The Bill Bert Podcast - The Bill Bert | Episode 38 w. Tim Livingston

Episode Date: November 25, 2020

Bill and Bert prattle with journalist Tim Livingston of the 'Whistleblower' podcast about details in the NBA game fixing scandal, and the lesser known elements of the cover up.

Hey, what's going on, everybody? It's Bill Burr, and it's time for another wonderful episode of The Bill. Burt. Pod. Cast. What's going on? How are you, Burt? I'm doing good.

I'm having a clean today, Bill. Every time I clean, I think of you, because I know you like cleaning. I don't like cleaning. I just don't like a dirty house. Yeah, I'd rather live in misery and squalor and be happy. I can be happy as a hoarder. As a hoarder? Yeah, I could.

I could be happy. All right. Well, that's good. Do you follow the NBA, Bill? I used to follow the NBA. Somewhere along the line, once it was like all the stars became friends, then they all pile on one team and then beat the shit out of the other 30. There was something just weird about it. I sort of maintain, if you watch Jordan's The Last Dance, one of the best parts was when he

couldn't get past the Pistons, so he dug down deeper. He got tougher mentally, lifted weights. All these guys today, so many of them, at that point in their documentary, it's like you couldn't get past the Milwaukee Bucks, so what did you do? Oh, I just signed with them the next year. It'd be like Bird becoming a Laker or Magic becoming a Celtic. The whole thing is weird. But speaking of the NBA, we have a guy who wrote a book about some interesting things that have gone on in the NBA. Tim Livingston, everybody, who is welcome to the podcast.

Thank you. Thank you, Ben. So there was a computer. Andrew and I were talking about that offline. We did a podcast on the NBA, not wrote a book. Oh, I thought it was a book. Yeah, he's got a few. Andrew and I were talking about that offline. We did a podcast on the NBA, not wrote a book. Oh, I thought it was a book. Yeah, he's got a podcast. He's got a podcast called Whistleblower.

Who fixed the NBA? This is the biggest scandal in sports history that I got to be honest with you. I got whispers of, but it wasn't laid on to me like the way it was the Black Sox scandal. It wasn't laid on to me like the way it was the Black Sox scandal. And I know that it's as big, if not bigger than that. It got swept under the rug, I feel like, a little bit. And I got to be honest, I want to start here, Tim, because I don't want to get right into it.

But I'm curious. I stopped watching the NBA. When I got older than the players, for some reason, I no longer could enjoy it. When I was a kid and I looked up to them, I was there. I was like Magic Bird, Jordan, Isaiah, Dominique Wilkins. I was really into basketball. And then all of a sudden when I got old, like Sean Kemp's the last player, I was like, ah, I love that dude.

And then all of a sudden I became their age and I was like, eh. How do you feel about that, Tim? Well, this year's draft, all the kids were born in 2000 or 2001, which is truly bizarre. Yeah, right? But yeah, I grew up a huge basketball fan. I grew up in Los Angeles. I was a Lakers fan and kind of became disillusioned with the NBA

in similar ways that you guys did as I got a little bit older. But the big thing for me, and this is what the story is about, is the disillusionment really came from basketball being way too close to professional wrestling. And that's what we dive into in this podcast is how close was it the fine line between entertainment and a true athletic competition you know did they deviate along that line and that's that's kind of what this story is about well I gotta tell you I felt like in the 2000s people used to think I was a conspiracy theorist I was watching games that I'm going, these games are fixed. And people said, you're out of your mind. I clearly remember I went to a Utah Jazz game. The Celtics were in town.

I was doing a gig or something. I went to the game. And, you know, if the ref's calling it close, they're calling it close. Or if they're letting them play, they let them play. But this was like civil. They were doing both for like chunks of the game. Seven minutes they're letting him play, another seven minutes they're calling everything,

and I was just like, this is like they're switching off officiating things. And I also felt overall that that Celtics-Lakers thing that happened organically that then led us into the Bulls made that league pass everybody, and then they have tried to finesse. I wouldn't say fix, but they did everything they could because those were basically two super teams through the drafts and a couple of shrewd trades. Like Robert Parrish was a shrewd trade

um and like and I feel like ever since then they have been looking for the uh the the Celtics Laker thing again to the point I think they look the other way with the Kevin Garnett trade where we got him for nothing and Kevin McHale was in the front office and then all of a sudden the Celtics went from nothing to being in the two years in a row with the Lakers in the finals, or the final, whatever you call it. We win in 08 or something like that. And then in 09, like that was like a grudge match with the refs and Rasheed Wallace. And they were calling like reputation fouls in a game seven. They were

letting their Beyonce diva bullshit with this guy get in the way of the two franchises, which are the NBA. And I watched the Lakers beat the Celtics taking unguarded free throw shots, like something like 35 to like 15. And I don't know. I just felt like it just became like, and then LeBron going to the heat and how much they hated that. But everybody watched because they wanted him to lose. Then it became like the villain in wrestling. So then it's like, hey, let's let Durant go to the Warriors, which that season was just like a bad summertime movie. You knew what was going to happen from the very beginning. So that's kind of what happened with me.

No, you're right. No, you're right. Because, Bill, the big word, and it's not a – what I say is after our investigation, if you listen to all 10 episodes of Whistleblower, conspiracy theory, you can drop the word theory. There was a conspiracy here. And it went up to, during the Donahue scandal, it went up to the highest levels of government that made this thing go away. Because in 2007, 2008, there was an FBI investigation where they were going to wire up Tim Donahue. And he was going to call every referee in the NBA and say, hey, when Dick Pavetta referees a game six or a game seven,

does he have a motive? Does he want a certain team to win? And does the NBA want a certain team to win? And if you look at the 2002 Western Conference Finals between the Lakers and the Sacramento Kings, game six, that was the most egregious officiating in the history of the NBA. I mean, Ralph Nader wrote a letter to David Stern afterwards, Michael Wilbon and every basketball pundit out there said,

said as much, but there was no proof, right? Until Donahue came out and laid it all out. However, the NBA was able to say, well, Tim Donahue is a criminal,

which he was, he committed the Cardinal sin. You know, he was fixing games himself. But that's why this is such a fascinating scandal. If you have two eyes and you understand basketball, you understand that something was happening here. And what the NBA has tried to do, Bill, you're right,

is create storylines. Who's going to sell more tickets in 2002, Chris Webber and Vlade Divac or Kobe Bryant and Shaq? And that's really what this comes down to is over the last 20, 30 years, over the David Stern era, how many of these games were rigged? And according to our investigation, if you really look at the stats and you talk to the players who played in the game, we interviewed Rasheed Wallace, we interviewed Bonzi Wells

and Nate Robinson and George Carl and a bunch of other NBA figures. And look, the NBA is always going to have plausible deniability. Refereeing in general is the most subjective art form in the world. Anything can be a foul or nothing can be a foul. You can let them play or call everything. But at the end of the day, you know, were these games rigged? Was there a conspiracy or is it all conjecture? Is it all theory? In my opinion, there was a conspiracy here. I remember seeing Kevin Garnett. I think he might have been playing with Brooklyn Nets or something like that or whatever it was. No, he was with Brooklyn at the time talking about when he was playing with the celtics and they played somebody i forget who but he goes we were not part of the nba script

that year it was the closest i ever heard i mean it was like boxing it's i i actually you know i think it's like painfully obvious that how they were almost bankrupt and the Lakers-Celtics rivalry saved them, that that then became their business model. Once Jordan all of a sudden retires in 2008, what are we going to do? And they had the Spurs, but they lacked the star power sort of thing. People said that they were boring or whatever. And like, I mean, I think that there's just sort of an unwritten rule

that the Lakers have to be good. That like, they just got to sit, they just funnel, this is pipeline of free agents that just goes there. It doesn't make any sense to me that like Anthony Davis doesn't stay with New Orleans and then they get Zion

and then their fans get to enjoy a run. Like this whole thing where it's just like that one of their main cornerstones is the Lakers, yet they also abandoned New York Knicks. I don't know. It's a weird run league, but I do think just as far, it's a shit league for a fan unless you live in, like, certain markets. I mean, is it me?

