NOTE: All links in this article open on a completely new window so you can check the references without anybody finding out your original source and interfering with your reading, if you know what I mean...
Many of you will have noticed Henry Abbott's TrueHoop post in which he solicited opinions from various NBA writers on whether the Donaghy scandal will bring down the league. He actually did write me as well, and I did respond, but my response didn't make the final cut to get posted. I assume that's because I said, "Basically no because unless the provable cheating reaches the level of the rumored cheating over the years (cold envelope, foul shots for Lakers), which basically means a smoking gun pointing right to the league office, people will just shrug." Astute readers will notice that response was very similar to the one given by the world-famous "Long Time Media Representative Who Wishes to Remain Anonymous", right down to the cold envelope reference. Given the choice between the two, you can just see how Henry would want to go with the more famous writer. I mean, the LTMRWWTRA...you just don't get quotes from sources like that every day. So having been edged out because I was brilliant enough to be duplicated by people above my station, I am now officially changing my answer.
YES. This scandal will absolutely bring down the league and don't think the higher ups aren't quaking in their boots. You see, Tim Donaghy's bookie had a side interest that few people know about. He ran a cabbage farm just outside of Poughkeepsie, New York. Even fewer people know that said cabbage farm is actually a cover for one of the largest government-sponsored remote viewing stations in the country. Remote viewing, as you may know, is where specially trained operatives use the power of their mind to view a specific point in space and time. They cannot control what they view, but they're pretty good at where and when. Now, the cabbage farm has sixteen fields with fourty-two rows each on 501 acres of land. Divide sixteen and fourty-two by two and multiply 501 by four (so it balances) and you end up with eight...twenty-one...two thousand five. Combine this with the number and direction of rotations the tractors and combines perform to seed, spray for weeds, and harvest (39 + 55 to the north and 32 + 55 to the east, which everyone knows is the latitude and longitude of Ankara, Turkey) and you get your exact date and place for remote viewing.
Indeed when the project did remote view Ankara, Turkey for 8/21/2005 they saw something interesting: a federal Undersecretary for Urban Planning talking to a man in a dark coat smoking a cigar. "What was an Undersecretary for Urban Development doing in Turkey?" you ask. That's what you're SUPPOSED to ask. The real question is who was the guy with the cigar. Though his face remained shrouded throughout the viewing his cigar was quite prominent...and it was Cuban. Tracing the cigar you will find it was made in a small shop in the city of Moron (delightful, eh?) in the province of Ciego de Avila. But get this...all Cuban cigar makers wrap their cigars the exact same way: clockwise. Except...you guessed it...this cigar maker. He wraps his cigars counterclockwise. 134 precise counterclockwise wraps in every cigar.
Now counterclockwise is simply a fancy way of saying "left" and if you travel 134 kilometers to the left after you walk out the front door of the shop you will find a small village. Everyone in this village has been told not to talk to strangers so they will give you cold stares and shun you as you walk the streets. Nevertheless there is a crazy savant in the town square who will rock back and forth muttering the same phrase over and over "a coin de la rue...a coin de la rue". (Why does he speak in French when he's Cuban? He's a CRAZY savant, remember?) Every so often he will throw in two words: "Pourquoi Trevoux?" (translation: Why, Mr. Trevoux?) French film buffs will immediately recognize the reference to the 1944 French comedy/farce/thriller L'Aventure est au coin de la rue wherein young Pierre Trevoux is inspired to adventure by a nightclub performance. And indeed this small village has one very odd feature: a stylish, modern nightclub.
If you walk to the nightclub you will be refused entry the first eight times you try. But on the ninth try the bouncer will nod at you and point you around back, where you will find the wreck of a very large ship, hauled inland a ways to make a museum or conversation piece...we may never know which. If you climb onto this wreck you will find it hollow inside. As you descend (bring proper lighting) you will find all the way in the back a sizeable hole. This hole opens onto an abandoned cistern, once used as a water source for the town but now bone dry. The rope and bucket still work, however. If you pull the bucket up from the bottom you will find it empty EXCEPT for a small, faded, black and white picture of Marsha Warfield, who you will recognize immediately from her most famous role: Roz the Bailiff on Night Court. That is the final piece of the puzzle to a scandal so hidden, yet so frightening, that it will shake the very foundations of the NBA.
Don't you get it? Back of the ship...stern. Stern, of course. Cistern...well. Roz? Stern...Roz...well. Stern Roswell. Ladies and gentlemen, David Stern is not the occasionally feisty human lawyer you have grown to know and hate. That is what they want you to think. He's actually an alien. The entire NBA is one, great, alien-led plot, designed to...designed to...well we don't exactly KNOW what it's designed to do yet but at least we know what it is now, thanks to the Donaghy scandal. They finally tripped up. Obviously this news will destroy the league as we know it and there's no telling how the aliens will react. Be afraid people. Be very afraid.
And THAT is the real scoop. If this blog goes dark in the next couple of days, you know why. Convey my love to my wife...and a little bit to Kevin Pritchard. In a manly way. Mostly.
--Dave (blazersub@yahoo.com)