April 29th – Athlete Talk’s Links of the Week!

Hi everyone, welcome to another edition of the Athlete Talk Links of the Week.  In this episode, we talk about NBA referee bias, Phillip Simmons and the dangers of Twitter.  Lets jump right into your Links!

The Dallas Mavericks have a secret admirer.  However, the secret admirer is NOT Danny Crawford.  The Mavs have not had a good record (1-15, now 1-16) in games ref’d by Mr. Crawford.  Brings to mind the whole Tim Donaghy situation, and how he was able to pick NBA games at an 80% rate just by knowing who was ref’ing each game.  Mr. Donaghy also claimed Danny was proud of his Mavs hating:

It didn’t help the credibility of Crawford, who will work with Dick Bavetta and Rodney Mott, when disgraced ref Tim Donaghy claimed that Crawford bragged about the Mavs’ miserable record in his playoff games.

Hubie Brown has said a lot of sh*t.  A lot of what he says is excessively vague or non-sensical. But one thing he has said recently that does NOT fall into either of those categories is that coaches in the NBA must adjust their game  plan for how the referees are calling the game.  Name me one other sport where the referees call for their own separate game plan.

Twitter accounts are getting people in trouble again! 1310 ‘The Ticket’ in Dallas has fired one of their producers for comments he made via twitter during Monday’s Mavs – Spurs game. The Spurs won that game 92-89 to take a 3-1 series lead. At the time, I guess he was “drunk in a bar” (can’t fault him for that) when he made a few pretty ridiculous less-than-140-character statements via his twitter account, including: “Congrats to all the dirty Mexicans in San Antonio.”

ABC creates fictional character Phillip Simmons to Executive Produce 30 for 30. Current (and real) Executive Producer Bill Simmons not pleased.  You would think ABC would be able to get the names of their own employees right when they post a picture on ABCnews.com, eh?