A federal judge sentenced disgraced referee Tim Donaghy to 15 months in prison today for taking payoffs from a professional gambler for inside tips on games, it should have been 15 years.
Yes, I realize the maximum sentence under the federal guidelines is only 33 months, but the punishment doesn't fit the crime, or should we say "fix the crime."

Fixing games is the NBA's worst nightmare. There have been point shaving scandals in basketball before, and this while being the latest, it could also be the worst because it involves the men with the whistles. As fans we expect the refs to be impartial, but if they're on the take they can't be.

Quoting the Associated Press, "the ruling closes a chapter in the scandal". The important word is "chapter", because the complete "book" is still to be written. While the league angrily denies Donaghy's claim corruption among referees runs deeper than one bad referee, we are left to wonder. The facts show Donaghy communicated with other officials before he contacted his gambling friends. We can only imagine what those conversations were about.

The League is working hard to make sure there aren't any other rogue officials. They hired a retired General to be its latest drill sergeant, and that may help. But here is the difficulty, more than any other team sport, basketball refs can control the flow of the game. A lot of whistles early and the game is "slow." No whistles and the game can be "physical."

One of the memories we are left with from this past postseason was a shot taken by the Spurs Brent Barry in the waning moments against the Lakers. The replays show Barry who was recently signed by the Rockets was clearly fouled by Derek Fisher, however there were no whistles. Immediately there was a conspiracy theory. Before the Donaghy situation something like this would have been dismissed as "Sports talk." Now that all refs are under suspicion, the conspiracy theory has more substance.

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