The Feds Didn't Talk to Bernhardt, Either
by Tom Ziller on Jun 12, 2008 3:08 PM PDT
Email
PrintChris Sheridan of ESPN.com sheds more light on which referees were contacted by the league and the government in the post-Donaghy investigation of impropriety.
Sheridan quotes Hue Hollins (who revealed he'd been asked about Dick Bavetta in this morning's New York Times) from an interview with "Outside the Lines," speaking more about the Bavetta questions. Sheridan also combines the other ref comments to date:
Another ex-referee, who spoke to ESPN.com on the condition he not be identified, said federal investigators asked him about specific games that Bavetta refereed and whether he had noticed anything peculiar about Bavetta's actions.
Former referee Mike Mathis told ESPN.com he had been questioned by the FBI but was not asked about Bavetta. Also, ex-referee Blaine Reichelt said he had not been contacted by any law enforcement authorities, and ex-referee Ted Bernhardt said he had only been questioned by NBA security officials.
A request by ESPN.com to interview Bavetta was denied Thursday by the NBA, as was a request to view the officials' postgame report from Game 6 of the 2002 Western Conference finals -- a game Donaghy has alleged was refereed unfairly to ensure the Lakers and Kings would meet in a Game 7.
So the feds haven't talked to Bob Delaney, and they haven't talked to Ted Bernhardt. Yet they're asking former refs about Bavetta ... and the league's refusing to allow anyone to interview Bavetta. And they've singled out Game 6 clips for removal from YouTube.
What Bernhardt (who no longer works in the league) had to say to ESPN is interesting:
"I only talked to [former supervisor of officials] Ed Rush after the game, and I said I wasn't happy about it. He asked why, and I said I didn't feel we were very good."
"But I stand by my calls in that game. I was right on," Bernhardt said. "I believe in Dick Bavetta, and I believe in Bob Delaney, and I believe in the NBA for that matter."
He admitted after the game the crew had a bad night, but stands by his own calls. Which logically means he feels Bavetta and/or Bernhardt wasn't "very good."
I think everyone's on Bavetta Watch at this point. Something's odd about the way the NBA has handled him.
31 comments
|
0 recs |
Do you like this story?
Comments
The plot thickens
BTW, inquiring minds in Phoenix (i’m a Suns fan btw) would like to know if the Maloofs have come out to say anything as of yet? Perhaps the league has ‘em by the balls and wont let them talk?
"Troops in desperate straights know no fear. Where there is no escape, they stand firm; When they have entered deep, they persist; When they see no hope, they fight." Sun Tzu The Art of War
With a new arena possibly hanging in the balance
I don’t hink you’ll hear the Maloof’s say a word.
SACTOWN ROYALTY - Try our thick creamy shakes!
sigh
If only they would. Man that would make some waves
"Troops in desperate straights know no fear. Where there is no escape, they stand firm; When they have entered deep, they persist; When they see no hope, they fight." Sun Tzu The Art of War
League's actions
Is it me, or does it seem from Bernhardt’s comments that the NBA did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING after what was – at the bare minimum – one of the worst officiated playoff games in history?
Maybe I’m reading too much into what he said, but it reads as if Bernhardt was the one who was unhappy, rather than the other way around. It also reads as if Bernhardt never heard anything more about it after that initial conversation – “I only talked to Ed Rush after the game…”
This
goes a bit to what Nader was saying. To turn a blind eye leaves the potential for this thing to fester, which it has, now to the point of explosion. The arrogance of the NBA is coming back to bite them in the arse.
SACTOWN ROYALTY - Try our thick creamy shakes!
And sadly, that’s the best case scenario. The worst (and still unlikely)? That Bavetta and Delaney were the so-called company men.
TZ and Section
I’m curious now. Both of you were very reluctant to join the mob mentality of “Donaghy is absolutely right, it was fixed!” As more and more stories come out about this issue, have your views been swayed at all, are are you still in the camp of “it was terribly officiated, but not fixed”?
"Rapport? You mean like, 'You run as fast as you can, and I'll throw it as far as I can'?"
-Jeff Kemp, 49ers quarterback, when asked about his rapport with wide receiver Jerry Rice
My 2 cents
Worst officiated game ever.
No conspiracy.
Had the NBA done their due diligence, Donaghy’s claims would be largely ignored, as this would be six year old news that had been investigated and put to bed.
