Word: ref
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...scandal is hardly trivial. If even one NBA ref, whose calls are often subjective and controversial, were shown to be tainted, it would strike at the very integrity of the game. When the NBA opens its season this fall and a referee blows a call, there will doubtless be more than one fan who will tap his buddy and say, "Hey, is that ref pulling a Donaghy?" But that's if fans even remember his name. The Donaghy scandal could grow; or, just as likely, it could sink into the oblivion of a slow summer news week - with baseball hitting...
...cage. Sofie Bagherdai, otherwise a sweet, petite teenager from Southern California, has her opponent, Stephanie Palmer, pinned to the floor. Now she's ready to work--whack, a shot to the noggin. Bam! Pow! Boom! Half a dozen more. Palmer cowers in the fetal position, and the ref stops the fight. The medics cart Palmer out on a stretcher. (She escapes with a fractured foot, suffered earlier in the bout--which seems minor, considering the beating she took.) "I like to be friendly to my opponents, but from the start, she's been mad-dogging me, looking...
...Kevin Durant: It will be fun to try to stop LeBron James, though it's not going to happen at all. It will be a task at hand-I'm going to need a couple of guys, and maybe even the ref-to help...
...Okur, not Howard, had instigated a mini-scuffle after the Houston forward committed a tough, but not intentional, foul. Last weekend, referee Bob Delaney went so far as to call a technical on Phoenix Suns assistant coach Mark Iavaroni at midcourt during halftime. And even before the playoffs, longtime ref Joey Crawford grabbed headlines when he kicked the league's stoic superstar, Tim Duncan, out of a game for laughing on the bench after a foul call against one of his teammates. As the two exchanged words in the aftermath, Crawford also asked Duncan if he wanted to fight...
...random, officiating can be. Few coaches, players or fans will deny that superstar players like Kobe Bryant, LeBron James or Dwyane Wade - as was ridiculously evident in last year's NBA Finals - get more favorable calls, or that home teams invariably get more of the benefit of a ref's whistle. But their willingness to call technical or flagrant fouls in crucial situations for actions that a few years ago would have been ignored has led many observers to believe that the refs' egos are getting too big for their own, and the game's, good. "The bothersome thing...