WHY NBA REFEREE TIM DONAGHY BET ON NBA GAMES

Coach Tim Donaghy plead guilty to and was convicted and sentenced to a year in jail for betting on Nba games most of those he was officiating in. He recently sat down with the TV show "60 Minutes" and revealed a lot of truths that many fans already could see everyday they watched certain teams play, especially in the NBA Playoffs and the NBA Finals.

Donaphy admitted to Bob Simon that he bet on well over 100 NBA games. He was very candid about what he had done and seemed remorseful for betraying a game that had done so much for him and his family. The ex-ref stated that even though he was the only coach he knew of that were betting on the games that there was a culture in the NBA that allowed him to be successful at picking the outcome of games and predicting the point spreads that the game would end with. And successful he was. Donahy stated and the FBI confirmed that he was successful at picking the outcomes of 70 to 80% of the games that he officiated. That's the same as picking the right outcome of 7 to 8 correct games out of every 10 games played. While Tim stated that he was a addicted to gambling at country clubs and card games amongst other places, he did say that no matter what the NBA game outcome were that he did not throw any games by using bad officiating. He stated that he never made bad calls even when he bounced San Antonio Spurs Head Coach Greg Popovich out of a game that ended up causing the Spurs the game.

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While he cited regrets he really seemed to show fear in his eyes for what he said was the downside of his gambling on NBA games. The fact that he was contacted by the mob to give them his pics on the games. He stated that a member of the Gambino Crime Family had contacted him and threatened to send someone to Florida to harm his wife and kids if he didn't give them what they want. In exchange for the inside information on the games he received $2,000 from the mob for every time he picked the correct game. After he was sent to jail he was assaulted by a guy who said he represented the crime family and he received blows to his knee with some type of object that will require him to have surgery some day.

Ex-NBA referee Tim Donaphy has since served his time and has now written a book called titled Personal Foul, “The book the NBA doesn’t want you to read” will be released in select stores on December 4th 2009. The book details his life of gambling an the culture of the NBA that he says others should know about. But even though this is the first time an official has stated there are issues with officiating NBA games, any hardcore NBA fan will readily agree. The NBA called Donaphy a rouge referee and would not let anyone else in the NBA be interviewed about this story.