They're basically telling Pelican fans to go fuck themselves, that you're essentially a professional farm team. Yeah. And that's – Can I jump in for one second I'm super lost I I can we start it at page one and kind of tell me because I heard Bill say that about the Lakers and the Celtics and that does make sense so so what you're saying is say you say it Tim I'd love to hear you I'm happy let's let's go back to the beginning so i mean bill's right the nba was almost the point of insolvency in the 80s when david stern took

over he was blessed in 1984 with michael jordan being drafted and the celtics and lakers creating this fantastic rivalry um and from there you know we saw saw the Pistons in the late 80s. And obviously, Jordan's Bulls after that, there was this great NBA storylines, there was great drama. But if you look at specific games, I'm not saying every NBA game was rigged throughout the course of history in the NBA. That's, that's ridiculous. That's not true. However, the NBA, I think, David Stern, particularly as a businessman realized bill to your point i mean stern was asked by dan patrick what is your ideal nba finals matchup do you guys know what he said what no lakers versus lakers so there's there's been this and and just saying that

if you're nba referee and you hear that, and the Lakers are playing the Jazz in the Western Conference Finals and it's game seven, and there's a 50-50 block charge call, you know, tie game fourth quarter with Kobe Bryant driving the basket, is that not going to influence the guys? Of course it is, right? So going back, there's David Stern. Just think of him as a puppeteer. And think of the referees as – I guess we're going from puppeteering to chess, but they were essentially, you know, his pawns and making sure that certain teams advanced to the NBA finals. even on my radar lifelong nba fan i went on this crazy journey with tim donahue and became friends with tim donahue and that's how i got all this information which we can get into but in 1993 i'm

interviewing george carl and the game seven of the two of the 1993 western conference finals it was sons with charles barkley versus burt your your boy sean camp and the sonics do you know how many i i forget if it's it's 64 Suns shot 64 free throws in game seven. And it was the most, you know, people on Twitter after we came out of this podcast have, you know, hit me up and said, you know, you were probably too young for that game. That was the most ridiculously fucking officiated game

in the history of basketball. And it was atrocious. And George Carl in game seven of the western conference finals said he almost got thrown out in the first quarter and just kind of had to sit down and and and watch knowing that this game was going to be rigged and so in the early 2000s it got really bad because the lakers were were the team and in 2000 against the trailblazers um shack and kobe have been together at that point for several years. They obviously had chemistry issues.

And the Lakers had that amazing comeback from 15 points down in the fourth quarter. And look, Portland missed a bunch of shots in that game. But, man, there were some really bad calls. And the Lakers ended up winning that title. And they won in 2001. And then in 2002, they were the second best team in the league, the Sacramento Kings, and won that title behind, again,

the worst and most corrupt officiating in any sport that I've ever seen. And I think most sports fans would agree with that. So it's this whole journey of, you know, what is basketball? Is it wrestling? Why should we care as fans? To Bill's point, it's a really tough- It's a business. It's a business and they need their stars. I think Kobe was Jordan's replacement and he needed rings. He needed to be chasing this. You saw what happened to golf when

Tiger Woods, when his body broke down and then then when he comes back, you know, the ratings go through the roof. So it is like a star-driven thing. And basketball is the easiest game to fix because it's the only one. You can't in football, you can't put, you know, you can't put Russell Wilson on the sidelines. NBA, you can literally take guys out of the game. You just give them two quick fouls, you know, and then they got them on the sidelines. NBA, you can literally take guys out of the game. You just give them two quick fouls, you know, and then they got them on the bench.

You give them another one. Now they got three, and then you won't see them until the second half. You give them that quick one. It's just – or at the very least, they're going to be playing more timid. It's – So then how, how did, how did, how did this, how did David Stern, uh,

affect the, the, the, the officials? Did it, was it, I'm curious. That's a great question.

So according to Tim Donahue and really according, this is what we did. We went back and we read after the Donahue scandal, the NBA, um, commissioner report, same as the Wells report or any other league-sanctioned report. It's all bullshit, right?

They hire a law firm. It's a law firm conducting an independent investigation when they're getting paid by the league itself. But that was called the Pedowitz report, and there's some really interesting stuff in there. And a big referee at the center of all this was a guy named Dick Bovetta. And Dick Bovetta was a guy named dick bevetta and dick bevetta was a guy that tim donahue said again bevetta was the top referee bill knows who he is

boy i'm just like a dick bevetta let me handle this like italians always get pissed at those stereotypes and here we are again you know what though i mean we interviewed michael franzese who is a former uh capo in the colombo family um known as the yuppie don really brilliant mobster and he said he had a bookmaking operation where he said he had two nba referees on his payroll in the night in the 80s and 90s and neither one of them was tim donah. So there's only 57 guys in the league. You know, he's based out of New York. I don't, you know, he's Italian. Just saying.

Dick Pavetta, though, is a really interesting character in all this because he was, if you look at all the controversial games, and Bill Simmons has written about this, and countless other NBA writers and journalists have talked about it. But to Bill's point, it's like, you can't really talk about it. If you're an NBA beat writer, because then you're never going to be allowed in a locker room.

You're going to be blackballed from, from the league. So this thing, it's always been this unknown or this known thing that people just don't talk about. Players talk about it behind closed doors. You know, Rasheed Wallace would look at a box score and be like, depending on the three reps box score and be like depending on the three reps he'd be like oh we're gonna we're gonna lose today like I'm gonna get two fouls in the first quarter and we sit on the bench and they want the Lakers to win this game clearly because it's Dick Pavetta Joey Crawford and Steve Jaffe are reffing this game so having said that he also did he didn't do himself any service the way he treated the refs. Because I think that happens in baseball, too.

If you show up a home plate umpire, I mean, if you don't make good on that, like the rest of your at-bats, you're going to have a tough night every time that guy is calling you game. They're humans, right? And because they're humans, you know, is it impossible to manipulate a referee? And the answer is no. And so, Bert, just to go back to your question with Dick Pavetta, what Donahue said is that there was company men referees in the NBA who were very open about being assigned to certain games

to procure certain outcomes, produce certain outcomes. So that's what Donahue said. And when he said it, I heard it as a young journalist. And I was like, that makes sense. And that's where this all started. I wrote an article where I said, hey, it was five years after the scandal. But all I said was, hey, I kind of believe what Tim Donahue is saying about the NBA. It adds up. And that's where Tim Donahue reached out to me because I was the first person to ever say anything publicly about this guy

that wasn't, he's a crook and a scoundrel. And he and I formed this very bizarre friendship and he's told me stories which I haven't been able to tell. I can't say a lot of it on the record, but there's a referee during the Bulls era whose mistress was in Chicago. And so he used to referee games, win or lose. This wasn't Donnie. It was another referee. Win or lose to get back to Chicago so he could, you know,

have intercourse with his mistress. Like that was – so NBA games were getting manipulated so a guy could get laid. It was the Wild, Wild West. It was a complete shit show. And the NBA knew it, and they didn't care. Guys had drinking problems, drug problems. And David Stern didn't care because it drinking problems drug problems um and david stern didn't care because it got to a point where he needed these referees to produce certain outcomes because

michael jordan was retired and the lakers and celtics weren't the lakers and celtics and so if you look at the nba in the early 2000s in the mid-2000s there were some games that were really bad really really here's a question i have because the referees make way way way way way less money than these players how much they make so now you're trying to get them to what'd you say bart how much does a referee make it depends so junior referees it's it's tiered um Anywhere between now, probably $150,000 to – the top guys make close to a million dollars, and they make a huge amount of money based on their playoff and finals bonus checks.

