MIDWEST MISERY By Adam Hirschfeld

One million dollars is a lot of money to you and I. To the National Basketball Association, it should not be. Heck, the league pays more than that to guys like Damon Jones.

The desire for one million dollars may bring the NBA to its knees.

There is a fine line between having balls and being plain stupid. NBA Commissioner David Stern and his lackeys have crossed that line past the point of no return with respect to the Tim Donaghy scandal.

It was ballsy of Stern to announce to the world in the face of the revelation that one of his officials had been swayed by outside forces that said official was a rogue, amongst a bevy of otherwise upstanding gentlemen. Ballsy not only because Stern could not say for sure whether any of his other referees were guilty of the same offense of fixing game outcomes, but because they had been guilty of criminal conduct in the past.

No, I am not referring to the officiating during the Dallas-Miami finals of a couple of years ago. Has everyone forgotten that in the recent past, NBA referees were convicted of failing to report income derived from switching league-provided flights from first-class to coach and pocketing the difference? While this may seem like simple human nature (let’s be frank: you and I would both do the same thing unless we feared being caught), the fact is that the conduct is illegal. The conduct is also a bit on the shady side.

Ballsy as it was, given the vast NBA conspiracy theories floating around out there, Stern had little choice other than to do whatever necessary to portray Donaghy as isolated and cooperate with the authorities.

Now he got stupid.

I’m an attorney, but not one who knows the inner workings of the federal courts. Apparently, from what I can gather, the victims of those who commit federal crimes are able to make claims for restitution from the perpetrators (I suppose this means there is a pit bull terrier out there who could ask Michael Vick for some cash). In this case, the NBA decided that it should pursue, from Donaghy, its costs incurred investigating the allegations. Whether founded or not, the NBA claimed Donaghy’s actions cost them a cool million dollars.

This information might not have ever made it to the public had Donaghy himself not been trying to do all he could to get as small a sentence for his crimes as possible. From the moment his guilt was not in question, Donaghy has done all he could to cooperate with the authorities, occasionally throwing the NBA under the bus but mostly trying to protect himself. As much as it is human nature to try and score a little cash on the side, it is even moreso human nature to avoid prison.

(Quick aside: I have a prosecutor friend who always ponders switching to defense because of the money he could make. His statement to me is: “how much would you pay to stay out of jail?” My answer is usually “a lot.”)

Given that the NBA’s claim of damages could hurt his cause, Donaghy went on the attack, alleging that the league orders referees to protect stars and extend series. He even went so far as to bring out the league’s Roswell, its Kennedy Assassination, its “soon to be made into an Oliver Stone feature film game”: game 6 of the 2002 Western Conference Finals. Donaghy alleged that the fix was in from the league in a game so poorly officiated that Ralph Nader attempted to sue everyone he could think of to get an answer as to why.

I have no idea if Donaghy’s claims have any merit. They may be, as Stern and every NBA representative who wants to remain employed by the NBA have said, the acts of a desperate man doing anything to avoid a few extra years in a federal penitentiary.

But the public’s perception of the NBA is such that Donaghy’s claims will be given credence and legitimacy regardless of their truth. People think that Stern and the other higher-ups actually give orders such as those Donaghy alleges were given in 2002 and 2005.

Announcers may not come out and say it, but there has for years been an implication that stars will get certain calls that average players do not. Columnists predict with stunning accuracy that certain playoff games will contain large free throw discrepancies, and then they do (witness Game 3 of this year’s Finals).

And that’s why it was stupid of the NBA to go after Donaghy, well on his way to becoming an afterthought. Because the league felt it needed to get in an extra lick (that I doubt it could have even recovered. If Tim Donaghy has a spare million sitting around, then I’m Bill Simmons, who was so anti-Donaghy is his column today I think Stern may have him on the payroll), Donaghy is back in the spotlight taking center stage during a Lakers-Celtics Finals. The NBA prints money; why it needed to chase a relatively small amount is beyond comprehension.

No matter what happens on the court for the rest of this series, Donaghy’s shadow will be cast over the action. If the series goes seven games, will that be because the officials wanted it that way? Will we see a conscious effort by the referees to see that the series does not even go back to Boston? Who knows?

What I do know is this: during the World Series, I don’t watch Chuck Merriweather. During the Stanley Cup Finals, I don’t watch Kerry Fraser.

Rest assured we’ll all be paying as much attention to some guy in an ugly gray shirt as we will to Kobe Bryant and Kevin Garnett. That’s as much of a disgrace to the game as Donaghy.

And as cheap as the shots Donaghy fired at the NBA might be, it wasn’t as cheap as the shot the league fired first. Stern crapped the bed. Now he has to sit in the mess.

Questions? Comments? Feedback counts. Adamh164@yahoo.com