The Grass is Greener

Indeed the world seems rosier this week with the news of Tim Donaghy, and the possibility that he may have affected the out come of game three of the Western Conference Semifinals.

As a Suns fan, I couldn't be happier with the news. It's a vindication of sorts for all of us who tried so hard to resist blaming the referees for the game three loss, while the San Antonio fans told us to stop whining about the officiating. Well, everyone and their dead grandmother knew that the officiating in that game was straight out of The Miracle Worker, and now even Spurs fans have to admit that their most recent championship may very well be tainted, if not completely illegitimate.

Though I wrote down my initial feelings yesterday, I didn't want to go through the trouble of going too deep into game research to find out just how plausible it is that the five games that Donaghy officiated may have been rigged. There are far too many games to look at to find his games, and I'd rather let someone else do it for me. I'm sure that some astute blogger out there is in the process of putting together a list of the questionable games, and I'll just check his work.

Apparently, I wasn't alone in my first impression. Kevin Hench of foxsports.com speculated today the feelings of Suns fans in light of this scandal.

Denial — This can't be happening. Robert Horry didn't just hip-check Steve Nash into the scorer's table with the result being the suspensions of our only low-post scorer and best low-post passer. This cannot be happening.

Anger — We hate you, David Stern! We'd like to see Charles Barkley throw you through a plate glass window at Dan Majerle's bar!

Bargaining — Please, please, let us squeak out Game 5. Let the series go seven games. We'll forget all about the unjust suspensions.

Depression — We lost. We're doomed. It's over. Our window of opportunity is closing. Nash is 33. That was our shot.

Acceptance — We're down, but not out. We just signed Grant Hill. Stoudemire will be another year away from microfracture surgery. Leandro Barbosa is getting better by the minute.

He must have been reading all our blogs because those were my exact feelings, although Stern suffered a much worse fate in my anger-induced imagination. He was a bit off on the next part, though.

Denial — There is simply no way an official in a major American sport would do this. This isn't Italian soccer, dammit.

Anger — Was Game 3 the game when Bruce Bowen essentially assaulted Nash from start to finish? Was Bowen really whistled for only two fouls? Did Nash really shoot only three free throws? Was that the game where the Suns were in the midst of a run-out when they were interrupted by a foul call so late it just had to be an inadvertent whistle?

Bargaining — Okay. Please, Federal Bureau of Investigation, just tell us Donaghy hadn't bet on that game. Please just tell us that a pile of mob money didn't come down on the Spurs in Game 3.

Depression — Ah, what's the difference? It's not like Stern is going to give us a do-over.

Acceptance — Probably never.

First of all, I am SO not in denial about this. I have been one to keep a level head throughout the season and NOT succumb to the conspiracy theories. I tried my best, anyway. But I've written extensively on the horrid free throw and foul disparity in that series, so none of this surprises me one bit. I don't know if could surprise any die hard Suns fan.

I did ask those very questions during my brief anger phase. Once I confirmed the answers, I went straight to bargaining. Only I wasn't begging for the Feds to find no fault. I want them to find solid evidence of point shaving during that game. This is what we need, solid evidence that NBA games and NBA officials are not infallible. David Stern has long dismissed talk of biased officiating by stating that his referees get "95% of the calls right." The other five percent is due to the speed of the game and the fact that the refs are human and can make mistakes.

That shouldn't stop him from looking more closely at his officiating crews. A person who is consistently bad at his job finds a pink slip in his mail box in the real world. Consider this gem dropped on us by Jack McCallum at sportsillustrated.com,

Donaghy is the least-regarded of the Cardinal O'Hara foursome, which also includes Joey Crawford, Mike Callahan and Ed Malloy. One NBA coach called him "absolutely the worst referee in the league" but others were kinder. "I'd put him about in the middle," said another coach, requesting anonymity. "Then again, it's a large and undistinguished middle."

Um . . . wow. I have heard coaches talk about officiating after games, but never have I heard them single one out. This one flat out calls Donaghy the worst ref in the league. It would be no wonder that Donaghy wasn't looked at more closely by Stu Jackson, since the penalties for complaints about officiating, and in particular naming specific referees, border on the clinically insane. Ask Mark Cuban how much it costs to bag a ref.

David Stern brought this whole mess upon himself by making his officials beyond reproach, shrouding penalties and disciplinary action for poor officiating from the general public. It was rather Stalin-esque, if you ask me. The Russian dictator's personal guard ran rampant once it was established that any question of their authority was punishable by death, by order of Stalin himself. Eventually they ran amok, causing a backlash against Stalin among his population, and there was no way he was going to kill everyone. So he disbanded them, and the rest is Communist history.

