Enough has probably already been said about Donaghy’s latest allegations, but Doug Robinson of the Deseret News had an interesting take that I hadn’t thought of before.

(Although I probably should have).

We’ve heard our fair share of arguing about whether the league mandated that the referees should call games certain ways.

There is no good argument that I have heard that says that referees couldn’t dictate which team wins a game. They certainly have enough power in their whistles to allow any NBA team — even the worst team in the league — to beat any other team in the NBA.

The question is really whether they would, not if they could.

Stern says they would not. He says they have not received that directive from the league, and they would not call games unethically alone.

Referees are, of course, incorruptible and ethical to a fault — right? Anybody believe that?

Doug Robinson argues, rather convincingly, that David Stern isn’t telling truth. It’s not necessarily that Stern is lying — would the league really want the small market, boring Spurs to win 4 championships in the last decade — but rather one simple fact. David Stern has been wrong about his refs in the past, and there is no way that he can know well enough now to make such a definitive statement. Check out his argument. It’s very interesting.