Today's warnings : 1 August, 2008

Olympic preparations are in full swing as the most famous basketball referee in the world is going behind bars. Here are today's warnings:

• Tim Donaghy doesn't want to talk to the NBA any more.
• John Rillie has a recap of Australia's last second victory over Angola in the Diamond Ball, along with his usual array of news. On watching the game, it looks like both teams may well surprise some nations come Olympics time.
• In Portland, OR newspaper news, there was a little he-said-she-said going on between John Canzano (the Oregonian) and Dwight Jaynes (Portland Tribune) this past week. It all stemmed back to Jaynes putting the heat on Portland GM Kevin Pritchard's negative comments regarding the potential for comeback of Darius Miles, after his career-ending knee injury. Jaynes claimed that Pritchard's comments may have breached a Federal law regarding medical rights of employees. Canzano claimed that Jaynes' comments were baseless are far too emotional. Jaynes felt it necessary to write a blog post in response and overall, readers were left with some fairly unprofessional, petty journalism between the two of them. Well, now Jaynes has lost his job as Editor of the Portland Tribune. Coincidence? Who cares really...?
• Are Greg Oden, LaMarcus Aldridge and Brandon Roy one of the top Big Threes in the league? This analysis says they are.
• Watching USA v Turkey in the Diamond Ball today, ESPN's Fran Fraschilla gave us his projected 2012 Team USA mens' basketball team. I had to check online to verify that I read on screen what I thought I read and SLAM's Lang Whitaker came to my rescue in his game notes. Most of Fran's predictions seemed pretty safe, sensible even. LeBron, CP3, Deron, Wade, Roy, Durant, Horford, Oden, Dwight Howard, Al Jefferson. I can even buy Kevin Martin. Then he got to Rodney Stuckey... that is one BIG call. I note no mention of Chris Bosh or Carmelo Anthony. Am I the only one who sees Melo's career dropping off a little or at least stagnating a bit? He just never seems like he'll keep up with the Jameses of this league. And it seems that his whole obsession with being 'gangsta' is part of it.
• OKC got themselves a D-League team: the Tulsa 66ers.
• Synergy Sports Technology, the team behind the newest NBA Live updates, continues to enhance the NBA and its teams.
• Louis Williams has signed on for five years with the Sixers.
  
  
  
  

Donaghy's buddies have their moment of truth

Today David Stern cringes again, as the newspapers will revisit his least favourite topic of the last 12 months: the Tim Donaghy saga. Indeed, perhaps he will even be happy that the sports columnists will be filling their quota with "Childress takes Greek deal" headlines, if it distracts from the fact that today Donaghy's high school friends and gambling co-conspirators will be sentenced in court.

"Thomas Martino, 42, of Marcus Hook, and James Battista, 42, of Phoenixville, are expected to be in a federal courtroom in Brooklyn, N.Y., for their roles in the betting scheme allegedly concocted by Donaghy."

"Martino entered a plea to a wire-fraud charge for his role in the betting scandal. It is expected he will receive no more than 18 months in jail under his plea deal. He could have gotten as much as 20 years in jail.

"Baba" Battista, described as a professional gambler, entered a similar deal. Battista at one point waffled on his deal, mulling going to trial, a move that would have negated Martino's deal with prosecutors as well. Battista eventually changed his mind after prosecutors offered a deal that allowed him to plead guilty to a lesser charge of conspiring to make illegal bets, according to his lawyer, Jack McMahon. Battista is likely to get 10 to 16 months in prison."

July 29 is the next big day on Mr Stern's calendar, as Tim Donaghy gets his sentencing. You'd have to think that there will be some very strictly refereed jailyard games coming up, given the body of evidence against Donaghy -- at least that which has been reported in the press.

"He is expected to receive a prison term in the neighborhood of two to three years when sentenced by Judge Carol Amon."

Professional gambler's view on Donaghy

A great piece on Truehoop today, interviewing a professional gambler about the likelihood that Donaghy was fixing games.

Reading this, a few things struck me. Firstly, "Voulgaris estimates there may be as few as four or five whose main source of income is betting on the NBA." Wow. What does this tell us? Is betting on the NBA that hard to get right? Are there that few a number of people that think they can successfully gamble and make a profit on NBA gambling OR are there actually hundreds more who try and fail, making significant losses every year?

Secondly, does this guy not have one of the best "jobs" in the world? I would absolutely love to earn my primary source of income through NBA betting, but a small amount of experience in the field tells me that it's not a very easy route to take.

Lastly, if he has that extensive a database on games and has that refined a system of predicting match outcomes, there should be no way that NBA GMs are not knocking on his door to hire him to their scouting staff. A guy who can predict NBA results can give the edge to a coaching staff on what they need to change to in fact them the favourite... well, it seems to me anyway.

NBA : Today's warnings : 11 June 2008

• One of many fans outraged at the alleged "malleable" result of the 2002 Western Conference Finals has put together a nice little montage of one call in question. I wish more fans would come out with great substantive evidence like this, rather than usless ranting... hey, don't look at us!
• You really do have to feel sorry for Chris Webber though, if this whole thing is true as Donaghy claims...
• Spanish basketball fans may be happy to see the arrival of Rudy Fernandez to the Blazers, but it seems it's a one-in-one-out policy on Spaniards, with talk that the Raptors are about to buy out the injured Jorge Garbajosa. It will be disappointing for the big man, who has already been disallowed by the Raptors from playing in the Olympics over the Summer.
• Some Blazer fans really don't want local boy Kevin Love joining the team, it would seem.
• While the Lakers and Celtics play on, Grizzlies fans talk to Heat fans about who gets Michael Beasley. I can see how Pat Riley doesn't want a player like Beasley on his team, but I just don't envisage how the Grizzlies can give up something the Heat wants, whilst still being beneficial to their building project. Rudy Gay has to be retained. Does the Heat really want Mike Miller?
• Does everyone remember at the start of the season when the sudden breaking news that Kevin Garnett was traded to Boston took the heat off the Tim Donaghy scandal? Now it seems Donaghy is back, taking a bit of the shine off KG's big moment. If only the NBA could have done something to push that trial out a bit further.

Donaghy saga : Gary Payton

As the side-circus to the NBA Finals continues, so that non-Laker and Celtic fans can have some entertainment, Tim Donaghy has released some potentially juicy details.

The first (and most hotly discussed) topic is that which concerns the Lakers v Kings 2002 playoff series. Donaghy claims that our very own Mr Stern wanted the Lakers to progress and thus instructed his referees to call Game Six in the Lakers' favour, leading to a win and subsequent series-clinching Game Seven victory. Check out BallHype for 10,000 different opinions on that, ranging from "Da Lakers Will Have An Asterisk Next To Da Title" to "We Won, It Doesn't Matter."

Meanwhile, the other less discussed allegation, was as follows:

"Donaghy also claimed that a supervising referee told refs than an unidentified NBA executive did not want them to call technical fouls on star players or boot them from the game.

Donaghy told the feds the league reprimanded a ref who disobeyed that edict in January 2000 by ejecting an unnamed star player from a game in the first quarter."

A little investigation on the archives would indicate that the player in question was Gary Payton, in his prime with the Sonics. On January 25, 2000, Payton was booted in the first quarter as he blew up at referee Ted Bernhardt.

However it makes for small-time news alongside the other match-fixing allegations. It will be interesting to see what else comes out as Donaghy tries to bargain his way to leniency in sentencing.