After his smug performance on the Dan Patrick show after the game four suspension fiasco, I am enjoying the show, watching with breathless anticipation to see how Commissioner Stalin handles is own mishandling of the guard. I love the idea that Karma just came back and bit David Stern on the ass like a dog on the postman.

This is beautiful, and, may I say, well-deserved.

Underneath all this mafia madness lies a beautiful irony -- Vegas. Stern is reticent to put a franchise where gambling is legal, and this Donaghy scandal puts a dent in that whole plan, even as Las Vegas continues to host NBA sponsored events. Watch Stern punk out on a huge marketing coup and financial windfall.

See, this kind of thing rarely happens in Vegas. Gambling is legal there, so there is an entire security industry devoted to catching cheats. When they catch someone, they take care of them swiftly and quietly, and that person will be lucky to lay a legal bet anywhere in the continental United States ever again. And they do this, not because they want to maintain the integrity of their gambling establishments, but because they want to protect their assets.

Point shaving schemes and game-fixing are as good as stealing as far as the casinos are concerned. The more a cheater wins, the bigger the felony. It's a matter of protecting their own interests, and they do a damn fine job at it.

Now imagine if these guys were enlisted to oversee officiating and monitor for point shaving and game fixing. Tim Donaghy may never have lasted two months, if the Vegas posse were involved.

That just goes to show the counter-intuitive nature of Stern's recent decision-making. The police are outside, the criminal is inside, and Davey boy locks the front door. How can I not have a good time with this?

Hello Hell

Talk about a cynical blogger's wet dream. Holy Jesus in a trench coat. TWO stories to piss me off in one day, and it's the OFFSEASON? God truly must be a Suns fan.

I'm sure we've all heard by now the news about Kurt Thomas. Is anyone really surprised that Dirty was traded? Is anyone still ensconced 'neath a large stone that they need to be told that the Suns number one priority this offseason was to minimize the luxury tax hit, or can we just move on with the part of this deal that truly IS surprising? Good, let's go.

Why now?

I understand why the Suns got so little return (conditional 2nd rounder and a trade exception, neither of which are likely to be used...ever) on the deal while giving up so much (two MORE first rounders?). It makes perfect business sense to give away $8 million of tax burden.

But why NOW?

The league sent out its luxury tax bills this week, sure, but they aren't payable until the trade deadline. I figured that the Suns would be smart (fool me twice) and hold onto Thomas until February, when his trade value should be much higher, and the team wouldn't have to give up two first round draft picks. More likely, the Suns would have gotten a conditional first round pick in return, instead of the conditional second round pick. (Why a second round pick would have conditions, I don't know.)

Think Charlotte, or more likely Washington wouldn't like to have a veteran big man to help out in a playoff push?

Congratulations on another bizarrely short-sighted move by Sarver and Kerr. Giving away James Jones doesn't seem all that sensible anymore.

That's just bad timing, though.

Talk about GOOD timing, 13 year veteran NBA referee Tim Donaghy was introduced to the Feds.

There is going to be a lot of speculation by everyone outside San Antonio whether this guy is responsible for helping to put the Suns in a 2-1 hole against the Spurs. Remember that miraculous comeback in game 4? Remember how the Suns battled back against the Spurs, down 11 points in the fourth quarter, then came away with a huge upset and homecourt advantage? That was also the game that was called rather favorably (read: EVENLY) for the Suns. Duncan and Parker were called for travelling. Duncan was in foul trouble. Ginobili wouldn't get away with a flop if his mother called in for him. And Robert Horry took out Steve Nash, and subsequently Amare Stoudemire and Boris Diaw for the next game.

Well, the game before that one was called infamously one-sided in favor of the Spurs. Bill Simmons even talked about it back in May, so I know I'm not just making it up. No sour grapes here, my friend. Only a small amount of vindication.

Tim Donaghy was on the officiating crew of that game.

I remember that game distinctly because I logged my discontent as it played out. (You'll also notice that I predicted the Suns game 4 win and, more importantly, the foul calling, though I foresaw the method inaccurately.) The Suns were playing well in the first half, despite some shaky foul calling. The third quarter turned ugly, as the free throw disparity ballooned. When the game was in hand, the Suns were finally getting calls. As D'Antoni famously implored the refs, "NOW you're going to call it?"

