Everyone knows how David Stern takes care to choose his words very carefully. As a lawyer, he knows exactly how to say things to keep himself out of trouble, or how to convey his stance on issues without revealing too much.

If you watched the press-conference today or read a summary of his statements, you heard how he described the situation involving referee Tim Donaghy. Analyzing these statements carefully brought me to some conclusions as to how this investigation will be heading. Stern's take was that Donaghy is believed to have bet on games, perhaps ones that he himself officiated. And they also believe that he provided information to people about the games. That is what Stern said.

Think about that. "Provided information". I take this to mean that the ref knew beforehand whether he was going to call the games tightly or loosely, lots of fouls or fewer fouls, etc. If you are familiar with sports wagering and the fixing of games, you will know that it can be hard to help a particular team win without it looking too obvious. That is why when the fix is in, it is more common for the over/under lines to be bet. Both teams seem to be treated equally, but the game is just called in a different way. Sometimes you'll hear the announcers say, "Looks like they're letting 'em play tonight". That means you'll see tough defense, with lots of missed shots and few fouls called.

Taking this into account, I believe that we will come to find out that Donaghy tipped people off as to whether they should bet the over or the under on certain games. And then he called the games in a way that would either cause more points or less points to be scored. Maybe in a way this made it seem OK for him to do. Maybe it put his conscience at peace by thinking that he was just causing a high-scoring game, and not influencing who the winner would be. Who knows?

Maybe we all will, months down the road when we get to hear his testimony.