So basically, the more games you – you can double your payday as a senior referee by working a ton of playoff and finals games. And so this goes back to the problem. How do you work – This starts making sense. This starts making a lot of senseoff and finals games. And so this goes back to the problem. How do you work? It starts making sense. It starts making a lot of sense.

So that's how they pay him. Because I was going to say, you know, if they're making shit money and then they're sitting on this big thing that the NBA's fixed, what's stopping them from being like, I'll just go to TMZ, get one big fat check and leave. So what they do is they give them a long career. You're a company guy. How do you stop them from going Jose Consenco after they retire and go, he was doing it and he was doing it?

No, it's brilliant. So this is what the NBA does. The NBA keeps them on the payroll forever. So the NBA, if you look at all the guys I'm talking about. Oh, shit. Shut the fuck up. They're analysts on ESPN. Steve Javis is an analyst on ESPN.

Monty McCutcheon, Joey Crawford. All these guys are now the G League supervisor of officials. Look, if referee is the only thing on your resume, what are you going to do when you retire? Right? Nothing. That's your job. That's the only thing that you know.

It's your only experience in the workforce. So you can't go unless you're Donahue and get blackballed. That's all you can do. So you've reached the pinnacle with the NBA. You do that for a long time. And, yeah, if you want to go write your expose, David Stern was smart. And he said, no, we're going to keep paying you what we're paying you until you die. And so that's why none of these guys have ever come forward.

They're all still on the tee. They're all still getting paid. So this is like their pay girlfriends, like the NBA guys who are screwing around. They got their wife and then they got their pay girlfriends. They just buy them shit so they'll keep banging them. So the NBA also has pay girlfriends with the officiating is what you're saying. Allegedly.

Allegedly. Allegedly. Allegedly. Wowedly. Allegedly. Wow, that's crazy. Because now this makes like almost genius sense. You go, hey, man, I call the games that the commissioner likes, and they're good games, and the big teams win, and we help build stars,

and he's going to want me to be in the big games with those stars officiating the great game i mean it's almost like it's almost like uh it's it's problematic it's like having a bartender that does shots they sell a bunch of drinks but they're also getting fucking wasted yeah and these guys used to just alcohol is you know as part of this thing where these guys were drinking and gambling casinos and this was all known this was part of the refereeing culture these were blue collar guys who all and we get into this then podcast there was like 14 referees from delaware county pennsylvania all blue-collar blue-collar bros and donahue was one of them and this wasn't america

how did he get caught all of these guys are doing this shit. Was it because he went outside the NBA pay girlfriend thing and he tried to cheat on him with the mob? Like what happened? So what Donahue did was, so again, we've talked to other people. Michael Franzese was the only one who was on the record. Again, former mobster who said he had two NBA referees just on his payroll fixing games forever, right?

Hang on. Start here. Start here. Start here. Bill has a great question. I want to hear that, but I want to know, tell me a little bit about Tim Donahue. Let's start with Tim Donahue. I don't know. I know that he got busted. I'm assuming he's from Delaware County. But tell me about Tim Donahue.

So Tim Donahue started refereeing in 1994, and Tim Donahue's father was a college referee. His uncle was an NBA referee. Obviously, all hail from that same area around Philadelphia called Delaware County, Pennsylvania. So Tim Donahue, at 27 years old, I believe, got his foot in the door as a referee in the NBA and was a really good referee according to most people he was a hothead most players and coaches say that

from the get-go this guy had had an anger problem and had a temper but for his first nine years in the NBA we have no evidence that said that he was manipulating games in any way. He, by all accounts, was just an up-and-coming referee. And again, referees get fired. If you're not good after nine years, you're going to get canned. He was starting more playoff games. He was working his way up. And then in 2003, he, again, this is, as we get into the podcast, you can only believe what Tim Donahue says. You got to take everything with a grain of salt. That being said, there's a lot that's public. There's a lot in the FBI files.

There's a lot that when you do your research, you can corroborate and it's true. So he started gambling on games that he refereed and allegedly fixing them in 2003. So from 2003 to 2007, that's a long time. Tim Donahue was betting on games that he refereed. So that's 260 games during that period that this one referee had money on. So that's 260 NBA games that, you know, whether you want to say the word fixed or not, they were being manipulated against the point spread. So that's Tim Donahue in a nutshell. Tim Donahue got caught on a Gambino wiretap. And so what happened is towards around 2006, 2007,

Donahue thought he was never going to get caught because this was so easy. This was not difficult. It's not difficult for an NBA referee if the Pistons are favored by five points over the Hawks to make sure the Pistons win by seven instead of four. That's not hard. That's a really easy thing to manipulate. And he was winning, according to him 80 but according to another his co-conspirator 90 so let's say like 90 of his bets right so that's not you're not betting you're just printing money so he was doing this for years he keeps taking what kind of book he is going to take a bet from a guy who's refereeing the game unless they're in on it so that's so that's what it was they were saying hey make sure the Pistons win

by more than five tonight and we'll let you put, he's not even betting, they're just paying him to do it. A hundred percent. So he was getting paid. Again, he was, I think the big question with Donahue is how many people was he giving tips to and getting money from? So it wasn't Donahue, again, this is pre-internet gambling

being what it is today. So there was guys in New York and Philadelphia who caught wind of the scheme and were kicking Donahue back money. But Donahue was involved with a really big bookmaker named Jimmy Batista. And Batista moved, he was really a money mover. He wasn't a better, but he moved money for some of the biggest sports betters in the world. And he caught one of the scheme and approached Donahue. And so basically what happened, long story short, Jimmy Batista had a pill problem and a cocaine problem, got caught up with the wrong guys, got into some serious seven-figure debt, and started yapping that, hey, don't worry, I'm going to pay you back. I got a referee in my hip pocket.

FBI heard that. FBI put two and two together, realized that ref was Tim Donahue, and the rest is history. But Donahue didn't realize that the games that he was betting on, when the scheme got big in 2006, the games that Donahue was betting on, professional bookmakers were betting millions, millions of dollars per game in international markets in Europe and in the US. So when Donahue refereed a game, we speculate that it was close to a billion dollars during the course of his scheme that moved just on this one guy's games.

So he had no idea how big this got. And when he got caught, when the FBI got involved, he didn't know. He thought it was still reasonably small. He thought he would be making an extra God knows how much money every year for his entire career in the NBA. And this was a guy who was going to be refereeing. If he was still refereeing today, his peer, this guy named Scott Foster, and Bill, I don't know if that rings a bell. Scott Foster is the top NBA official today. Scott Foster and Tim Donahue were best friends.