This is an ugly story that should get even uglier - coyote ugly, if you will - if there is any justice in the world. So far, though, David Stern is going out of his way to portray this as an isolated incident, which it may well be. But that isolated incident intersected with the Suns run to a Championship this year, and I'd wager (yeah, I know) that anyone outside San Antonio saw it for what it was at the time. The biggest sham in the NBA since Orlando won the lottery as a .500 team.

Sure, the Suns COULD have still overcome and won that series after the controversial suspension, but how does it all look now that this "alleged" game-fixing ref might have been in a position to hand the Spurs a victory? How can David Stern erase that elephant of a line connecting the game 3 officiating bias and his own arrogant interpretation of an archaic rule?

He can't.

There is nothing he can say that will convince me, as a Suns fan, that there is no connection. At the very least, I perceive it as two independently biased actions meant to put extra money into someone's pocket, for whatever reason.

Does this mean that I am so disillusioned that I will not watch the NBA next year?

Not at all. On the contrary, I'm too interested to see how the League recreates the illusion of equity within the officiating. I feel like Ralphie the night before Christmas, knowing in my heart I'm going to get that BB gun and take down Black Bart once and for all.

I've got my sight set. Seven-six-two millimeter. Full metal jacket.

*Update: I do have game 3 on my PC, but I haven't filtered the copy protection, yet. I may just watch that very closely tonight and document any suspicious calls/non-calls made by Donaghy. I remembered one specific non-call from the end of that game, and I did find it at 2:48 of the 4th quarter. This should be interesting.

Equine Necroflogging

I'm feeling selfish at the moment. I have a mad compulsion to be truthful in the same manner as to break up an otherwise happy marriage. I want to lay it on the line, and tell my wife that last month at her birthday party, I fucked her 20 year old sister in the bathroom at the strip club. I'm sorry, dear, but I can't continue with this burden of guilt hanging over me. I feel that it would be unfair to proceed under false pretenses, and I want to afford you the opportunity to decide our fate.

Not to beat a dead horse, I want the Suns to go full bore at Kevin Garnett. I want to see a front line of KG, Amare Stoudemire, and Grant Hill leading the Suns to the championship this season. Any regular to this blog knows of my man crush on Shawn Marion for his versatility and defense, but I think that the shooting and passing that KG brings is worth the sacrifice of all Marion's talents, luxury tax be damned.

Robert Sarver is an outsider of sorts to Phoenicians, despite his ties to the University of Arizona and Lute Olsen. He needs to understand exactly what this team means to those of us who have suffered years of disappointment and missed opportunities, which means that he needs to acknowledge that the organization as a whole owes it to us to bring an NBA title to the valley.

He is a fan just like the rest of us, so I hope he understands just how much he owes it to himself, on behalf of all of us long-suffering Suns faithful, to consider sacrificing a cherished piece of the current Suns line up for a greater good. I know that Matrix deserves a championship more than any of us, which is the sad irony of it all, but i warned that I am feeling selfish.

I'm sorry, Sweetheart, I'm in love with your sister.

I love you too much as a fan, Shawn, to be so disloyal as to consider cheating on you, let alone replacing you. It's just something I think about in the shower when you're away for three months, and I need a basketball fix. I just work through the scenario in my mind over and over again as the steaming water washes over my back until the tension can be released.

Although, I do wonder if you have ever fantasized about Jack Nicholson or Spike Lee sitting next to the visitor's bench.

We all have our fantasies.

Waiting to Exhale

(Author's note: Originally started 6-14-07)

Exhale - Marc Iavaroni.

Inhale - Steve Kerr.

Exhale - lottery pick.

Inhale - Grant Hill.

Exhale - James Jones.

Inhale - luxury tax.

We knew long ago that coach Iavaroni would be leaving the organization this summer, a loss offset by the Suns' loss in the lottery. Atlanta nailing the third pick alleviates the impact of Iavaroni's loss because the Suns would have used that pick to bring in a young big man, and it was the coach's job to develop such players. His departure is softened further by the fact that, of five head coaching vacancies in the NBA this offseason, Alvin Gentry is staying. Instead of having to replace two veteran assistants, the Suns can get away with bringing in another new face to the coaching ranks. Scot Williams has applied for the job.

Despite all the disappointment of the season so far, this is not the worst case scenario. Actually, the odds seemed to have favored circumstances playing out exactly as they have. Atlanta had a one in three shot at landing a top three pick, and those are good poker odds. In baseball, that's an all star stat. Steve Kerr's inclusion into the mix was retrospectively predictable, and the salary issues have been looming for two years. We knew this was coming.

