TheGoldSeat

It has been one incredible and disturbing week in sports. I’m left wondering at what point did ESPN.com become Fox News? As I write this post the top five stories on the AP sports wire have nothing to do with sports but rather the cheaters and law breakers involved in them. You have the NBA ref situation, the Tour de France favorite testing positive after a win, Vick being asked not the report to training camp, the Bonds vs. Selig will he be there debate, Gary Player stating he knows of at least one pro golfer who has used steroids, the Marlins Olsen getting in a police fight, gophers player suspensions and on and on. And all of this after a summer of NFL player problems.

What went wrong? When billions of dollars are wrapped up into TV deals, millions invested in players and 24/7 TV and internet coverage consumes us, does it all fall apart?

With Vick, Pacman, Bonds, steroids, bicyclists doping - these things will be cleaned up and pass with time. But I don’t see the NBA recovering soon. The problem is the NBA already lived in a cloud of controversy. As I’ve blogged about before when the Wolves lost in LA in an “unusually” reffed last few minutes to cover the spread. People have always questioned the refs in the NBA, before we learned of Donaghy. This isn’t a new problem, people have been complaining about how the NBA is set up to fix games for years. The ways “special” players like Kobe and Wade some how shoot 20 free throws a game. How star players never foul out.

Bill Simmons is one of my favorite ESPN writers and he has written an unbelievable account of what this could all mean for the NBA. He like myself has always been questioning how the NBA system works. He has written a half dozen articles about ref’s manipulating games. In June 2006 Simmons wrote about WWE type help that pulled the Heat out of a 0-2 hole. His opening line of that column over one year ago - “Forget about who’s winning the championship. I’m starting to feel like the future of the NBA is at stake.”

In Bill’s latest article he references ESPN’s own J.A. Adande with his take

“When news of the scandal broke on Friday, as J.A. Adande pointed out in his column on ESPN.com that day, every diehard NBA fan had the same reaction. They weren’t thinking, “I can’t believe it!” or “Oh my God, how could this happen?” They were thinking, “Which one was it?” This was like finding out that your grandfather who smoked three packs a day for 50 years just came down with lung cancer. It was sad but inevitable. It was only a matter of time. “

It was only a matter of time. And we still don’t know how many were involved. What if Donaghy knows more? What if he squeals? It could get worse. It was so bad last year that Mavs owner Cuban almost sold his team, he was that heart broken by the officiating irregularities. He started feeling like it wasn’t sport anymore, it was manipulated entertainment.

The article is long, but it is very, very good. It deals with everything from fixed games, Championships in doubt to LeBron being completely ineffective at the 2006 World Championships when he couldn’t get bailed out like he would in the NBA.

Read the Article Here - Wake up, fellas. Rome is burning.