My favourite picture of former NBA Ref Tim Donaghy...he's such a weasel...

OK…have you had enough of Ref-Gate yet? Me too…until there is an actual report from the Feds, we really don’t know the extent to which this is either a conspiracy involving a number of people, or just the action of one man…However, I have to say, one quote that David Stern came forward with was very telling:

"Doing the best you can,'' he said, "doesn't always mean that criminal activity by a determined person can be prevented.''

Stern as much as admitted in the press conference (transcript here http://proxy.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=2947534) that his screening process for refs does not screen out criminal behaviour or addiction. Well, his next iteration of that process better accomplish just that, otherwise public (not to mention player) confidence in the NBA will never recover. Plus, watch the fallout on having a team in Vegas now. Stern will have a much harder time making peace with sports betting now that his life’s work has been victimized by it, but he’ll have to focus on the problem: gambling as an addiction. Addiction in medical terms is defined as “…compulsive repetition of a behaviour with a disregard for outcome of consequence.” I see the problem here as not one of sports betting, but one of the trouble that resulted from a person not able to stop sports betting. It’s no different than an addiction to alcohol. Plenty of folks drink without becoming alcoholics…plenty of people bet without becoming bet-aholics…

Here’s Charley Rosen (who I generally can’t stand) of Foxsports.com with a reminder that this has happened before:

http://msn.foxsports.com/nba/story/7048994

Great Newark Star-Ledger article from Dave D’Alessandro with former official Mike Mathis expressing himself about failures in regulating officials with Stern as commissioner:

http://www.nj.com/sports/ledger/index.ssf?/base/sports-2/1185337745294500.xml&coll=1

Oops…one more item…Frank Deford of SI.com with his opinion on Ref-Gate:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/writers/frank_deford/07/25/gambling/index.html

Other notes:

Here’s a “Wow, where did all the shooters go?” note: Casey Jacobsen has resurfaced with a free-agent deal in Memphis…Jacobsen played in Germany last year where he was league MVP…

Interesting archive of best games by writer at SI.com:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/writers/best_game/archive/index.html