Sunday, July 22, 2007

Are the Spurs the real champs?

Your 2007 NBA champs, the Phoenix Suns....

Most of the people who believe in such a counterfactual history think the Game 5 suspensions of Amare Stoudemire and Boris Diaw were the key to the wrong team winning the Spurs-Suns series. Now, it turns out Game 3, with calls missed so badly that the play by play announcers had to comment, was called by... Tim Donaghy. As Bill Simmons points out, this is the league's nightmare, and it won't end any time soon. The reality that the league champ might be so through ref malfeasance was broached by Simmons in the 2006 Finals, and he now appears prescient. Unless David Stern manages to make the refs more accountable, their evaluation more transparent, and their temptation to cheat less profitable (presumably by paying them a great deal more), the league may have a credibility problem that will eventually make it the inferior of pro wrestling.

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