Knicks favorite Charles Oakley, a veteran of the celebrated New York-Chicago series of the ’90s, said he believes NBA officials and league executives exert too much control over the outcome of games. Oakley also said he feels the biggest surprise in the allegations by disgraced referee Tim Donaghy is that they didn’t come sooner.
“I’m just surprised he hasn’t put more stuff out about the league because everything he put out is the truth,” Oakley told The Post. “There’s a lot more going on behind this. Some official some day is going to come out with a book and tell the whole story.
“They should have asked about this a long time ago,” added Oakley, who played for the Knicks for 10 seasons, from 1988 to 1998, when they made the playoffs every year. “When you can talk to officials at halftime about calls they made in the first half, that’s control. When you control something, that’s cheating.”
Donaghy, 41, faces sentencing next month after admitting to betting on games he worked and supplying gamblers with inside information. He alleged last week that the league in the past wanted to extend certain playoff series to seven games for better ratings and bigger bucks while also providing superstars with favorable calls – or non-calls. Commissioner David Stern labeled Donaghy’s charges “baseless.”
Oakley disagrees and cited the treatment afforded his buddy and one-time rival, Michael Jordan.
“Whenever you have superstar calls, that tells you right there it’s cheating. It’s controlled,” Oakley said.
Oakley, though, said he didn’t believe the length of a series mattered to the league as much as the outcome.
“I don’t know about getting it to seven games, but they knew who they were marketing for the business,” Oakley said. “You look back and look at the teams and think who can make the money for the league. Who made the league shine in their careers, Michael Jordan or Patrick Ewing? No question it was Michael Jordan. He’s the best player to ever play, but he got more calls. I know I was in a couple situations where I didn’t foul at all and they called fouls.”
Oakley offered two examples from this season’s playoffs for support. He pointed to the controversial end of Game 4 in the Lakers-Spurs Western semifinals. After no foul was called against LA’s Derek Fisher for bumping the Spurs’ Brent Barry, the league came out afterward and said a foul was warranted. Oakley also highlighted Lakers coach Phil Jackson complaining about the free-throw disparity in Games 1 and 2 of the Finals, both won by Boston.
“In this year’s playoffs [Barry] took a shot at the end of the game. That was a blatant foul and there was no foul called. Anybody who watches basketball knows it’s a blatant foul,” Oakley said. “
A ref is just doing what the league calls. . . . You can’t tell a guy you can’t blow a whistle in the last 30 seconds of the game. That’s cheating.”
Oakley contends the control extends beyond the officiating and cited frequent rule changes. Oakley was one of the toughest players in the NBA and often was rankled about rules that were added to give harsher penalties for rough fouls.
“Whenever you can change the rules every year to make somebody better, that’s cheating,” Oakley said.