Yet for some reason, we all fell under the spell of the number four draft pick in a loaded class. I stopped saying "4-7" well before the playoffs started, and everywhere we turned someone was wondering aloud what the Suns would do with the 4th pick in the draft.

Oops.

That's what we get for watching too much television and listening to too many experts. But, hey, we were all sucked into the fantasy. Even this guy (whom my buddy, Kelly Dwyer, demanded that we read*) speculated on the Suns trade future after the second round of the playoffs, saying "the Suns could use their lottery pick to try to find another athletic forward." That was on May, 23.

All the hype, and none of the payoff. When will the predictability end?

Four or five years ago, some friends and I were planning a party for one of our friend's birthday. Typically, parties for our group just kind of happened. It usually started with a phone call between two of us talking about how we had nothing to do, and after an hour or so of brainstorming and a quick trip to the grocery store, people just sort of showed up and we were in the middle of a party.

And they were always great parties, however intimate they may have been (usually six or seven regulars with a little fresh meat thrown in). Pete watched The Food Network religiously, so he was our default resident chef. And he was damn good, too. On one non-party occasion, he decided to make a soup from scratch with a lot of stuff that I generally don't like to eat. Onions, kidney beans, celery (which I can't stand cooked), and lots of good, nutritious stuff that I tend to avoid. Well, considering that I went through three servings in about 15 minutes, Pete decided to name it "Crack whore soup". This wasn't so much due to my suddenly ravenous eating habits as it was my insistence that he make more right then. Yes, I was the crack whore of the soup, and I am still proud of that distinction. Nothing pleases a chef more than concocting a dish that even Morris the Cat would devour greedily.

For parties? One amazing Sunday, Pete was in the mood to experiment with a standing rib roast - prime rib before it's been sliced into single servings. The logic that follows is pretty simple. We have this gourmet meat, why not take it a step further? Surf and turf, anyone? Prime rib, crab legs, steamed asparagus, mashed potatoes, home made garlic bread . . . and Guinness. Corona usually sufficed, but this was spontaneity at its finest.

Alcohol played a large role in our get-togethers. It wasn't that we needed it to have fun, but in the context of a party, it proved vital in preventing such maladies as, say, Massive Sperm Build-up. Whether we stayed at home, went to the pool hall or a bar, we used alcohol in as many forms as we could find/make it as a way of transition from the banalities of working in a call center to the realities of young adulthood. As long as we maintained a certain degree of a medicated state, we coped with the fact that we were slaves of corporate America. These events and the key elements of food, alcohol, and weed were all that protected the world from Operation Mayhem taking place in downtown Tempe.

The birthday party was planned two weeks in advance. The day of the party, I went to pick up Pete and his girlfriend, and they immediately informed me that I had been designated as a driver. No, I was not happy about it. Yes, I agreed to it because I was the logical choice, as I was most likely to resist the temptation of the drink.

I was also the least likely to resist the temptation of our friend's stunningly hot, barely legal younger sister. It wasn't that I was trying to get in her pants. She and I just got along really well because we were both trained dancers. That, and whenever we were all hanging out, I was the one that received the unexpectedly long and comfortable goodbye hug. So when she walked up to me at the party with a tray of Gummi bears soaked in vodka, how in the world was I going to say no -- especially when she was spoon feeding them to me?!

I don't remember much of the party after that, except for Pete kicking me in the ribs while I was orally expelling excess toxins at the side of the house and yelling something about how he was going to have to get a cab.

Oops.

Steinbeck was no fool. The best laid plans, indeed.

Unfortunately for me, the Suns didn't have a smokin' hot younger sister to bring in Kevin Garnett or the fourth overall pick. Instead, we all became the designated drivers for the Hawks and whomever wins the KG sweepstakes in late September. Hopefully our team doesn't suffer the same effects as I did in my role as DD.

The Suns have other concerns, now, and it's all just a matter of time before we know where our team stands. In the mean time, I'm just going to hold this one sweet breath, and wait.







*Note: Kelly Dwyer basically said that Harlan Schreiber's blog is what inspired him to start his career as whatever-it-is-that-he-is. What cracks me up is how he describes the guy.

"Schreiber's take is often a nuanced one, you won't see too many black-or-white pronouncements with this guy; mainly because he knows the game, and respects his readership. I love that. I don't deserve that, but I love it."

I like to think that the "respects his readership" line is a personal dig, because everything he says about that guy is at least as true about mine.

"[Y]ou'll just have to steady yourself with actual, honest-to-goodness NBA insight. Schreiber's about as best in the blogosphere - or mainstream media, for that matter - when it comes to that insight."

Thanks for the compliment, KD.