The NBA appears to have done it last night - twice!

I knew it the moment I read about the 2012 NBA Draft Lottery.  But I didn't think I'd see two articles (one by Yahoo!'s Adrian Wojnarowski and one referencing him on YardBarker) stating the obvious...

Not only was the 2012 NBA Draft Lottery fixed, and OBVIOUSLY SO, but most of the rest of the owners pretty much were resigned to the fact that it happened!

Why else would the top three picks, including Anthony Davis (Freshman Phenom, One-And-Done U), go to:

#1 pick:  The team owned by the NBA and about to be sold to Saints owner Tom Benson
#2 pick:  The team supposedly ran by basketball (false-)God (and harbinger of the Corporate Era of (Rigged) Sports) Michael Jordan
#3 pick:  The last team Jordan played for

So, why would it surprise anyone that Wojnarowski would write this today?


""It's such a joke that the league made the new owners be at the lottery for the show," one high-ranking team executive told Yahoo! Sports. "The league still owns the Hornets. Ask their front office if new owners can make a trade right now. They can't. This is a joke."
 
The reaction of several league executives was part disgust, part resignation on Wednesday night. So many had predicted this happening, so many suspected that somehow, someway, the Hornets would walk away with Davis. That's the worst part for the NBA; these aren't the railings from the guy sitting at the corner tavern, but the belief of those working within the machinery that something undue happened here, that they suspect it happens all the time under Stern."

Happens all the time?  Like in 1985, when the league openly rigged the first Draft Lottery to make "basketball [is] back in New York!" with Patrick Ewing?

Or how about these statements, the last (supposedly) by an NBA team president:

"In New Orleans this season, everyone followed orders. The Hornets feared crossing Stern could cost them not only jobs with the Hornets, but futures in the NBA. They ate that trade for Chris Paul to the Lakers, and dutifully sold the commissioner's story that it was never agreed upon, never completed. The Hornets played Darryl Watkins, Jerome Dyson and Lance Thomas 41-plus minutes in the final game of the season in an 84-77 loss to Houston. They played them until the Hornets bottomed out with six points in the fourth quarter of the loss that left them at 21-45 for the season.

"I bet I could get my owner to tank if I knew the chance of getting the No. 1 pick was 100 percent," an NBA team president said in an email."

And that was just the rig-job the NBA did OFF the court.

It's now clear to me that the NBA wants the Anti-Heroes From Miami in the Finals again.  In a 115-111 overtime victory to put the Heat two games away from achieving just that over the Boston Celtics:

• The foul count was 33-18 against Boston.
• Miami had 47 free-throw attempts, to Boston's 29
• Miami needed them all:  For the game, they only shot 66% from the line while Boston shot nearly 90%!
• Miami only scored five more points from the line (31-26) for the game.  They won by four in overtime.

 So explain THIS CALL in overtime:  105-105, 1:45 to go.

Rajon Rondo drives the lane and clearly, even in the long shot, gets hacked down in the back of the shoulder in the act of shooting.

Maybe it was the four technicals that Boston got called for in Game One that was why there wasn't much complaining.

You can clearly see the foul, even in the long shot (:08-:11), but an even worse one on the replay, as Rondo gets a shot from Dwayne Wade right in the face.

There can be no dispute in these playoffs.  Dwayne Wade has taken dirty play to a new level, especially as what now (with the Lakers and Bulls gone) is his status as the most protected player in the NBA.

Pull the other one, $tern.  I'm not fooled.

53 Players With No Place in the National Football League -- Introduction

A bit of a project I'm doing.

I'm going to come up with a(n approximate) NFL roster of players who have no place in the National Football League -- they should not be in it, nor allowed to be a player in the league.

Some ground rules:

• The player must be in good standing with the league at present.  No Johnathan Vilma, for example.
• The player must either have been on the roster at some point last season (and not retired) or is on the roster now.

That's pretty much it.  So we'll start at the glamour position in the next post.

And just when the NFL couldn't get any crazier this season, enter the state of New Jersey!!!

I've said a number of times that one of the many ways a game can be fixed or rigged is "for the benefit of [Las] Vegas" -- spread considerations, over/under, what have you.

Well, if the governor of the state has his way, New Jersey will flaunt a Federal ban on sports gambling in the other 46 states (Nevada is the only one with books, Oregon, Montana, and Delaware being the other three) and attempt to challenge the ban by instituting sports gambling in the Atlantic City casinos and racetracks in the state.

*facepalm*

Great.  ANOTHER state is going to add it's name to the total.

It's bad enough when one state has casinos which openly influence contests...

Soccer stories: Barton's slap on the wrist totals 12, Webb warns simulation may kill

Two stories of soccer in the brief interval between end of club season and the start of the European championships in about two weeks:

-- The ban is in for Joey Barton:  Twelve matches, says the FA.

The pontification by the FA went as follows:

"The chairman of the regulatory commission stated after the hearing: 'There are rules of conduct that should be adhered to, and such behavior tarnishes the image of football in this country, particularly as this match was the pinnacle of the domestic season and watched by millions around the globe.'"