They exchanged 134 phone calls at the peak of this scheme. And on the phone that the FBI says, Donahue was using for gambling. And Scott Foster is the top NBA official today. Never had to answer any questions about this. The FBI came out, you know, this all came out. And this is the guy that we're trusting today to referee the most important games in the league. I remember when that came out and they just put it on him. I'm like, what about the rest of the guys that were doing the game with him? It's like, how long can I shave points burnt on a game before you kind of like, Bill's acting, is he having an aneurysm? Like, what is he doing over there? Like, you'd know what was going on. They always go, they always get it to the lone crazed gunman whenever there's like this level stuff that is involved. I am so glad that you're, I mean, my, I was just called paranoid,

a conspiracy theorist. Like I just got totally disenfranchised with the whole thing. It just looked just so manipulated, even like the whole creation of the super teams. And like, I mean, I don't know't know like i don't know how will you watch a game seven and you call 30 something fouls on one team and the other team only in the teens unless the other team is just hacking the shit out of you but if it's just pedestrian shit um so i would think that then espn everybody because they're all making money off of it and making so much money off of it that everybody just sort of shuts up except maybe at the christmas party when somebody has a few and they just everybody just buys the myth and sells the myth that this one guy this one guy

like so here's this which i'm not saying that that couldn't happen, but he would get busted really quick. But he, so yeah, he was branded as David Stern. David Stern came out and just said repeatedly, rogue, isolated criminal, rogue,

criminal, rogue, rogue, rogue. That was the word that was branded. And again, this is the NBA was brilliant, but here's what bringing up ESPN bill.

I'm happy you did because I don't want to give away to your audience too much of what happens to the podcast, but one interesting thing that happened. So the NBA is entire business. you did because I don't want to give away to your audience too much of what happens the podcast but one interesting thing that happened so the NBA's entire business and this goes back to everything we're saying a majority of the NBA's revenue comes from its TV contracts right it's an entertainment company um you know they're trying to create the best possible TV product and usually that entails um the Los Angeles Lakers. That's why David Stern said his dream finals is Lakers-Lakers.

That was just purely Lakers were the highest rated team consistently when the NBA played a finals game. So that's all David Stern was saying. That's all for their business model. Fuck New Orleans because no one cares.

Because we're not going to take the time to try and build this thing up. Right. Let's say I'm not playing in Charlotte and stick them in L.A. and then we'll let Shaq go there and Phil Jackson. Exactly. We'll let the Celtics build up and get Kevin Garnett for nothing. I mean, I was just watching it going like this looks like this looks like they're trying to make Ocean's 11.

That's what so so what what happened during the scandal it's fascinating is ESPN and Turner signed a 7.4 billion dollar deal with the NBA in 2007 five days before the scandal came out so David Stern learned about the scandal and realized that the biggest scandal in the league's history, one that could jeopardize his legacy as commissioner, one that could jeopardize the integrity of the league to the point where, again, conspiracy theorists and paranoid, those things wouldn't be, those would be commonplace, right? Everybody would feel exactly as you felt and as I felt during that era. So he signed a $7.4 billion deal with the leagues and didn't tell the leagues that this was about to happen.

He knew that the scandal, the FBI informed Stern that the scandal was coming down the pike. Stern was like, okay, we'll do whatever we can to help in your investigation. Then he calls Turner and ESPN and says, hey, we're good to go on this deal, right? Okay, we'll sign, boom. And to go on this deal, right? Okay. Well, it's signed. Boom. And then five days later, the scandal gets leaked. And again,

what's, what's brilliant about the NBA PR strategy. Guess who leaked the scandal? I don't know who the NBA. So we proved pretty definitively that the NBA knew that Donnie, he was going to wire up, that he was going to go around the league and get all these officials to talk not knowing that they're being recorded about things that are that happened that these referees were manipulated so the NBA the NBA was like fuck Donahue telling my narrative. I will tell my own narrative. We'll leak the story.

You're not going to fucking rat out all our fucking rats. Shut the fuck up. Yeah. All right, everybody. We got Blue Nile. Blue Nile. Blue Nile, baby. Not the red one.

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it made it seem, in my opinion, that David Stern and all of his big New York lawyer friends, the district attorney's office included, really wanted this thing hushed up, wanted these guys to take their plea deals, go away for a little while, and for this thing to go away. So it keeps going up, and that's what we break down in Whistleblower, is holy shit, this wasn't just a couple basketball games. This was a systematic problem within the NBA you think they're gonna get away with it I mean it feels like they did and I went on a sports show yesterday or a couple days ago and it was basically an NBA one and all they were talking about was the draft and you know during the offseason does this big piece move to here? And does this go over there? And I just, I was just joking. I think the NBA stinks. And I just, I mean, I didn't talk about it being fixed because I didn't realize it was, you know, what you were, what you're saying.

Let's watch you guys. So like we released this podcast, our final episode came out at the end of October. So it's still a pretty new podcast. And at this point where our downloads are into the seven figures, I've been on a bunch of, I've been on Dan Patrick and Dan Levitar and a lot of shows. And a lot of people have listened to this. I know at The Ringer, at ESPN, at all. So people know what we found and know what the investigation,

they know what, everything I'm telling you guys is in the podcast. So, and this is everything I'm telling you guys is just, these are small pieces of a huge conspiracy. So I reached out to the NBA for comment. They've remained mum. And I'm just sitting here like, yeah, I'm like, I'm sitting here, I'm like, do I have to talk to Bill and Bert

for fucking people to realize that this happened? This was a conspiracy. The NBA has been rigging games for years, for the entire Davis-Turner. You have to look at every, not every, you have to look at a lot of NBA finals with a huge asterisk. And it's a shame because as sports fans, Bill, you were just watching the Patriots game before you came in. What if we told you that that as a Patriots fan, it's probably not the best example. But I'm going to –

Oh, are you going with that again? I love how we're talking about an entire league that cheats. And everybody – I'm not. I'm not. I'm going to tell you this though. That is the genius of Jim Irsay. I'm not –

A convicted drug addict with a dead mistress who hired a guy who wasn't a scientist. Backtrack. I've been, I've publicly I think deflacated is the biggest joke ever. I was just saying because... That's why he fucking threw it out. But the genius though is it got enough press

by ESPN and all of them that people think it's like a true thing. And it's the genius of the pettiness of Jim Irsa. Yeah, but another fascinating element of Deflategate was Goodell and the Wells Report. I mean, that was the biggest joke. I mean, the entire charade around that, and you have to wonder, was that just the NFL doing what the NBA did, wanting to create a storyline,

wanting to brand the Patriots as the villains so that the other – No, I think what it was was the fact that the Patriots fought it and beat it in court was this big thing of like, oh, shit, mommy and daddy just got defeated by one of our kids. We can't have that. So what they did was they found a loophole is they went back after the judge, the judge was like pissed going, why are you wasting my time with this horse shit? There's nothing here. And then remember he was fine. And then

they brought it back again. They said, is the end, their argument was, is the NFL a corporation? The judge said, yes. Does a corporation have the right to suspend an employee? They said, yes. And they said, well, is Tom Brady our employee? Yes,

he is. And they said, fine, he's suspended. So what they did was they then went like in house with it. Yeah. And they, they use that loophole to suspend him.

But everybody who, you know, Tom Brady, the good looking guy with the model winning the rings, hated his fucking guts. So they went with the first narrative of it. Most of them are golfers where Bert will tell you some of the biggest fucking cheaters on the planet with their breakfast balls and all of that, mulligans and shit.

You've got to listen to those fucking assholes. Banker playing golf is going to tell me that fucking the Patriots cheat. Okay, buddy. You brought up Tiger Woods. Tiger Woods, I forget, I think it was in the mid-2000s, but during his physical evolution, ordered $250,000 worth of something from Anthony Galea, who was the foremost HGH doctor.

He's the guy that all the baseball players and all the football players went to for HGH. And that's public that Tiger Woods ordered $250,000 worth of something from Anthony Galea, PRP shots or something that he claimed that he... Well, hey, there was another guy who played for another team that no one gave a shit about. And for some reason, his wife ordered a bunch of that shit that went to the house. His wife, yeah, she heard her back taking the dishes out of the dishwasher and she needed some steroids. But for some reason, ESPN just did not find that story interesting. I, you know, that's a different debate because I think HGH, you know, if you're a professional athlete, you better be doing HGH or else like that's a completely different argument about

whether it's legal or not. And if we're talking about cheating, if you're taking a substance like that, but I understand. That guy doesn't play for the Patriots, so by all means, defend him. You know what? I'm done with this podcast. All I can say, on my takeaway from this podcast, Bill, more dudes with glasses on our podcast. This is fucking

awesome. I love when people know what they're talking about. This is so fucking interesting, man. Don't think you don't i i didn't notice how frustrated with you that i just went into my opinions and went to the end of the story that you had to pretend that you were confused because you didn't want to say bill this isn't how you do an interview shut up and start at the beginning bill well bill and and i bringing up the patriotsots, that was my bad.

Bert, I apologize. No, no, no, no. We'll get this back on track. No, no, I have a question. Just out of curiosity, for like say someone that doesn't know a lot about basketball, how did he cheat? Did he say, all right, I'm going to put the spreads five on the Lakers. I'm going to let them play the first. I'm going to let it spreads five on the Lakers. I'm going to let them play the

first. I'm going to let it, maybe I won't cheat, maybe I will cheat. And then, okay, it's getting bad. I need to get dot, dot, dot out of the game. Is that how it worked? Yeah. So what's so fascinating about basketball is think about how easy it is if you're a referee to cheat within the rules. Everything's a foul. So if you want Kobe Bryant on the bench with two fouls in the first five minutes of the game, that's usually not that hard to do, right? If you want to, you know, call Allen Iverson for a carry on every possession, you can do that. So there was a lot of tools in Donahue's toolbox. So I went into this thinking that we would never find any proof on how Donahue fixed games because NBA

refereeing is so subjective everything's a foul and we had talked to guys like Franzese who said that this was easy but what's really interesting is that Donahue's co-conspirator Tommy Martino and again Bill you'll listen to this podcast I mean the names Martino, Batista. I love it I'm already seeing the Scorsese movie.'s hey yeah we'll talk maybe you can help me get mart hold of marty after uh after this because terence winter just passed on on writing it which he was a fan of the podcast but i was i was bummed about that so anyways um time martino comes out and says that donahue used the out-of-bounds line that when a when a guy that they've and again this was 13 years ago

before there was as many cameras and, you know, especially random games, Bert. So think about like Hornets versus Timberwolves in January. Nobody's watching that game. Nobody cares. But Donahue used the out-of-bounds line. If a guy was even close to out-of-bounds, that, you know – so if they bet on a team and that team the guy stepped out

of bounds Donahue would just you know pretend like he didn't see it the other team if they got remotely close to the out of bounds line blow the whistle going the other way so it was like that's what pissed me off because I was like I was like damn it Donahue you're you're that brazen you didn't have to do that right it's just a few fouls and again what's interesting for me it doesn't the fourth quarter is the worst time to do it that's when the most eyeballs it's the first quarter in the second quarter that i think it's the easiest time if you have a bet on a game to manipulate that game you get the you get the star player of the bench bam uh early second quarter you know you can call three or four BS fouls. You know, the fans

are going to boo, but nobody's really going to be thinking about that in the fourth quarter of this game. So Donahue's tactics, again, it was easy. It's easy for a referee to manipulate a basketball game, which again, today in 2020, that's why we still have to watch all these games with that paranoia, with the same attitude of, man, is this real? Is this an even playing field? Is this a meritocracy? Does the best team win every year? Or are we watching choreographed ballet?

Well, I can just say that I think everything is fixed and manipulated. And that's what I think. There was somebody I knew who i really like really respected was trying to say that there is no they and it's like there's always an there's always they there's always this whole country came about we conspired to get the british out of here you know we the whole thing is you go into a a a bar when you're a single guy and you want to get laid you and your buddy you come up with a game plan you're a single guy and you want to get laid. You and your buddy, you come up with a game plan.

You conspire to get some pussy. This just – dude, and I had friends of mine, they coached Little League, and there was always one dirtbag that had some sort of inside line on the best fifth graders that were coming in, even at that level. And I just think – I really have to say that to find out that these leagues are manipulated is not surprising, I guess. And I think it's the NBA sold their soul to the super team and got themselves involved in this,

where I think the NFL is just a better run league as far as because anybody can win. They don't have like the Lakers kind of Celtics thing going on there. But I will say though, that Saints no call on the pass interference was the, I mean, it wasn't like it was away from the ball. The ball was going right there and the guy was like, it was like that missed call at first base between St. Louis and Kansas City. It was like that big of a margin. So I just think when there's billions of dollars at stake, there's going to be not only subsets of pieces of shit, then there's going to be the people running it who want to keep it running like 86 86 you know 85 you know 86 celtics was

our pinnacle we want to stay there every year what can we do to manipulate it so yeah i don't know i agree bro were you gonna say something uh fuck um yeah i just forgot my question. It said he was at the – he was in the Pacers Pistons Brawl. Yeah. Donahue was malice and palace too and got critiqued for not doing enough to calm that down. But he should – I mean, Tim – I mean, Donahue deserves kudos for that. That was an incredible, incredible moment in sports history I know what I was going to ask

so clearly there's a movie here there's definitely a fucking movie here how much money did the judge make Donahue pay in restitution so that he can't make any money off this movie that's a good question I know Donahue

a big thing for Donahue with Whistleblower, with our podcast being out, is that he doesn't want to pay restitution anymore. I believe it was in the six figures, not the seven figures, that Donahue has to pay the NBA back. But if you look at the restitution. From what? Gambling debts? Isn't that illegal money earned?

He has to give them money? Probably, probably. gambling debts no isn't that illegal money earned he has to give them money probably probably from i would imagine they'd sue him for services that he never rendered they'd go hey we paid you five hundred thousand dollars a year and you did not do your job we want our money back right yeah it's it has to do with his his role um and his not performing in his duties as a referee, I believe. But restitution, the NBA really, really stuck it to Tim Donahue. And again, it's not like he didn't deserve it. It's not like, you know, looking at this scandal, you can look at Donahue and be like, oh, man, you know,

that guy was the scapegoat, but he's a really good guy. No, Donahue, and again, I still consider myself a friend of Tim's, but Donahue is a sch, I still consider myself a friend of Tim's, but Donahue is a schmuck and he knows it and he's gotten a lot better. And he's at this point in his life, he's got a good dad. We were with him and his family in Florida. He's gotten it together. He's like at 53 years old, a little bit more of an adult, and a little bit less of a schmuck. But the NBA, it was so easy to bury this guy, right? And to Bill's earlier question, it's not – no other referee is ever going to come out and say like, hey, you know, by the way, Donahue's right.

I was fixing games. Crazy. I mean, I can't believe nobody – They should have had video of him getting let out in a ref shirt and handcuffs going, Oh, so I'm the Patsy doing the, doing the Oswald walk.

And then he gets shot by a t-shirt gun as he comes out of the arena. And Donahue just refereed for the, so the first thing that he's refereed since 2007 was a wrestling match a month ago. So he got back into refereeing to do a wrestling match. Oh, that's great. That's a great way in. It's a beautiful thing.

And it's full circle. And you got to just, again, the question is, how close is the NBA to professional wrestling? And I think any basketball fan, anybody who just loves sports, it's way too close for any of us to feel good about watching it. All right. I got two questions. One is if NBA players talk about this in private, what's to stop them once again from going Jose Consenco when they retire? Is it because they get the pension? Man. I've gotten through podcasts that I produce and things that I've written

and done. I have this really robust network of NBA guys who played in the late nineties and early two thousands. And so, um, you know, Andrew and I were talking about a couple of those guys beforehand and we heard a story that was, that we couldn't use in the podcast, but might've been the best story we heard about a game where this player played. And then in the fourth quarter of the game, Don Tim Donahue was refereeing the fourth quarter of the game. He usually shot about 10 free throws a game and he hadn't shot one in this game. And they were

losing to a team that they were better than and he thought it was because of the referees and he went up to Tindani he said why the fuck you cheating for them and he told me this amazing story and I was so excited to use it in whistleblower it was going to be in our pilot episode it was going to be a big part of us explaining to the audience how fucked up the system was and you know what happened said, I don't want to be a snitch. I don't want you to use it. Oh, that's a big thing. That's a really big thing with every one of those kids that comes into the NBA, the African-American kids.

Snitching is super frowned upon, whereas it was applauded in my family. It's also like it's a way out, too. The NBA is a way out. And if you bring that whole thing down i mean everything else is a scam banking's legalized loan sharking so the nba is is what it is and i don't want to also like demonize the nba like they're the only ones that have had that whole baseball steroid scandal. Like the owners didn't know what was going on or like I'm the owner of the

Astros and I, and I'm not standing there going like, I don't remember authorizing somebody drilling that hole out in the center field wall there. What are those two young whippersnappers doing out there? Those two go-getters, they're taking it upon themselves to do something here. Like, I just know it's like a comedian like you know if there's a comic that's like uh getting a little sideways with some substances and stuff we all know you hear the stories so you knew owners of these teams they know what's i feel like they know what's going on but um but the big owner who knew the big owner who knew what was

going on let me guess let me guess let me guess mark cuban yes right so mark cuban came into the league in 2000 bought the mavericks and for his first seven years in the league obviously he's amassed over two million dollars in fines the guy has been outspoken about refereeing for his entire career as an owner. But after the Donahue scandal, he was very suspiciously silent. And the Mavericks, we haven't talked about the 2006 NBA Finals. In my opinion, after doing this research and talking to everybody we spoke with, the 2006 NBA Finals, which was the Heat versus the Mavericks, where the Mavericks won the first two games of the series,

and then Dwayne Wade shot I believe 84 free throws I don't want to get that number wrong it's like it's around 80 free throws over the last four games that series and game five was a blowout and Wade only shot like 13 so Dwayne Wade just started it was just a procession of the free throw line where Dwayne Wade was like oh hey Dwayne do you drive all right yeah take two right so that was a big I watched that series in college and I had no I don't couldn't care less about either of those teams but it's the same thing Bill where I was watching that game being like is anybody gonna talk about how the refereeing this is completely slanted I mean Dwayne Wade kept his mouth shut after the scandal so they gave him his title in 2010 and let that team beat the Heat is what you're saying.

Oh, my God, Burt. My brain's melting over here. My brain's melting, too. Mark Cuban bought the Mavericks for $285 million. It's all money, right? So Cuban bought the Mavericks for $285 million, complained about refereeing, but David Stern kept signing big TV contracts. And by 2007, when this came out and they signed that 7.4 billion dollar deal the mavericks were

a billion dollar team so is mark cuban going to come out and say hey um i i was right the referee this is all rigged it's all bullshit no he couldn't so mark cuban is somebody that he wasn't saying it was rigged he was just bitching, saying the officiating was bad. Yes, you're right. He wasn't saying it was rigged. But if you ask him about the 2006 NBA Finals, he's going to say that they got screwed. And if an owner says that his team got screwed, isn't that the same thing?

Like he won't use the word rigged. Well, because there's blowing calls. And, dude, there's a big difference between – I think there's a difference between the officiating sucked to, that was a home job to, okay, this is a straight up fucking, we decided before the game even started. I mean, there is, you know, to play a little bit of a devil's advocate, there is the human element where there are certain players that

referees just don't like oh 100 smart guys are the ones that stay on their good side and that's and they're human and that's a game but to your you know when you look at the past interference in the ram saints game for example that's one. That's a spur of the moment. It was a terrible non-call, one of the worst in sports history, but it's one call. If you look at the 2002 Western Conference Finals, the 2000 Western Conference Finals, the 2001 Eastern Conference Finals, and the last four games of the 2006 NBA Finals, it was call after call after call after call after call, right? It wasn't just one spur of the-the-moment bad call. And I think that's what makes these games different.

If you watch them in their entirety, you're just, as a fan, like there's something wrong here. Oh, wow. So you actually know, like, the suspicious games and then go back and watch them, must be. So you think, okay, so you think that they let the Celtics win with the big three because the Spurs thing was dying down, Kobe was getting older.

Let's get the Celtics-Lakers like 20 years later. They're doing it again as a little placeholder as LeBron goes to Miami. Or is this one of these things that now I know what happened. I'm just doing the beautiful mind. Hey, this fits here, and I'm just putting it all together with this sinister slant to it. Yeah, the 08, I think Boston, from what I remember, and I watched this, there's nothing in 08 that seemed like the NBA.

Boston had a great team. Kevin Garnett knew that. Yeah, but we were in last place the year before. Then all of a sudden we get Kevin Garnett for nothing with Kevin McHale in the front office.ett knew that. Yeah, but we were in last place the year before. Then all of a sudden we get Kevin Garnett for nothing with Kevin McHale in the front office. Oh, that. Yeah, yeah. The offseason is highly suspicious, right?

Whether Kevin McHale was talking with the Celtics front office saying like, hey, guys, look, Garnett wants out. We're not going to be good for a long time. Why don't we just find a way to get Kevin Garnett to you guys because i'm still a celtics fan at heart the offseason was highly suspicious i don't think there's anything refereeing wise that year that i remember you know that was particularly egregious and i don't think they're if you look i think it's like 90 of nba finals victors over the last 30 years maybe probably like 82% were the legitimately – were the best team in the NBA.

It's not every team, but, man, the 0-9, the game seven of that – that was an ugly game where the Lakers beat the Celtics. I believe that was – I remember Kobe's quote. He's like, I don't know how we won that game. That was ugly. And, again, the Lakers, you're talking to a guy who grew up a Lakers fan

and the Lakers are so often the beneficiary of controversial officiating. They've never been on the wrong side of it. You know, the Heat in 2006, I mean, they were on the right side. So by the way, with Cuban,

this is what we look at with Cuban in that finals. Cuban wrote right before the finals in May of 2006, a lengthy blog post, as he often does. The guy likes to let his thoughts out there. Cuban wrote a blog post, which said that refereeing, I think they let 34 referees referee in the playoffs, and that's how they make all their money. Andan said that only the nine or twelve best referees should referee the playoffs they should referee every game and that basically the refereeing system needs an overhaul and and was telling the referees i want you guys to all make less money off these playoff and finals bonus checks and so do i think games three through six

of the 2006 western Conference Finals, I don't think, you know, this wasn't about getting the Lakers or the big market team or the big stars in the finals. I think the referees conspired to say, fuck you, Mark Cuban. Hey, they were sending him a message. It was. It was, and it's fascinating because Mark Cuban, he says he felt like he got screwed. And if you watch those games, I think he did.

