Postscript: Just got back from my father-in-law’s after watching Game 4. Wonderful game. No reffing issues. Just performances, and lack thereof, from the players. Glad that the game overshadowed the criminal Mr. Stern.
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Reading various comments and articles on the former NBA ref Tim Donaghy situation is a study in the infantile mind of the American sportsman. We sports fans and sportswriters seem utterly incapable of countenancing subtlety, ambiguity, or conflict in motive. The main points of view being expressed on this matter fall into one of two extremes: (1) Donaghy is telling the literal truth when he says the NBA has been “fixing” NBA playoff games by “instructing” its refs to determine the outcome; or (2) Donaghy is a complete liar and there is nothing remotely close to such “fixing” going on.

The latter point of view makes the obvious argument that if such a conspiracy did exist for the past decade or so, one would have expected a “whistle-blower” to have emerged long before now. I agree with this “strawman” argument. I call it a strawman argument because it addresses extreme point of view #1 — a point of view that seems all but impossible to hold water.

This is where we come to the “in between” part. The grey middle between the two extremes. The ambiguous zone. In this uncomfortable zone, we observe that American social consciousness changes fluidly over time, whereas the profit motives and actions of corporations, once begun, don’t easily stop. It is within this tension between the fluidity of us humans, and the rigidity of the corporations, that this tawdry story of Tim Donaghy reaches clarity, if not satisfaction. In other words, the odds of a garden-variety sports fan reading beyond this point are slim to none.

With that, let’s begin the walk …

A sports “star” can be recognized because he/she has more of the infamous ego-triad — fame, money, and power — than do non-star players. That is, stars are more well known among the fan base, they make more money, and they’re just better players more able to impact the outcome of ball games. Clear so far?

Well, over the past 30-40 years, the gap between stars and non-stars on the fame-money-power triad has only increased. In the NBA, this gap reached a peak sometime just before 9/11, and has declined slightly since.

This widening gap between star and non-star first became noticeable in the NBA around the time Ronald Reagan was beginning his second term — i.e. 1985, give or take. I’m not saying there weren’t NBA stars before 1985. What I’m saying is that around that time, the gap between stars like Bird, Magic, and Michael, and the great unwashed mass of non-stars, on the question of fame-money-power, began to rise.

Why did this gap rise? My suspicion is that this was a fan reaction to the tired old ethos of the Sixties. The Sixties (which lasted until 1984) was a political time in which community was ascendant. By 1984, the nation was sick of community, and starved for kings and queens to worship. This shift happened not only in sports, but in most every public domain. i.e. Entertainment stars became mega-stars; CEOs became Midas; politicians became emperors; etc.

So if there was a “conspiracy” to favor star players over non-stars, the NBA fan-base was a principle co-conspirator. During the 1990s, Michael Jordan became Jesus in basketball shoes. He had the most power, easily the most fame, and by far the most money. So much of this hoops “bling” that other players — teammates and opponents alike — felt honored merely to be in his presence. And we fans guzzled it all up. We fans wanted a Jesus. And lo and behold, here came Michael.

By 1997, this gap between stars and non-stars had reached such a high point that Kevin Garnett, a young player, signed a $126 million contract for 6 years. The lowest paid player on the team was making the league minimum for that year which was on the order of $250,000. So Mr. Garnett was making over 80 times what his lowest paid teammate was making. After that “high point” of >80, the ratio between the salaries of the biggest star and lowest non-star declined to the point where it is today in the mid-50s. I haven’t done the research, but I would bet my left nut that no NBA star in the 1970s came close to earning a salary >50 times that of his lowest paid teammate.

But it wasn’t just the money that the stars collected in the 1990s. It was fame. Everyone wanted to be Michael. As for power, read on (i.e. see ‘refs’).

The NBA, being a business, noticed a few things. They noticed that fans were willing to pay exorbitant amounts for shoes and apparel endorsed by or featuring stars like Michael and Magic. They also noticed that television viewer-ship was maximized when these stars were on TV.

So, like any sensible business, the NBA simply rode the wave that its own fans had created. The fans had created the orgy of star worship in the late 1980s and drove it in 1990s. The NBA learned that the licensing business, driven by these stars, was akin to printing money. A “license” is simply a legal contract. There is little or nothing that is tangible. Nothing touches the pavement. Put simply, the cost of goods sold in a licensing business is negligible. Licensing revenue is pure profit.

This highly profitable NBA licensing business — founded upon the star culture — skyrocketed in the 1990s, generating massive TV contracts for the league, enabling astounding salaries like the one bagged by Kevin Garnett in 1997.

But a funny thing happened on the way to financial bliss for the NBA. It was called 9/11. 9/11 blew up the nation’s love affair with its stars. Well, I’m not saying that that love affair went completely away. I’m just saying that, after 9/11, for every star-gazing sycophantic fan, a star-dissing, team-loving fan emerged. This transformation of the fan-base from star-gazers to team-supporters increased during the 2000s. This happened in all three of the major sports — basketball, football, and baseball.

