OPINION

By Bethlehem Shoals

updated 7:46 p.m. ET Oct. 30, 2009

I know there was a reason, in addition to my complete and total unprofessionalism, why I waited on the Donaghy book leak. This was a scandal burning up the web community — you can find Deadspin's mother lode here — and all I did was fixate on one particularly weird, refs-as-fans, episode.

But sex sells, and nothing says intercourse like guys in weird outfits screwing your favorite team out of its rightful path to ecstatic victory. This is, to say the least, another one of those lip-service PR disasters for the NBA. It's all over the news wires that the league will be launching further investigations, into all the stuff they missed when their lawyers read it once and decided it was so radioactive that it was time to threaten the publisher with some serious corporate libel ish.

Let me ask you this, though: If you're a longtime NBA fan like me, does any of what is in here really shock you? I singled out the Allen Iverson/Steve Javie/Joe Crawford triad because it was in a class by itself. It had subliminal bribery, extreme prejudice, and, if true, probably should set up a system whereby refs can recuse themselves from certain games. It also made me feel like Javie was extremely petty, and Crawford both very small and kind of cute.

Other than that, what exactly is shocking your socks off here? That stars get away with stuff? They should; if a ref doesn't see perfectly, chances are the lesser player is the one he screwed up. I'm half-kidding there, but the idea of earning your calls, whether through sheer brilliance or time served in the trenches, is pretty basic. The latter is as All-American as things get; the former, while unseemly, doesn't really warrant a book. Oh, some players as a-holes that refs can't stand? That's hardly a scandal, it's called being human in a season that's too long.

Now, I see why all this matters. Any team could have a crucial game swung by a call tainted by any number of biases. But that's a reason for more review, not a sky-is-falling, mob-is-calling, hookers-on-ice-are-waiting exposé gaining any traction. Refs try, but are human, and their various imperfections — some dictated from above, some part of the league's culture, some unique to them — can be rinsed away through more replay, communal decisions, and other rational processes like that. Lamenting the awful injustice that refereeing has become is like expecting change to come naturally and smoothly to Washington, D.C.

The irony, of course, is that the refs just won their mighty labor stand-off, the replacements by all accounts stunk, and if any of this had warranted addressing (in the league's eyes), that would've been the time. But no, nothing. Donaghy's book is an embarrassment the same way your dad's affair or cousin's coke problem 10 years ago are. The NBA has to make a big deal out of condemning it, while at the same time claiming to look into what's "new" to the public. Nothing's going to change, though.

Before you call that hypocritical and disingenuous, look at your own hands, sister. We had all forgotten about Donaghy. Those people who, to one degree or another, get off on reviling the NBA, believed all this stuff already. Homers kept it in their back pocket for when their team got run over by a larger market squad. Halfway-fans were always quick to mouth it when the topic of the Association strayed too long at a bar. Practically speaking, though, Donaghy blew over because no games were fixed.

Slideshow   Top 100 active NBA players A look at the top players around the league. NBCSports.com

That would've been the bombshell. That would've tainted the league forever. Instead, we're recycling the same facts of ref culture as if they were either new dirt, or warranted a special prosecutor to sort them out. Does anyone really think these problems exist only in the NBA? Just please, people, ghetto-ize your outrage. Only bring it up with those you know would've cared before, since that's what this is — utterly familiar, if thorny, territory dressed up as a new wound.

Yes, this hurts the league's ability to attract new American fans. Oh well. That's been a losing battle for a while now, unless you're talking about youngsters. Instead of screaming and crying about corruption, we should keep our eyes on, as I said, increased rationality and in-game bureaucracy. But then the libertarians, or those who celebrate the poetry of the single ref's flickering intellect, would flip out. You just can't win. So watch as much basketball as you would've anyway, shut up, and if you're shocked or dismayed, you're probably the kind of casual fan (or feudal homer) who was only ever so tuned into the league to begin with.

I don't seek to excuse evil or imperfection. How much it matters, whether or not we can excuse it, and to what extent it might sort itself out anyway, is the kind of careful consideration that only those knee-deep in the sport are capable of. But hey, I get it. We want to reach people who hate the NBA and have already decided that all the worst possible claims about it are true. Now that's what I call smart business.

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