Rebounding From Donagate

Over the summer, a story broke that was an absolute sucker punch to the stomach of NBA fans everywhere. Tim Donaghy, a 13-year veteran referee of the NBA, was discovered to have bet on numerous NBA games. This would have been a disgrace enough, but the story didn't end there. Donaghy bet on games that he officiated. He also released information to other bookies that was supposed to be classified, regarding player's injuries. He also released information about the officiating tendencies of other referees.
The disgraced referee allegedly fixed games he officiated by calling enough fouls to make sure that the team he bet on scored enough points to beat the point spread, or call enough fouls on the underdog to ensure that the spread was not beat, depending on how he bet.
In August, Donaghy stood before a federal court in Brooklyn and pled guilty to conspiracy to engage in wire fraud and transmitting wagering information through interstate commerce.
As part of this plea agreement, Donaghy paid $30,000 dollars to the government, the amount he received for disclosing classified information regarding injuries and other officials habits.
Now, the NBA must prove to its fans that Donaghy was indeed an isolated rogue official, something that will be increasingly difficult as reports begin to surface that there were other officials involved in the scandal.
Reports on Espn.com cite anonymous sources who claim that six officials have been disciplined by the NBA since Donagate broke in July, although the source claims that the referees were not related to the scandal and were punished for minor infractions only and did not bet on NBA games.
The NBA however, has denied these reports, but NBA commissioner David Stern did announce that the league has looked into "policy violations" committed by other referees.
So, the essentially, the NBA has said that something bad happened, more accurately, the statements from Stern and league spokesman Tim Frank have made seem as ambiguous as saying that something ungood has happened.
Which, unfortunately, sets the precedent of conspiracy that the rest of the season will carry with it.
Even if Donaghy was indeed a "isolated, rouge, criminal" as Stern has labeled him seemingly eight trillion times, it's not likely many people will buy it.
Personally, I don't know if Donaghy was truly the only one, and I doubt that Stern does either. I don't mean to criticize Stern here, but I see no way that he can know entirely.
Now, every close call made by any official in the NBA, will be scrutinized. Genuine mistakes will be evidence for indictments, and whenever a team wins a close game, the opposing fans will undoubtedly scream that the game was fixed.
Okay, so that part of it is nothing new, but now there will be reason to think they're right.
The real losers in all of this, apart from the players who lost games they may have otherwise won, are the clean refs in the NBA, who I hope to God do in fact exist. While refs have never been viewed with great respect, NBA refs in particular are now all associated with Donaghy and therefore treated as scum.
Additionally, NBA games may now resemble street ball pick-up games now, because refs will be so reluctant to call fouls that they will end up missing fouls that they should call. If that habit gets pointed out, we'll see the opposite effect within a month.
All in all, it will be a roller coaster season in the NBA.