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Deadspin reports disgraced former NBA referee Tim Donaghy, who was dropped from a book deal with Random House earlier this year, has a publisher for his purported tell-all exposé. A small Florida-based media company, VTi-Group, will release the book -- Personal Foul: A First-Person Account of the Scandal That Rocked the NBA -- this month. Assumingly enough, Deadspin has what appears to be an unknowing blurb on the book's supposed cover, an assertion that this is "the book the NBA doesn't want you to read."Deadspin's Tommy Craggs reports that Random House imprint Triumph Books dropped Donaghy under pressure from the NBA. But league spokesman Tim Frank told FanHouse today that the NBA "never threatened a lawsuit or anything else." Upon dropping plans to release Donaghy's book, Triumph cited the presence of too many red flags in the text for their lawyers' tastes.
Most interesting is the specter of big media coverage of Donaghy's tales. As in, a VTi-Group press release posted by Craggs states that Donaghy has been interviewed by a reporter for CBS newsmagazine 60 Minutes, and that the segment will air Sunday. The 60 Minutes website is a week behind, so I guess we'll find out soon enough.
CBS has little to lose in angering the NBA. This isn't to say the 60 Minutes reporter -- Bob Simon, according to the New York Daily News -- won't be critical of Donaghy. Just broaching the topic, or giving attention to the crooked ref would seem to be enough to upset league officials.
A network like ESPN, however, is in a very different position, hosting 3-4 NBA games a week (with contests on a parent net ABC coming later this winter). All I'm saying is that if ESPN's own newsmagazine addresses Personal Foul, expect Jeremy Schapp and not, say, Chris Connelly to grill Donaghy.
I'll have to wait on the book to make final judgment, but the best use of the tome might be as the greatest gag gift in the history of NBA league office White Elephant exchanges.
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