Perhaps you should offer your services to R.Kelly? He's looking for someone who knows the ins and outs of videotape doctoring for his defense...if you have what you say you have, you'd be a natural... *link*
I found this excerpt from one of The Sports Guy's articles on ESPN Page 2: http://espn.go.com/page2/s/simmons/020606.html Damn Bavetta, that don't look too good...
man i love bill simmons. 1) he actually brought up lakers/blazers in 2000. portland did greatly choke game 7 but i always felt if there were any justice they win that series in 6. they played the greatest defensive scheme against LA in the last 3 years and had enough offensive balance to hurt LA. too bad they were screwed. he might be the first person i've seen write that it wasn't all portland's fault they lost that lead at the end of game 7 also (getting no calls, sheed getting manhandled which was definitely true). also can't believe he remembered the steve smith foul. although it seemed inconsequential b/c LA was up 4 already, that was one of the worst non-calls i've ever seen b/c you almost got the sense that it was a 20 point game that the refs just wanted to end and not a game 7 in the WCF. 2) notice how he called game 6 the most one-sided effort by the officials in the last decade. i've heard people saying yeah but the officials went the kings way in game 5, but anyone arguing it was even near the level of game 6 is insane. there's a reason there wasn't huge media coverage of the officiating for game 5. and it's not b/c all the stories got lost on the way to the printing press or the media loves the kings or lakers fans are just so level-headed and such good sports that they would never complain about officiating. the fact is game 5 wasn't that bad and game 6 was an absolute travesty. has anybody seen anywhere in which game 6 officiating wasn't outright called a joke or at least implied that it was horrible. i haven't. although we may never know if the kings win game 6 if the officiating is even, we do know the Lakers had a gift handed to them when they needed it most and that just isn't right. and it's not like you can just say simmons is some irrational sactown fan who is whining, he seems to be a fairly objective guy (when he's not talking about boston teams) who lots of people like and probably speaks for a majority of fans on all of the games he listed. and dick bavetta is either a huge ******* or the league knows he can get the job done for the team they want to win and they assign him to all must-wins b/c of this.
Bill simmons is the MAN. His whacky sense of humor, random knowledge and sports knowledge always contribute to great articles. By the way, I thought that whole Bavetta thing was quite disturbing. I remember a bunch of those games, and the fact that there is a tie amongst many of them....Hmmmm...... Conspiracy theorists, ATTACK!!!!
