Wait , Refs give out Star Treatment?

Tim Donaghy's lawyer filed court documents alleging that NBA referees have decided the outcome of games by giving preferential treatment to certain teams, star players, or to create game 7 match ups that boost ratings and dollars. Is this supposed to be news? The NBA by far has the most inept referees out of any major league sports (excluding European Futbol which is evidently run by the mafia). Half of the NBA refs look like gangsters or mafia folk. The slick backed hair referee should have been on the Sopranos. The other half of the referees are too old (Dick Bevata) or women (sorry, this is terrible but true, so far women haven't cut it as NBA refs).

Put simply, NBA referees would have a hard time calling a pick up game (Merel's pick up games especially). They wouldn't know a traveling call if Patrick Ewing whispered in their ear that a traveling violation occurred (Case in point, Game 2 of Celtics-Lakers, Vladicic or whatever his name is break away traveling dunk). Even worse, they are way too easily swayed by home court fans and whining coaches (see Phil Jackson).

For example, my relative Omar asked before game 3 whether Kobe would put up 30 points (he likes to bet) in Game 3. I told him that the odds of Kobe scoring 30 were about 100%. I argued that Kobe would get at least 20 foul attempts at Staples (Sorry, off by two. he had 18). I knew it, Boston knew it, and hell David Stern knew it. This makes no rational sense. Referees should call fouls and violations because they see a foul violation, not because Boston is in on their home court or Phil Jackson or Mark Cuban whines about foul calls. The sanctity of the NBA is threatened more by these manipulable refs than by Donaghy himself.

So sorry if I'm not surprised that referees are/were intentionally calling games a certain way to benefit a team or player (even I must admit MJ got some dubious calls). When your best referees are an 80 year old and a Soprano character, this is bound to happen.

So what's the result? It results in people like myself turning off the game with 4 minutes to go because Rajan Rondo got called for a non-foul on Kobe Bryant. When calls like these are so predictable, it makes the NBA seem more like WWF wrestling than NBA basketball.