Maybe it reads better like this................. One player, at a time that Donaghy was being singled out by the L for his officiating excellence, was able to call him out for the rat he is. Rasheed Wallace Vindicated!
I was there so I can speak for what the feeling was back during the Bad Boys I reign of terror. With the Pistons leading 3 games to 2 in the 1988 finals it appeared that the refs took away what should have been the first of three consecutive Piston NBA Titles and all real basket ball fans (even some of the purists here in LA) knew that the Pistons had been robbed. I attended the game that altered history on June 19, 1988 when a stellar performance 25pt third quarter by Isaiah Thomas on a bum wheel was offset by the "phantom foul" call on Laimbeer in the closing seconds in a game where the Pistons were just about to register their first NBA title. In both games 6 and 7 questionable calls by the refs led many of us to believe that the league or the refs wanted the Lakers to win and back up Pat Riley claim at the end of the past season that they would repeat. Game 7 Hugh Evans and Ed T. Rush officiated game 6 and Jake O'Donnell and Earl Strom did game 7. Not sure if you can call these guys crooked refs, but you have to wonder that if Donaghy says that todays refs have favorite and least favorite players, then these four officials could have had the same attitudes. 1988 NBA Finals - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Are you really making the case that our players are to blame for crooked officiating? Really? That's a whole new level of player hating.
We had that championship swagger...too bad they had too much and Stern wanted to push Wade and Lebron.
Here's the interview that the quote came from. Fascinating stuff: Green Street » Tim Donaghy on D&C, 12/8
It's kind of funny how the interviewer (Paul Flannery - online editor of a Boston magazine) gets his panties in a bunch when Donaghy says he doesn't like Doc Rivers.
Let’s talk about games that you did not officiate. You would call refs and try to pick their brain prior to the game and that would help you figure out what you were going to do with your bet that night, correct? Yes. I would basically fish for information to search for problems or vendettas that were existing and use that information to put a new line to a game and research it in the newspaper and see if the line should be changed by four or five points. If I felt that it was I would tell them to bet the game. My guess is that’s not a common practice for an official from somewhere else calling an official in Boston to see what they know about the Celtics game on a particular night. How did they not know what you were fishing for? It was common because we were all friends. When you talk about down time on the road, being in hotel rooms with nothing to do, you basically speak to each other on the phone. Stories come up, vendettas are discussed, games are discussed, players are discussed. If there’s a situation where I felt like I had information I would use that information to place winning bets.
Correction: Flannery wrote the article, but the radio hosts of the "Dennis and Callahan Show" were the ones interviewing him.