I'd say.  But twelve matches, for a man with his record,  plus the stature of the match, plus the very ominous possibilities that such anarchy on the pitch could be the undoing of Queens Park Rangers in the Premier League just doesn't sit well for me.

It's as if the FA, knowing it got exactly what it wanted, let this on-pitch hooligan off easy.  Here's what I think he should've gotten:

• Four matches for the red
• Five matches for the kick to Aguero
• Five more for the fact that the kick was after he was served the red card
• Five more for blatant intent to injure
• Six more for the headbutt attempt to Kompany
• Six more than that for the fact that the attempt was after he was served the red card
• and the rest of a season for several "acts which bring the game into disrepute" 

And that doesn't take into account his previous record, the stature of the match, the fact that another QPR player actually advised him to get a Manchester City player sent off (THAT is a 10-12 match offense...) and the situation at hand.  I could give a season for just his acts on the pitch at that moment.

Twelve matches is a JOKE!

On a better note, World Cup 2010 Final referee Howard Webb was asked to speak at a recent FIFA conference and gave the most compelling argument to end the scourge of football that is diving/simulation:

It could quite literally kill somebody!!

Don't believe me?  Webb should know.  He was the referee on the fateful day that Fabrice Muamba collapsed on the pitch during an FA Cup tie.

Webb's quick action was lauded as the basis on which Muamba was allowed to survive his massive heart attack and his heart being stopped for a significant period of time!

So listen to Webb as he talks about the act of simulation in this article:

''If players and if people cry wolf too many times, then there is a possibility that maybe we will not react in the way we need to,'' Webb said. ''If we come under criticism for stopping the games too many times for doctors or physiotherapists to enter the field of play, then referees might be inclined not to stop the game.''

And that would kill somebody.  Period.

They've been looking for a long time to deal with diving and faking injuries.  I think they may finally have found the cure.

If you don't think the NBA still wants to drag the Miami Heat to this and multiple NBA titles...

I have the video of 2 flagrant fouls from Tuesday night to show you.

Now, the Heat certainly won Game 5 with little contest (which should be taken into account when you see the second of the flagrant fouls), but I do have to wonder how much the game would've changed in the second quarter (with Miami only up 7) if the officials had done their supposed job and called this an ejection flagrant-2.

It appears as if, after the foul, the referee is pointing off the court, as if to imply that he was ejecting Udonis Haslem (correctly, IMHO) for his two-hand clobber of Tyler Hansborough.

Under the rulebook of the NBA (from a list of all the 2011-2012 flagrant fouls (.pdf file):

A Flagrant-1 is called when "unnecessary contact [is] committed by a player against an opponent".  This is what eventually was called -- two shots and the ball.

A Flagrant-2 is called when the contact is not only unnecessary, but additionally excessive.  That's an ejection on top of two and the ball.

So will someone -- ANYONE -- outside of a Miami Heat fan explain to me why that contact with two hands was not, by definition, excessive?

Yeah, the game was in Miami.

Yeah, the crowd was supportive of the hack job.

But it's clear that the foul was unnecessary and excessive and Haslem, as the announcers point out, is a needed player in the absence of Chris Bosh.

Or are we all supposed to accept this because Miami has all the remaining star power on the floor and will be the only team people are going to want to watch play Boston in the Eastern Conference Finals (or is the league going to get rid of them to clear the road?  Game 7 against Philly Saturday night)?

But the whole situation dissolved into ridiculous when the second of the flagrant fouls occurred.

Dexter Pittman, with the game 115-78 in favor of Miami in the last minute, literally forearms to the ground Lance Stephenson.  Hits him square in the neck!

Another Flagrant-1.

At least the NBA gets this right:  Haslem and Pittman have both been suspended.  Haslem for Game 6, Pittman for Game 6 plus two more!

I'll make a prediction right now:  There will be violence in Game 6.

Uh, yes, Mr. Goodell, there was collusion...

Your penalties to cripple the Redskins and hamstring the Cowboys indicate that there was an agreement to hold salaries down, and that's collusion.

An uncapped year is an uncapped year.  Period.

And you got caught, and rightly taken to court on it today by the NFLPA.

I mean, we all know the real reason you're doing this, other than holding salaries down, is to force new ownership in Washington and get Jerry Jones to think real hard about changing his ways in Dallas.

But what you've done is far too obvious.

Is the EPL trying to make money off of "Hollywood Sunday", or are we getting censored here?

Ah, the perils of trying to show evidence to the world, so they can draw their own conclusions.

The EPL article I and others wrote for "The Fix is In" has been having a serious problem:  We seem to be going through highlight clips about as quickly as the FA and the EPL can pull them down.

I think we're at least on #3 or #4.  So, as I was looking AGAIN for Brian today, I noticed something:

I went to Sky Sports' website, and I noticed they had the highlights of the game, but only if:

1) You PAID FOR THEM on a subscription service

and

2) If you lived in the UK or the Republic of Ireland.

So, are we trying to hide the evidence or make money off the drama, English Premier League?