Stern

Disgraced NBA ref Tim Donaghy has been the smoking gun ever since last summer when the news broke that he had bet on games.

What else did he know?

That’s been the thundercloud hanging over the league ever since, and the other day it rained all over these NBA Finals with Donaghy’s assertions that high-level NBA officials put pressure on referees in the past to help certain teams do well in the playoffs.

Call it the league’s worst nightmare.

NBA commissioner David Stern can dismiss Donaghy all he wants, claiming that he’s simply a convicted felon, thus has no credibility. But it’s more complicated than that.

Officiating must be as beyond reproach as Caesar’s wife. Especially in a series where the officiating has seemingly been such a factor in Games Two and Three, the Celtics rushing to the foul line in the second game as if it were a sale at Faneuil Hall, and the Lakers returning the favor in the third game in the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Any sport needs integrity. Anything else is professional wrestling.

So what’s going on here?

Let’s start with the premise that the game has become impossible to officiate, for the simple reason that no one knows what the rules are anymore. They’ve been so bludgeoned, so bastardized, that here we are in 2008 and any resemblance to the way the game is played today to the way it was played a generation ago is almost coincidence.

This is all the NBA’s fault, for what has happened in the NBA for the last couple of decades has seeped down to all levels of the game. The NBA always was officiated differently than college basketball, and everyone in the game knew it. No harm, no foul. The home team getting a lot of calls. Stars being treated differently than other players. These were all NBA things, as constant to the NBA as the 24-second clock and the adage that all you had to do was watch the last two minutes.

Now much of this is everywhere, as more physical play is now everywhere, as much as carrying the ball in ways that weren’t allowed a generation ago.

The other reason the NBA game is so difficult to officiate is that the players are simply too big, too athletic. The result is that there is less space on the court, thus there’s more congestion. Combine that with the blurring of the rules, and it should be no surprise that officiating so often seems so incompetent, as if the games would be fairer if players called their own fouls.

Then there’s the unspoken tradition of the homecourt.

Can you watch NBA playoff games and say that the home team doesn’t seem to get the majority of the benefit of the doubts?

Not if you’re being honest.

Can you watch the NBA and not think that superstars are treated differently?

Ditto.

This is the way the NBA has evolved, and there were reasons for it, certainly. It’s the reason why for so many years it outlawed zone defenses, the thinking being that zones slowed down the game, made it more difficult for stars to shine. The NBA always has been a show, complete with its marketing of stars and its desire for big television numbers at the expense of the purity of the game.

Not that this should come as a shock to anyone.

Which is the reason Donaghy’s assertions have the ring of a certain truth.

Which is not to say they are true. They are allegations. That’s all they are. But they are coming at the worst time for the NBA, its Finals, its showcase, and two days ago this story was on the front page of both New York tabloids. Not a story about the Finals. About Donaghy, the rogue ref. Yesterday, ESPN.com reported that two former NBA referees had been questioned by federal investigators about referee Dick Bavetta.

That’s the reality, and it’s unfortunate.

The last thing any league needs.

Especially one that has long made officiating an issue, when it never should be.

breynold@projo.com