At one point Donaghy talked about how they'd get told by the league, handed down by Commissioner David Stern, known Indiana Pacer/small market hater, that they need to start calling more of this or that. Carrying or traveling on a certain spin move Jordan was fond of, for example. But when he makes one of those violation on His Airness, unquestionably the greatest player to ever play the game of basketball, Bulls Coach Phil Jackson tells him how it is:
“I started to understand what's within the game in the NBA. I was in Philadelphia and I am refereeing Sixers-Bulls. They were cracking down on the spin move that they wanted the officials to call traveling. Michael Jordan makes the spin move, I make the call. Phil Jackson comes off the bench and he starts giving me shit. I say, 'wait a second, Phil. You know as well as I do that's the spin move they're telling us to call.' And he said, 'while they might want that play called, they certainly don't want it called on him', and he pointed at Jordan who just walked by and stared at me. I got in the locker room, the other referee said, 'they want that call but don't want to on him.”
Yeah, indeed, it is a superstars league and they are treated accordingly. This of course brings into question the fairness of NBA games.
This is further evidence to the conspiracy theory that the NBA was more or less rigged under Stern in favor of the biggest markets and the players that sell the most jersey and if you are Michael Jordan, you get every call. You hear people talk about how when Jordan played the game was so much more physical. That's bullshit. Watch one of those games and you'll see Jordan get every goddamn call. “But the hand check rule!” You hand-check Jordan, you got a foul. Such is the case with all the super-stars. Look at the all time attempts list (Jordan is 11th, by the by). It's big guys who played forever (the Mailman, Wilt, Shaq Moses Malone, Dwight Howard, Kareem) like you'd expect and the guys that NBA protects (LeBron, Kobe, Jordan) with the exceptions of maybe the guys who played in the 60s/70s (Oscar Robertson, Jerry West), I can't say much with confidence about that era. In the playoffs, it is way worse. Jordan is tied for third with Tim Duncan. LeBron with over 100 more games than Jordan is first, he has also got nearly every call throughout his career, with Hack-a-Shaq at number two. The guys ahead of him all have way over 200 playoff games under their belts. Jordan had 179. As far as average per game, among players with 100 playoff games or more, Jordan is third in per game average, behind liabilities Shaq and Wilt.
Anyway, so Donaghy was guilty as shit. Pled guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and transmitting betting information through interstate commerce. Okay. In the doc he admits to providing confidential information about games to the other two guys involved in the scheme, quasi mafia guys Jimmy Battista and Tommy Martino who he went to high school with in Pennsylvania. They all plead guilty, served at least a year in federal prison, and now hate each other. They all also participated in the documentary.
Not the first of these Netflix Untold docs I've watched. They are worth watching if you like that type of story off the field type stuff, which I fucking love. One of particular interest is how Stern screwed over the Pacers after the Malice in the Palace when Ron Artest went into the stands and started swinging after fan John Green hit him in the face with a beer which caused a riot. Stern suspended the fuck out of my team including Artest for life which was later commuted to the rest of the season. This still makes me mad. Other NBA players that got suspended for a whole season include Latrell Sprewell for choking his coach and threatening him with death, Gilbert Arenas for pulling a gun on a teammate in the locker room. Even they didn't get a lifetime to start with though.
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