he can. But here are a few ways the league can catch them more quickly, or at least force them to have to work a little harder:
More accountability: As it stands now, officials aren't available to the media, so they don't have to answer for their on-court decisions publicly. What's more, players and coaches are fined for commenting negatively about officials.http://origin.contracostatimes.com/sports/ci_6458684

I agree on the accountability issue. Let the reporters grill the refs about the calls. That'be a show by itself.
Reporter: but you were looking right at it
Ref: I am standing by my call
Reporter: but he didn't touch him
Ref: the camera doesn't have the same angle
Reporter: what about the no travel call on LeBron?
Ref: that's his signature move
Reporter: how all three refs could miss that?
Ref: there are many things happen on the court

What does stern have to do with corrupt referees. Are you saying the Falcons manager or coach should step down for the Vick allegations??

Actually you can test before someone is hired, or at any time, to see if someone has the unfortunate gambling disease.

Gambling like doing drugs, drinking etc are all individual genetic diseases. Officials in sports can be tested to see if they have a genetic disposition toward gambling and then not hired.

The problem is that the ACLU and liberal establishment would not allow this, so it is a moot point and the best that could maybe be done is psychological tests prior to pre-employment. This could find some potential gamblers among officials and would be better than what they are now doing but not as good as the genetic tests.

:hoops:

Or, how about this proposal?

Stern, NBA must cut ties with Vegas | ScrippsNews (http://www.scrippsnews.com/node/25634)
Does that mean no more summer league???

I think that there is another summer league in Orlando. I think there also used to be a small summer league in Southern CA a few years back.

:hoops: