Screw the NBA

Ari, I know what you're talking about.

In Europe it's even worse. Each and every year, the Final Four of the champions cup is hosted in a different city, and FIBA does everything in its abilities to make sure the hosting team WILL be in the Final Four, even if it's a relatively weak team.

If the town hosting the Final Four has no team in the European champions cup, then FIBA does everything in its ability to make sure that teams with big crowds make the Final Four (imagine how awful it would look if the four best teams would play with no crowd).

It's a known problem, and since in Basketball refs can REALLY make a change, it's also a thing the bastards use in order to further some teams.

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Originally posted by Jidoe

If the town hosting the Final Four has no team in the European champions cup, then FIBA does everything in its ability to make sure that teams with big crowds make the Final Four (imagine how awful it would look if the four best teams would play with no crowd).

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Yeah, that crap is lame. I understand WHY they do this, but if these reasons are so important why not make sure you choose cities with good teams in the first place?

In the US, the reason is because most leagues hand out All-Star games and championship games as rewards to teams that just broke the back of their host city forcing them to use tax revenues to pay for a new stadium.

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Originally posted by Jidoe

It's a known problem, and since in Basketball refs can REALLY make a change, it's also a thing the bastards use in order to further some teams.

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Yup.

And then when one guy gets caught benefit himself instead of the league, he gets 25 years in prison.

By that logic, David Stern should have a life sentence.

Not that I do not agree the sentence is rather hefty compared to more serious and disgusting crimes...

But I take into consideration how many people his cheating affected. How many thousands of people LOST thousands of dollars over his cheating. If I interpret the statistics in the article correctly, he was likely cheating on big payout games. Meaning, he cheated when he'd make 4:1 or better. Now, given games with near 10pt spreads are a pretty safe bet, how many people went with the odds and lost big bucks over the extremely unlikely outcome?

He didn't just fuck up... he fucked thousands of people up. I think he earned every year he got.

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Originally posted by Wrent

He didn't just fuck up... he fucked thousands of people up. I think he earned every year he got.

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Well, he fucked thousands of gamblers up maybe... Gambling in general is pretty dumb, and gambling on sports even dumber. So I really don't feel a whole lot of sympathy for them.

I'm not talking about people who participate in harmless pools and little friendly bets with buddies. That is very harmless, good natured fun, and generally the folks involved set the terms - they don't let Vegas set them.

People who bet big money with bookies on sports are not being terribly wise with their money.