The NBA, via their arrogance, has botched this thing nine ways to Sunday, and they have created a PR nightmare for themselves. But I have yet to see anything tangible that corroborate’s Donaghy’s claims, a man that I would not trust to pick up my dog’s leavings.
SACTOWN ROYALTY - Try our thick creamy shakes!
I’m open-minded. The hush-hush investigation of Bavetta and the league’s refusal to be at all open about this (withholding the independent investigation until the sentencing) has me stuttering.
I don’t believe there was a conspiracy. But I’m getting to the point where I wouldn’t be shocked if evidence surfaced.
now Stern is quoted as saying
that they will re-interview every ref just to reassure everyone…but that’s purposely misleading because we know that at least two of the three refs in question were never contacted.
Something’s not right.
Life is every mammal's journey from very very wet to very very dry.
All Stern needs to do is put in a challenge rule
To clear up this whole mess with screwy calls, etc, the NBA needs something like what the NFL has in challenging calls. Coaches would have unlimited challenges, but if they get a call wrong, it would cost them a timeout. If they don’t have a timeout left, it would be a technical foul on their team. It would take away all of these suspicions and would clear up the league, plus put all of these calls on the backs of coaches and their teams, not the league and refs. I can’t see why Stern doesn’t want anything like this in place, though, especially after all the tweaking he’s done to the league over the past few years.
This wouldn't work
because football is slow enough already. Basketball is fluid and constant stops for replays would ruin the game. Plus in the NBA coaches and players complain about every call so there would be stops every thirty seconds.
when will the Kenny Thomas Reign of Terror end?!!??
by diehardkingsfan5 on Jun 12, 2008 10:10 PM PDT up reply actions
Not really...
Coaches would need to use it wisely, since they’d be penalized with a technical if they’re wrong. I wrote a letter to the league office detailing it out…
”
The rule would be this:
-Coaches would be able to plead their case to the referees, have the game stopped, then have the referees review the play.
-Coaches can challenge any call or non-call to a ref and have the game stopped, if their team has possession of the ball. For every bad challenge (where the coach is wrong), it would cost their team a 20-second time out. If they have no 20-second timeouts, then it would cost a full-timeout. If they have no timeouts, it would be a technical foul on their team.
-If the other team has the basketball and a coach challenges a call, the game would be stopped and the play reviewed. However, if the call is wrong, it would cost the coach’s team a technical foul.”
I also should have added in that play would be stopped only after the end of the team’s possession to keep the fluidity of the game intact.
Or-
They could just enforce the current rules equally and without passion, and with no regard to home team or star player status, and call it the same for the full 48 minutes of the game…ahh, that would never work!
SACTOWN ROYALTY - Try our thick creamy shakes!
by section214 on Jun 12, 2008 10:46 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
But let's say
that CloudyEyes’ idea was around for the 2002 WCF. We may have indeed won game 6. But that would have only squared the series. You see, in game 5 Phil Jackson threw his flag when we knocked the ball out of bounds but it was awarded to us, and he threw it again when Webber set the illegal screen that freed Bibby up for the winning jumper (be honest – if Robert Horry had sent an identical screen freeing up Kobe Bryant for a game winner you’d still be railing about it). So, it would have gone to game 7, where we would have missed 14 out of 30 free throws…
SACTOWN ROYALTY - Try our thick creamy shakes!
Ahhh
But would they have missed 14 out of 30 free throws if they weren’t upset about being jobbed in Game 6?
If they missed 14 of 30
because they were “upset”, then they didn’t have the heart of a champion.
SACTOWN ROYALTY - Try our thick creamy shakes!
Pretty different situations
You are talking about a couple of bad calls (and if we reviewed the tape of that entire game 5, would those calls have evened out?) versus an entire quarter’s worth of questionable (and now suspect) officiating. So a couple of bad calls in one game is not nearly the same as a game that was universally condemned and considered to be one of the great screwjobs in the history of American professional sports.
Again, two things can be equally true – the referees could have screwed the Kings AND the Kings could have made their free throws in game 7.
But asking a team to win 5 out of 7 games against a dynastic team with two of the ten greatest players to ever play the game might be a tad bit unfair. Last time I checked the rules, four victories is all you need in a 7 game series.
And I’m curious where you draw the line on this type of thinking? Let’s say you have two teams playing in the finals, and one team is clearly the better team, perhaps even a sweep-worthy victor. If the officials (hypothetically of course) decide to swing at least three of those games to the weaker opponent, forcing a seven game series, and the favored team misses a few free throws at the end of game 7 to lose the series, do you feel the same? Should the team really have to win six or even seven games in a seven game series?
