Tim Donaghy's quest to become the most hated man alive, 6

First we hated Donaghy for fixing games. Then we heard stories about how he's an asshole to basically everyone. Then we heard he has a legit addiction to gambling, and that the mob was pressuring him, and we put our rage against this man on hold for a second. Then we learned they were mafia wannabes, or something, and Donaghy did bet on some games he worked. While definitely affecting those games and the overall integrity of the League, the whole game fixing accusations sounded a bit above his competency. Then we heard more stories about how he's an asshole.

If you still weren't convinced, there's this:

"As part of his cooperation agreement with federal authorities, Donaghy will provide the names of officials who bet at golf courses, race tracks during the season and casinos, and are involved in football pools, the Daily News reported yesterday. Those activities would violate NBA restrictions"

No surprise that a bunch of refs (Donaghy will drop info on 20) like to bet on things. They're on the road a lot, and they make bank. Still they all new all this was prohibited, and made two errors in judgment: deciding to do it anyways and trusting Tim Donaghy.

Ok Ok Ok, Calm Down

There’s always a group that likes to scream about how the NBA is in a downward spiral towards collapse. They spend their time talking about how the league has never been worse, how everything we know is doomed. To me a particularly annoying part of the Tim Donaghy scandal is that these folks have something legit to stoke their fire and brimstone with. I was going to link to a few articles and in true blogger fashion, feature heavy quotations, but this really is everywhere. Maybe its your favorite columnist, or maybe its your favorite sports blog, you don’t have to travel far to read about the league’s impending demise. They talk about conspiracies, broken trust, and integrity forever lost. The end is near my friends. Its as if other sports haven’t recovered from worse.

No doubt, this is really bad, and has potential to be even worse. Maybe Cuban and has been right all along. The refs are in on it, the league is in on it, this whole thing really is fixed.

I guess I’m a minority on this, but it still looks like one crooked ref to me. This whole scandal sucks, no doubt, but am I alone in thinking that the league will ultimately be fine?