The Perpetual NBA Thread

[mazdamazda]

some player movements:

Mo Pete signs with the Hornets

Mason goes to the Bucks

[mazdamazda]

Garnett to the Rockets! :shocked2:

http://www.nba.com/rockets/news/Garn...232496-34.html

[empy]

ahaha nagulat ako dun ah :rofl01:

[pajerokid]

Hahaha! Nice one M2! Got me there!

[theveed]

Langya ka M2 heheh

[baiskee]

hahaha! KG din naman kasi eh. nice one! :hihihi:

[chain]

[SIZE="4"]Numbers indicate unlikely outcomes in games Donaghy officiated[/SIZE]

By Wayne Drehs
ESPN.com

When noted sports gambling expert R.J. Bell began crunching numbers from the last four years of NBA referee Tim Donaghy's career Monday, what he discovered sent him on a public relations ride he never thought possible.

"It's been a crazy day," said Bell, the president of sports betting information site pregame.com. "But this is some groundbreaking stuff."

The biggest eye opener, Bell said, came when he compared the number of points scored in the games Donaghy officiated versus the number of points the Las Vegas sports books had expected.

In the two seasons in which the FBI is investigating Donaghy for allegedly fixing games for gambling purposes, Bell found that NBA teams scored more points than Las Vegas expected (hitting the over) 57 percent of the time when Donaghy was part of the officiating crew. With a league average of 49 to 51 percent, the odds of such an occurrence are 19 to 1.

When Bell analyzed the numbers from the two seasons before the two in question, he discovered that in games Donaghy officiated NBA teams scored more points than Vegas expected just 44 percent of the time.

Although the 13 percent difference might not seem that jarring to the casual observer, it's jaw-dropping in the world of sports gambling. Bell said the odds of a 44 percent probability happening 57 percent of the time are about 1 in 1,000.

"There's a 99.9 percent chance that these results would not have happened without an outside factor," Bell said. "Something abnormal was going on here."

ESPN.com's own research into Donaghy's last two seasons supports Bell's claims. In the 66 games Donaghy refereed in the 2005-06 season, the two teams in his games combined to score an average of 196.8 points. The average over/under, according to BoDog.com, was 186.6, a difference of almost 10 points.

In 2006-07, Donaghy refereed 73 games. In those contests, the two teams combined to score 201.37 points and the average over/under was 187.9 points, a difference of more than 13 points per game.

"Vegas is too good for that to happen," Bell said. "The standard range should be somewhere around five or six, maybe. Not 10 or 13."

The surprising trends aren't limited to total bets, when a gambler wagers on the total number of points scored in a game. Side bets, when a gambler picks one side or the other to win the contest, also raised some concern.

At the start of the 2007 calendar year, Bell said, there were 10 straight games in which Donaghy was part of the officiating crew and the point spread moved a point and a half or more before tip-off, indicating big money had been wagered on the game. In those 10 contests, according to Bell, the big money won all 10 times.

At the start of the 2007 calendar year, Bell said, there were 10 straight games in which Donaghy was part of the officiating crew and the point spread moved a point and a half or more before tip-off, indicating big money had been wagered on the game. In those 10 contests, according to Bell, the big money won all 10 times.

"They say follow the money, right?" Bell said. "Well, when the money is right 10 straight times, something is going on. To me, that's the gavel clicking down."

Just as interesting are the numbers from April 15 to the postseason. During that stretch, there were eight games in which Donaghy was part of the officiating crew and the line moved more than a point and a half before the tip, Bell said. And in those games, including over/under bets and win/loss wagers, the big money was just 2-7.

"It means one of two things," Bell said. "Perhaps in the playoffs, they felt too much scrutiny and they weren't trying to do anything and the results are just random. Or perhaps there was some sort of turnabout with the individual in question and he went the other way."

Yet despite such surprising numbers, in an environment in which every gambler is looking for every advantage he can find, Bell said it's highly unlikely anyone outside the individuals who had knowledge of Donaghy's alleged involvement would have been able to identify his tendencies.

"There's a strong indication that this was not going around on the buzz, as they like to say. Without the benefit of hindsight, two years wouldn't have been enough for these tendencies to reveal themselves," he said. "In three or four years, maybe. But not two."

According to FoxSports.com, over the last two seasons, Donaghy led the NBA in technical fouls, free-throw attempts per game and foul outs per game.

Bell said officials are studied to find possible gambling advantages in the ways they call a game. But the majority of that work, he said, is done in baseball; umpires are given ample attention because of their strike zone size. On any given night, the umpire can affect the over/under. In the NBA, Bell said the only real attention paid to the referees is whether that official is a "homer," in other words whether he has a tendency to be influenced by a home crowd in a big game.

"There's research that if it's a nationally televised game or a rivalry game with a large, boisterous crowd, some officials will get freaked out," Bell said. "A sophisticated gambler knows that and will consider that when placing his bets."

[theveed]

Gadamit... I'd kick Donaghy's ass if I were Amare, Nash, and the rest of the Suns' squad...


Sooner rather 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.

Donaghy made one of the worst calls of the playoffs (a phantom, delayed foul on Manu Ginobili in a key late third-quarter run that awarded the Spurs three free throws), and he was part of an officiating crew that sent Suns star Amare Stoudemire to the bench with foul trouble, leaving him available for only 21 minutes in the game. Beyond that, there were plenty of missed calls and dubious whistles. That game hangs over the league like an anvil now.

San Antonio was giving four points on the betting line and won 108-101. Those three Ginobili free throws pushed the Spurs to a six-point lead late in the third, and Phoenix never recovered. As it turns out, that is the last game Donaghy will officiate in the NBA.

[chain]

here's more:
[SIZE="4"]
Some Donaghy Data You Missed[/SIZE]

I love newspapers.

Newspapers are one place of employment where you could lock yourself in your home office for, oh, four hours straight, squinting as you pore over columns upon columns of data that you have gone to great lengths to obtain – only to have it cut out of the article you wrote because it didn’t fit in the little white space assigned to it.

So before I drop off my son at summer camp Tuesday morning – my son who turned 3 Monday and whose party was occurring while I was holed up in a local Starbucks writing about impending federal indictments and John Doe warrants – here is the information that you would’ve gotten if the space in the newspaper were unlimited, as it is on the Web site you are now reading.

During the 2006-07 season, Tim Donaghy reffed eight games in which at least 72 free throws were attempted – or 20 more than the league average. Of those eight games, six had final scores exceeding the “over/under” by an average of 26.8 points.

This seems significant to me. According to sports betting sources, calling fouls would be the easiest way for an NBA official to influence the number of points scored in relation to the over/under. In addition to wagering on the point spread, or margin of victory, some bettors put money on whether the total number of points scored will be greater or less than the over/under set by bookmakers.

According to Covers.com, a sports wagering Web site that tracks referees’ tendencies, Donaghy officiated the fourth-highest scoring games in the NBA last season with a 201.2 average. In addition, 43 of the 73 games he officiated hit the over, the third-highest percentage in the league.

People familiar with the Donaghy probe have been telling us that they are not really focused on particular games and the statistical anomalies that may seem to have occurred. They are building their case through old-fashioned law enforcement techniques – like evidence gathered through wiretaps and apparent admissions by Donaghy, who is cooperating with investigators.

But certain facts about games officiated by Donaghy don’t seem right. That’s not good enough for a federal indictment, but it’s good enough to make the average fan say, “Hmmmm.”

I’ll check in again after David Stern’s news conference today at the “majestic ballroom” of a Manhattan hotel. What an appropriate venue!

[kimpOy]

these are the calls ( or miss calls) in question
you be the judge...