This scenario is ludicrous, of course, but your viewpoint on this creates a very slippery slope.
"Boo Lakers! Boo Kobe! Go Kings! Go Giants! Boo Dodgers!" - my 5 year-old daughter - 4/15/08
I agree about the 5 of 7 thing
And I agree that we got jobbed in game 6. Where I disagree with the masses is where it pertains to a “fix.” And while I do agree with the 5 of 7 thing, the bottom line is that it came down to one game, winner take all, on the Kings home floor, and the Kings spit the bit. The events that led up to game 7 were unfortunate, but the officiating in game 6 was no more unfortunate or devastating than Robert Horry hitting that 3. Nor does it discount the good breaks that we got in game 5. It may not have been fair that it came down to game 7, but it did, and we let an opportunity to move on slip through our fingers.
SACTOWN ROYALTY - Try our thick creamy shakes!
Yes & No
I agree with your overall point: The Kings could have won Game 7 and rendered Game 6 an anecdote in the Sports Illustrated 2002 NBA Championship Collector’s Book (free with your 52-week subscription).
That said, to say that Game 6 was no different than Horry’s 3 is ridiculous to me.
Horry is a player on the opposing team that was in the right place at the right time and that sucked, but as they say, “that’s why they play the games”.
Game 6 took place on an unlevel playing field where instead of having one set of opponents the Kings had to overcome two. To imply that the mental toll this takes is the same as losing on a lucky (again, “right-place-right-time”) shot just doesn’t work for me. The Kings probably had no idea which refs were going to show up for Game 7, and that’s harder to overcome than knowing a tipped rebound went to the only place that would cost them a win.
Old School Core Beliefs
Don’t charge the mound when you get hit by a pitch. Don’t even rub it. Just walk calmly to first base so that your pitcher can put one in their ear later.
Don’t show weakness.
Don’t ever let your opponent know that they’ve gotten to you.
Everyone’s against you except your teammates. What are you going to do about it?
At the end of the day, you are responsible for your destiny.
The Kings missed 16 free throws and shot 2-20 from three. 60% from the free throw line and the Kings are in the finals. Yeah, they shouldn’t have had to play game 7. But they did? What were they going to do about it?
SACTOWN ROYALTY - Try our thick creamy shakes!
by section214 on Jun 13, 2008 3:44 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
Great List
To me, even more glaring than the Free Throws, were those terrible bricks they were laying at in crunch time.
Nobody looked like they wanted to win the game for Sacramento, which (for me) was more frustrating at the time than missed Free Throws (although I’m sure the reason for both is really the same).
Good life lessons as well,
but can I still tear up from the frustration of it all? I still can’t believe how much the news this past week churned up old emotions from 2002 that I thought were long gone and completely forgotten.
I guess it still (unexpextedly) hurt because of the gleeful way my Lakers fan friends have rubbed salt into that open wound over the last six years, although with (thankfully) lessening frequency over the years. I must say though, that the frequency took an uptick over the last six months but has dipped again in the the last week as the Lakers have been facing elimation…and Donaghy’s allegations.
If for no other reason, I thank Donaghy for putting it out there.
I still believe that if the Kings had won the title in 2002 they’d already be in a new arena and we wouldn’t still be having negotiations.
Marcos Breton actually had a pretty good column on this topic in this Sunday’s Bee http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/1014407.html (sorry, I couldn’t get the short linky thing to work.) He sounds more like a bitterly disappointed fan than an asshole. Shocking.
The scab is off, the wound bleeds again.
-lietothegirls
by KK on Jun 16, 2008 8:37 PM PDT up reply actions
By the way,
if you click the link, don’t skip the normally idiotic comments, Breton responds to some (most) of them.
The scab is off, the wound bleeds again.
-lietothegirls
by KK on Jun 16, 2008 8:41 PM PDT up reply actions
Yes
By all means, tear up, chew on the frustration, be pissed. Make no mistake – just because I don’t think that there was a conspiracy doesn’t mean that I don’t think we got screwed.
When I think of that team and how it could have won two or more championships…when I go senile I will swear that the game was officiated by Dick Bavetta, Kirk Gibson and Scott Spezio. Bastards.
SACTOWN ROYALTY - Try our thick creamy shakes!