And then in 2011, again, the Mavs played great. Dirk Nowitzki and Tyson Chandler and the rest of that team played really well. You know, LeBron was his first year with the Heat. They were kind of tight. They weren't really, you know, a dominant force yet. So I don't want to say that that was rigged for the Mavericks. But the problem is that we can look at every single finals in the history of the NBA and play that game. And it's a game worth playing. I get what you're saying. You're not saying it's 100% of the time, but when the profit margins are dipping, then the manipulation starts to make sure that they're

gonna that they're gonna have they're gonna the the tv contract we're gonna justify why you're playing paying assist because we're you know we don't want to have like a yankees met series where i'm oh the subway series and like nobody gave a shit except people in new york like they you can't you can't have championship series like that. Especially, I would think that the pressure on the NBA was streaming and the internet and people taping games and blowing through, you know, they needed to make it be must see TV when we got, I think that the same way, it's kind of funny, our business, Bert, where like back in the day, there was like, if you got like two, three stars in one movie, that was incredible

because there were so many different movies being made. Now it's just everything. It's just like these pile-on movies because there's so many other options out there and there's so much less money sort of being divvied out that I think the NBA kind of got swept up in that to, hey, wait, it's a fucking business. What are you going to do? It's a business, yeah.

What game – I hate to keep going back to – because the bigger picture of the NBA being involved in this collusion almost is fascinating. But I keep going back to Tim because those are the ones I know, right? What big games did I possibly watch that he fixed? Zero. And that's – excuse me. In the 2000 – the Sun-Spurs series in 2005, I believe,

which is really controversial, but that was the first round of the playoffs. Tim Donahue was involved in. But what's crazy is that all the but that was the first round of the playoffs Tim Donahue was involved in. But what's crazy is that all the games that I've referenced over the course of our conversation were all refereed by Dick Pavetta, almost every single one Dick Pavetta was involved in. Steve Javie, Joey Crawford, Bennett Salvatore, just to throw another great name out there. Like Donahue didn't referee those games. None of them. Zero. And that's where if you are a paranoid conspiracy theorist,

like myself, then, you know, you're watching, you're listening to what Tim Donahue said, and you're watching these games. And it's really easy to believe tim donahue uh and again after doing this investigation i i do i believe what he says because he didn't referee any of those games he was refereeing his scheme revolved around refereeing the most unremarkable games in the nba and those games move millions of dollars and if you look at so we look at the betting data from those games and you can tell, you know, if a lot of money is being bet by professional bettors on a game, Vegas, you know, the odds makers react, right? They move the line from, and I don't, we don't have time.

If you guys want me to do a sports betting explanation, I'm happy to for your listeners. But, you know, if it's like a deep state of sports, it is. It is because this is – So then people in Vegas, if they're doing the odds, then they're whispering at their fame and there's a lot of money getting put on this fucking who gives a shit game in fucking Seattle tonight, back in the day when the Sonics were there. Then everybody tries to jump on it. And then they move the odds?

Yep. And so like a two-point favorite becomes a three-point favorite and that means that there's a lot of money coming in and and that usually means that there's something going on right um maybe they they found out about an injury you know star players little banged up um they were out in la last night at the club uh you know whatever it is right they all have their tips and but during the donahue scandal we found out that one of the the books one of the offshore books where you place the bets knew about the Donahue scheme knew that Donahue was manipulating games and wouldn't take bets on whatever game Donahue was was refereeing and they

the sports book were betting at other sports books because they knew that Donnie was fixing games. So, I mean, this took a while. How could you figure out which way he was going to do it? I'm not a big gambler. How could you figure? Okay, Donnie, he's doing this game and I'm watching the line move. It goes from two points to three points. Well, then obviously they're trying to get me to take the other team.

So I should take the points. So it's a little more complicated than that because if Donnie... Damn it. Oh, no, no. Because they would do head fakes. They would put a lot of money on the wrong side to make the line move a little bit, and then they'd put a shit ton of money on the right side at the very end and force all these books to move the line even more in their favor

and make it seem like all the money was there, so they would take a lot more money on the right side. and make it seem like all the money was there so they would take a lot more money on the right side um so it gets a little complicated but basically donahue was telling so many people and then they were telling so many people and it just spiraled out of control to where we yeah we don't know how many people knew a lot did we were in the poconos once at a bar and someone someone someone's dad had a line on a horse and uh and i swear God, I mean, 20 people must have gone into this. At this one bar, it spread at this one bar, and everyone went to OTB and put money on this fucking horse.

And they won? Yeah, they won. And we put money on him too, me and my buddy Eddie. Yeah. That's it. If you get a tip, I mean, that's what's what Donahue and again Donahue had a a bag man a middleman named Tommy Martino he was giving the tips to Baba Batista who had a huge coke problem and was you know zonked out of his mind on pills they were all telling people Donahue

was telling people and that's how he got caught right and just so many people knew about this thing by the end including the Gambino crime family, the most prominent crime family in New York. I heard they're all legit now. Yeah. I mean... I don't want to get in trouble here, man. Yeah, no.

Big fan of the Gambinos. Big fan of the Gambinos. No, the Gambinos, like, I'm sure if any Gambinos listen to Whistleblower, I mean, we're very complimentary of they didn't do anything wrong. They just, they just caught wind of the scheme. They were betting in legal markets by all,

by all accounts. And I heard it in that movie casino that when they kept going, our friends in Kansas city, they were actually talking about the Chicago mob, but they didn't want to have any fucking problems. So what'd you say? They're in Kansas city. I don't. Yeah. I didn't want to have any fucking problems. So yeah, what'd you say there in Kansas city? Really?

I don't. Yeah. I don't want to make somebody say, I got a tip. I got an anonymous tip. I don't. Yeah. I don't want to make any,

the Gambino's, um, you know, respect across the board for all those, for all the Gambino's who are listening. So can I tell you the part, the part of the conversation that I keep giggling at the most is at the very beginning when bill goes um so how how did it as a referee how did he bet on these games and i have this visualization of old school like him walking

into a bar with a stack of bills in his referee outfit and putting it on the table and go i'd like to take pelicans and they're like man this guy from Foot Locker really knows his basketball. And he, and that's the thing. He was so, I mean, he was at least smart enough to have other people place the bets for him and he would just get kickbacks. But like Martino tells a story of he went to meet up with Donahue in the Meadowlands with 40 grand and a fanny pack to hand it off. You know, it was just cash cash was going everywhere

this guy was making uh he says he was only making um 30 you say he only made 30 000 the last year of the scheme i question whether that to be the the actual number um again if you're winning 90 of your bets it's not you're printing money like. Like that's not – you just keep going back to that well because it's like you guys doing shows. I mean it's like, I don't know, you just do a show, you make money. When you win that kind of money, when you start – like you run out of places to hide it, that's the stuff I was reading on like how the guys in the mob that were smart were always working towards getting onto the legal side of stealing, like being a banker or something like that, because these gangsters are doing the same scams, but illegally. So now they got to put their money in the walls. They got to fucking act like they got a smaller house. And it just becomes a pain in the ass where the banker gets to drive

down the street with all of his stolen money, but he's letting all the IRS and everybody wet their beaks on it so he doesn't have to hide it. Dude, that shit is all fascinating, man. I got to list how many episodes of Whistleblower is there? So there's 10 episodes. Each one's around half an hour, 40 minutes long. You can find it wherever you get your podcast. But yeah, I would love to hear your thoughts once you get a chance to listen to it. We dive into Donahue. We start off with Donahue and his role in the scandal and him as a person and where he grew up. And it's all fascinating. And then the second half is where we get into the conspiracy. What did the NBA know? What was the NBA doing? How did they make this go away? You know, how big was this cover up and how high did it go?

