Everybody's Doing It

I have to give it to David Stern for even publicly admitting this, but maybe he didn't have a choice.

Following the NBA board of governors' meeting, Commissioner Stern made the revelation that every single one of the 56 NBA referees had engaged in gambling in some form or another.

Ha! That is too good! You mean not one of them hadn't played the lotto, pulled the one-armed bandit, or bet on a horse race. That has to be a bad feeling, when you have a rule that every single person who is supposed to follow it has broken.

Wisely figuring out that "it's not you, it's me" is the best way to get out of this one, Stern has decided to change the rule to make it workable.

"Everyone violated the rule in some way, whether it was playing poker, buying lottery tickets & but I don't consider it a violation of the rules to buy a lottery ticket or play golf for $5," Stern said.

($5? What are you paying these guys?)

Well, either change it, or become a laughing stock when all of the refs take turn serving their suspensions. The new rules will allow some gambling, including casinos during the off-season, although some owners thought that in-season casino gambling should be allowed, too. Some other rules changes:

• The identities of the referees assigned to specific NBA games will now be released the morning of the game, rather than 90 minutes before tip-off. Stern said this would eliminate that information being used as currency in the gambling business.

• Referees will be given more training and gambling-related counseling during the season, rather than the past practice having them attend one lecture prior to the season.

• Referees will be subject to more detailed background and security checks, and the league will begin to look at statistical trends in NBA games and how they correspond to gambling trends in those games.

• The league will promote more accessibility between referees and NBA teams, and more formal interaction between them.

This last one is interesting. Maybe to know the refs is to love them?

I actually respect Stern more for being man enough to admit that the rule didn't work. It looks like nobody had an interest in enforcing the rule to begin with:

"About half had gone to casinos over a period of years with no great frequency. No sports books. No bookmakers," Stern said, adding that enforcement of the gambling rule was so lax that referees traditionally held a large poker tournament at their annual meeting.

Wow. That's not lax enforcement. I believe that's called sanctioning.

NBA players, take note. If you want to get Stern to change the ridiculously strict rules on attire, band together and agree to show up in hoodies with your jeans around your knees. Karl Malone's gone, so you just might be able to get everyone to go along with it. . .

In other news, Stern announced that the NBA definitely won't be sanctioning all involved in the Anucha Browne Sanders case until the appeals process has been completed. Fair enough. But he has ordered that every employee on all 30 teams undergo sensitivity training. Hmm. I wonder how will Isiah will feel when they play his deposition tape as Exhibit A: Do NOT Do This.