This should be in the Dick Bavetta thread, but it's going to get
rolled off the page today. From Simmons’ write up on the 2002 playoffs:
Question: What was the most disturbing subplot of the playoffs?
Answer: The officiating, also the most disturbing subplot of the past four playoffs. If you examine the last four NBA playoff campaigns, during every situation where the league definitively “needed” one of the two teams involved to win - either to A) change the momentum of a series so it didn’t end prematurely, B) keep an attractive, big-market team alive in a series, or C) advance an attractive, big-market team to another round - the officiating appeared to be slanted towards the team that needed that game. I use the phrase “appeared to be,” because reviewing an official’s performance is purely subjective. Maybe I’m dead-wrong.These were just the games that jump out in my mind (again, I could be wrong):
- 1999, Knicks-Pacers, Game 3 … LJ sinks a game-winning four-pointer (called a continuation foul by referee Jess Kersey even though LJ was fouled a full second before he released the ball).
- 1999, Knicks-Pacers, Game 6 … Knicks last chance to close out Indy before the series shifts back to Indiana for Game 7 … they get every call.
- 1999, Spurs-Knicks, Game 3 … down 2-0, the Knicks get every call in their first home game and win their only game of the series.
- 2000, Knicks-Heat, Game 7 … Knicks advance to the conference finals … falling out of bounds, Latrell Sprewell awarded a timeout by referee Bennett Salvatore with 2.1 seconds left even though none of the Knicks called for one … Sprewell admits after the game that he hadn’t called a timeout … the Miami players chase the referees off the court after the game, yelling that they had been robbed … after the game, Jamal Mashburn tells reporters, “They had three officials in their pocket” and Tim Hardaway refers to referee Dick Bavetta as “Knick Bavetta.”
- 2000, Lakers-Blazers, Game 7 … LA shoots 21 more free throws and rallies back from a 17-point deficit in the final seven minutes … Shaq plays an illegal defense down the stretch, undaunted … Rasheed Wallace absolutely gets manhandled down the stretch, yet doesn’t get a single call … up by four with 25 seconds left, Shaq body-blocks Steve Smith out of bounds and the refs don’t make the call (the most egregious non-call in recent memory).
- 2002, Celtics-Nets, Game 4 … Celts up 2-1 … the Nets are inexplicably allowed to push and shove Kenny Anderson and Pierce while they dribble the ball … a number of head-scratchers go against Boston, including three offensive charges down the stretch … four different “bull-(bleep)” chants during the game.
- 2002, Lakers-Kings, Game 6 … LA needs a win to stay alive … from an officiating standpoint, the most one-sided game of the past decade … at least six dubious calls against the Kings in the fourth quarter alone … LA averaged 22 free throws a game during the first five games of the series, then attempted 27 freebies in the fourth quarter alone of Game 6 … rumors that David Stern wanted to pull a Vince McMahon and declare himself “The special guest referee” for this game prove unfounded.
(By the way, I would feel remiss if I didn’t share this information: Dick Bavetta was assigned to every one of the above games. That’s an absolute fact. You can look it up. Doesn’t mean anything … I just felt the need to pass that along. It sure looks bad, doesn’t it? Maybe the league could do a favor for Bavetta and not assign him to Game 3 of the Finals, especially if the Lakers jump to a 2-0 lead over New Jersey. You wouldn’t want to rile up those conspiracy theorists or anything. Ummmm …)
All I can say is wow.
Section 214 is one lucky schmoe
Wow is right
As I was reading that, I wondered who reffed each of those games – whether there were any commonalities. I guess there were.
What is the world coming to?
I like Dick Bavetta.
Now I’m sad.
TickTickTickTickTickTick
by LeaguePassAddict on Jun 13, 2008 11:08 AM PDT reply actions
Comments For This Post Are Closed
Secondary Sidebar
User Tools
FanPosts
Community blog posts and discussion.
Recommended FanPosts
Recent FanPosts
In Association With
Ball Don't Lie - NBA - Yahoo! Sport
- Behind the Box Score, where the Heat grabbed control behind LeBron James’ amazing afternoon
- Behind the Box Score, where the Oklahoma City Thunder dominated the fourth quarter. Again
- Kevin Durant’s game-winner beats the Lakers in Game 4 (VIDEO)
- Behind the Box Score, where the Los Angeles Lakers answered at home
- Pau Gasol wins the 2011-2012 J. Walter Kennedy Citizenship Award