how did they make this go away? You know, how big was this cover up? And how high did it go? Has anybody you get you got any weird phone calls since you started to try to be the whistleblower on this thing? Is your cutting out? You notice your laptop being turned on and you're not near it? You know, what's funny is I'm talking to you guys. I lived in Los born and raised in Los Angeles lived there my whole life. And I got out right at the end of this thing. And there weren't any black suburbans yet parked outside of my old apartment. But part of me was like, I got to get the hell out of LA. I'm too easy for a target right now. And I'm going to go, I'm going to hide out right now or, you know, at an undisclosed

location. But I, you know, again, this is fascinating. This podcast, me talking to you guys i'm interested you know you guys have such an ardent following if this will be another i've been on several sport big sports shows but i'm just wondering uh especially on reddit bill i found a reddit thread where i was like oh bill burr is as outdated nba takes and blah blah blah and it just made me laugh because i know I knew I was going to come on and talk to you guys about this so it's interesting is this gonna I keep thinking

you know where is the straw that's going to break the camel's back to where the NBA has to address this because what we revealed is incredibly damning about the NBA and they can't hide from it it's public now so they they've at this point been able despite the success of our podcast been able to avoid it i mean conveniently for them the season wrapped right before we got to the the big stuff at the end of our podcast the big interviews that really what would have to happen is fans would have to become disillusioned with the game and and they're not They're not. I think fans enjoy, you know, kids and stuff. Like to them, the NBA is, you know, 10 stars on one team, 10 stars on the other. And then there's a couple of the okay teams and the other 26 can go fuck themselves. It's just their idea of what the NBA

is or how a sports league should be run. So I try not to be the grumpy old man, but I also got to say what I am thinking. But I don't know. So now, okay, you guys want to predict? Predict who they're going to have. My thing now is that the Lakers tied the Celtics at 17. They can't just let the Lakers get 18. They got to play the Celtics in the final, you know? Who's going to get number 18 first? The NBA has wanted the Clippers to be good for a long time. And now the Clippers

obviously were good last year and they blew it against Denver. If you're looking for a team that is a really interesting team to bet on this year that the NBA, if they're in a game seven with the Lakers, might want to usurp the Lakers. The Clippers are a really interesting team to look at. All right. I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to bet real low on every single Clippers game. I like it. I mean, Clippers... And that is a really... I'm going to take – how many games in a season? 82.

82. If I put $100, that's $8,000, right? I'm going to take $8,000, and I'm going to bet $100 on every single Clippers game. I like it. That's how it turned out. I probably will break even. Well, my question is, their golden goose, from what you're saying, is the Lakers.

Why would they want a competing – that's in the same conference? Bill, I'll tell you why. This is my take. If a corporation wants to get, wants to hire one of us to do their corporate gig, we're big fans of the bill Burt podcast. They go to you, your,

your price is going to be higher. And they come to me and they're like, well, we can get Burt. Maybe we'll see if we can get them to tell some stories about bill and do the show for half the price. I mean, right.

It's a cheaper team than the lake. And it's still, it's still LA is such a huge basketball market. So I think they see an opportunity. And, again, this is David Stern before he passed while he was still commissioner. Again, I have sources who have told me that he really wanted the Clippers to ascend to the top and be a rival for the Lakers. So I think, Bill, it's all storylines.

It's all, you know, you got to just take it all back. I'm picturing him like a white bathrobe putzing around his little tomato garden now that he's retired, like at the end of The Godfather. I mean, he – He's that kid around. You guys, he is such a fascinating character, so fascinating. And an incredible commissioner, and he, while he was commissioner, conducted, as you're suggesting, one of the great successful businesses in our time. And it's amazing. But the thing, the only thing that I

always think about all of this stuff is how could you possibly keep all of these people quiet because as much as even if they are a government person all right now whatever not not government person as much as they are like towing towing the company line somebody's gonna do blow start running their yap someone's gonna be a little too hammered someone's got you know trying to get this chick that they can't get and they gotta fucking talk big about themselves there's got, you know, trying to get this chick that they can't get, and they got to fucking talk big about themselves. There's got to be some – how do you keep all of those people? Money just shuts everybody up? I think – and they were all complicit, right?

All the referees who could really corroborate what Donahue's saying, they're all guys – you know, Dick Pavetta's retired in Ocala, Florida, I believe. they're all guys you know Dick Pavetta is retired in Ocala Florida I believe um you know Joey Crawford is be bopping around still making money off the G League Steve Javi is a deacon in the Catholic Church and a ESPN analyst now and these guys I just can't see any of them ever say anything um you know I've talked to a couple other referees who said some really interesting things off the record, but really these guys, it's a tight-knit fraternity. There's only 55 of them, and Donahue,

they all look at Donahue as the black sheep, and rightfully so, but at the same time... That's amazing if that guy gets busted and they're still all able to keep their mouth shut because you would think that the FBI could do the, you know, really I've got a ref in the other room who's saying something different, and then somebody, like, falls for that. The fact that they all were able to keep their mouth shut, you know, everything that you're suggesting is true is pretty amazing.

And what the NBA did. Fascinating podcast, though, man. Thank you, man. I appreciate it. you're suggesting is true is pretty amazing it's yeah and what the nba did so man thank you man i appreciate the nba issued a gag order right after they leaked the story and thwarted the f so the process was all right we're going to thwart the fbi's investigation by leaking the story it's going to become public everybody's going to know about it that's fine because we just can't have our guys talking about it they issued a company-wide gag order. The entire NBA, owners, players, fucking cowboys, everybody shut the fuck up, don't say a word.

Your livelihood depends on it. How melancholy a Christmas do FBI agents have? You know what's funny is these guys were all investigating drug cartels and murderers, and this was something they were interested in and something that they believed that they had a case against the NBA. They were very confident that they were going to be able to uncover a lot when it came to the NBA as a corrupt business.

But these guys were putting away murderers. They were, you know, this was the Gambino family faction of the FBI. These, these guys were, you know, focused on taking on the Gambino family. How can a corporation just issue a gag order? Listen, I'd love to talk to you, Mr. FBI agent, but Stern says I can't talk to you. He's not above those guys. No, but think about this.

Think about the NBA system as a whole. If you're a player and you critique a referee, if you complain about a referee you get fined fifty thousand hundred thousand dollars right the nba system is a messed up system where the the referees are never held accountable for anything because they are a really important part of the nba business and you know being able to help determine which teams move on to the finals so i mean again we laid all the podcasts and and i'm picturing this this is like being in the writers for the beginning of the season for efforts for family like okay where's the murphy family gonna go

they're like okay what's the nba are we gonna let this storyline die are we gonna bring that back around that's wild man That's a fascinating image. We've had a lot of guests on here. This is like Bitcoin and this one here. I'm definitely going to be diving into these whistleblower podcasts. Tim

Livingston, everybody. God damn, giving us just enough. That was awesome. I'm telling you, that was one of the better podcasts we've ever done. Thank you, Burr. I appreciate it. I mean, this was so much fun, you guys. I can't tell you how much I appreciate you guys having me on.

I'm a big fan, and this was so much fun. All right. Don't talk about any important shit with a flat screen in a room, okay? I won't. I won't. This is pretty discreet, right? My setup, you guys got much better team setups. But I'm just in a room.

I'm laying low. Don't say where you're at. They're going to find you. Jesus. We thought we were done recording. We got out of L.A. Andrew, I thought we were done. Andrew, you got to bleep that out.

That's got to be bleeped out. Oh, bleep that out. Bleep that out. Fuck yeah. Fuck yeah. All right, let me do the outro here before you get whacked live on this podcast. Jesus, Bert. All right, let me do the outro here before you get whacked live on this podcast. Jesus, Bert. All right.

Ladies and gentlemen, this has been another wonderful episode of The Bill. Bert. Pod. Yes. All right. Thank you, Tim. you