Funk Rating: 7 out of 10
When I lived in Chicago and MJ and the Bulls dominated the NBA, I've always felt that the playoffs were manipulated. It struck me as odd that almost every series goes to 6 or 7 games, and that whichever team was down, seemed to have a better than even odds of coming back to "even it up" and get another night of commercials out of the series...
Well, this book isn't exactly about that topic, but it's close :). This book is all about a former ref who essentially figured out how to predict winners in the NBA by knowing the refs, the coaches and the players. He had "inside" information and he bet on the game. And organized crime used him to make a lot more money than he ever made.
No doubt the writing and publishing of this book was an effort at cathartic cleansing for Donaghy. Not unlike Agassi, you can see him trying to explain himself - to his friends, to the public, and perhaps even to himself.
It's not a particularly great read due to his penchant for overkill on details of specific games or people, but it's pretty interesting nonetheless. If you like sports, if you ever wondered if games were "fixed", or if you ever just wanted to know how the NBA worked, you might enjoy this one...
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