We fans had created the star culture, and had eaten it all up. But after 9/11, many of us began barfing. And all of that fan barfing led to something very interesting in the major sports: team-teams began beating star-teams, and the former began winning championships. I have blogged about this trend previously.

Well, that’s all well and good for the fans. Pre-1985, we loved team-teams (see, e.g., Portland 1977, Washington 1978, Seattle 1979). From 1985 to 9/11, we couldn’t get enough of the star-teams (the Birds, the Magics, the Hakeems, the Michaels, the Shaqs). Barfing after 9/11, we welcomed the Pistons and Spurs.

That’s the way we American people are. Every 20 years or so, we shift our political sensibilities from populism to autocracy, then back to populism, next, returning to autocracy, and so on. It’s an amazing dance.

But corporations are not so nimble. Corporations who have been feeding from a trough of pure profit for decades cannot suddenly flip on a dime, drop that lucrative business like a stone, forgo that revenue, and simply start up a new business. This just doesn’t happen in the business world absent a calamity. Think Microsoft and the software market if that’s your knowledge base. When open source came along and proved that the old software business model “had no clothes” — or at least had met its grim reaper — Microsoft didn’t simply say: “OK, I guess the party’s over; time to shut down our software business, and start up something completely new.” Business just can’t do that.

And neither did the NBA after 9/11. While us fans were shifting from star-gazing to team-supporting, the NBA corporation was desperately trying to re-animate its declining star-driven licensing business. This tension between the fan-base the the NBA corporation is where the allegations of former ref Donaghy come in.

In the 2000s, the paramount business interests of the NBA corporation were to maximize the fame-money-power of stars (the fountainhead of the licensing business), and to maximize licensing revenue (especially television revenue). How to achieve these twin goals?

1. Have the refs favor the star players (satisfies the first goal).
2. Have the refs extend playoff series to 7 games (satisfies the second goal).

But how to do this without leaving a “paper trail”? Simple. Just hide from the public your system of grading and selecting the refs. Then grade and select refs (the reward system for refs) according to which refs are most effective on the above two critical metrics.

That is, Mr. Stern and the head of his officials have a list of criteria regarding the attributes that make up a good ref. Most of those attributes would be given to the refs to let them know what sort of standard the league was shooting for. I’m sure that just such an innocuous document is floating around the NBA corporation and the FBI has seen it.

But I don’t believe Mr. Stern ever gave any of the refs the two criteria listed above (i.e. favor stars, and extend series) — not in email nor even in person. He didn’t need to. He needed only to promote and demote refs according to these “secret” criteria, and then over time, the refs would figure it out. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to draw a correlation between a colleague ref who grants a star player 25 free throws one day, and then the next day is awarded the NBA “medal of freedom” by the corporation.

I don’t know what the exact carrots and sticks are that Mr. Stern used to enforce the compliance of his refs. I do know that some of the carrots involved being awarded playoff duty; and some of the sticks involved fines. But I’m sure Mr. Stern employed an elaborate system of carrots and sticks on his refs, and that the refs were acutely aware of this Byzantine system. But not us fans. It was for good reason that Mr. Stern kept us in the dark. That is, if the refs could figure out that the explicit criteria had little to do with their promotion/demotion, rest assured that the fan base could too.

Anyway, in this scenario, the good “company men” NBA refs figured out the secret criteria, and so Stern got his “corrupt” refs. But when the FBI now comes calling, there’s no paper trail. Moreover, each company man ref can honestly testify that he was never ordered to fix any game, and that he refereed every game to best of his abilities according to the league criteria. He can’t testify about implicit, hidden criteria he has neither seen nor even heard about.

And I just don’t see an NBA ref who reached the pinnacle of his profession, and appears in the NBA finals, standing up and saying to the FBI, thus the world: “Actually, I suck as a ref. All I did was to figure out Stern’s secret criteria, start applying them, and then watch as my career took off. I don’t think I was promoted for my skills; just for my corruption. Like I said, I suck.”

Yeah, that’s going to happen any time soon. So even if what Stern did during the 2000s to keep his licensing business going was a crime (which I doubt it was else the WWE would be a crime) the FBI faces a nearly impossible task in proving it. So don’t hold your breath waiting for any more bombshells to drop in this case.

Where does that leave us fans? Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m going over to my father-in-law’s in a few hours to watch Game 4 of Celtics-Lakers. Why? Because I’m an addict. A pathetic sports addict.

(Here’s the bright side: At a health lecture last year, I learned that a robust interest in sports might be a sign of a healthy level of testosterone; and the converse is true. So there is an upside after all in being a sheep. Enjoy the “game”.)