Every day NBA commissioner David Stern reminds me more of Richard Nixon.

Deny, deny, and deny. Absolutely no other officials were involved, we are told. Donaghy is a liar. The league doesn't influence officials. No serious investigation by the league, just blanket denials.

And yet..

If you ask NBA fans if the league favors certain teams, whether refs tip the outcome of games, and do they give too much latitude to star players, the answer would have be yes. Without hesitation. And that is the same answer you would have gotten before anyone ever heard of Tim Donaghy.

So what's the truth?

Stern rightfully reminds anyone who listens that Donaghy has an interest in saying whatever will minimize his upcoming sentence for wire fraud and gambling by use of interstate commerce. Beyond that, how credible are his claims the NBA wanted to extend a playoff series (supposedly the Kings and Lakers in 2002) to enhance gate receipts? Teams don't make or lose money in the NBA on the strength of a single playoff game.

If the refs are in the tank for the Lakers, the memo obviously hasn't gotten around in the Celtics-Lakers series. And Kobe Bryant did not even once get 10 free throw attempts in the San Antonio series.

Open and shut case of wild accusations and innuendo, right?

You could say that if the league's officials were pure as the driven snow, and if Stern had been as interested in what happened on the court as what kind of bling the players wore on the sidelines.

Cases in point-

In the late 90's a ref made a statement in a tax fraud investigation that as many as 15 officials had used the same South Carolina travel agency to manufacture phony travel receipts. The officials traded down tickets from first class to coach and pocketed the difference without reporting it as income. Three refs plead guilty to tax charges and 14 settled out of court.

For years there have been reports of refs spending too much time and losing too much money in Las Vegas and at the track.

Mike Mathis, an official who retired in 2001, cited Michael Jordan's game clinching shot in Game 6 of the 1998 NBA finals after pushing off to gain position as an example of star treatment and bad officiating run amuck. He also criticized the league for hiring officials and their supervisors based on an old boy network instead of qualifications.

For all his arrogance, Mavs owner Mark Cuban has documented time and again how bad NBA officiating is. You can't help believe, going back through playoff games involving Dallas, that Cuban's criticism had the effect of making things worse on his team.

In 2007 Joey Crawford, a talented official who has the habit of interjecting himself too much into games, called a technical foul on Tim Duncan for laughing at him from the bench. According to Duncan he then challenged him to a fight and was suspended for part of the season and the playoffs. Despite his outrageous conduct, he's back calling games this year.

Finally, you have Donaghy's allegation refs cooked the outcome of Game 6 of the 2002 Lakers-Kings playoff game. Before Donaghy said a word, that game was a legend of bad officiating. The Lakers went to the line 15 more times than Sacramento, and in the 4th quarter went 21-27 from the aptly named charity stripe. Then there was the famous sequence where Kobe Bryant shoved and elbowed Mike Bibby, which resulted in a foul on Bibby.

If there is nothing to any of this, how do you explain that game? Incompetence? A bad night? What about the years of Jordan's chronic extra step not being called? Crawford's arrogance? Cuban's video tapes and reams of documentation of missed calls? Mathis allegation?

The truth is out there, and it probably is this. The NBA's officials are too much a fraternity, and like many frats this one is running amuck and then closing ranks when someone notices their misdeeds. They schmooze with players and coaches, settle scores with their whistles, and are probably susceptible to unqualified supervisors passing along comments from league officials about players, teams, and type of fouls.

There is no grand conspiracy. Probably no more than a couple of refs actually have shaved points, but also probably more than just one. Likely the league does favor teams from New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles because ratings points come from the major metro areas, and ratings points are what drive the size of TV contracts. And nobody, and I mean absolutely nobody, thinks star players don't get away with murder.

The time has come for the league to look hard at itself before Congress does, or worse before a bigger scandal takes places which has a major impact on the credibility of the pro game. And it's time for David Stern, the biggest obstacle to a full accounting and reform, to step aside.