Ex-NBA Referee Tim Donaghy Arrested; Allegedly Threatened Man with a Hammer

Former NBA referee Tim Donaghy was arrested Tuesday in Florida for aggravated assault, after allegedly threatening to hit a man with a hammer.

On Thursday, TMZ Sports reported Donaghy, who previously served prison time on federal charges for a betting scandal involving NBA games, told police he took a hammer to collect his daughter as he thought she was using drugs with a friend. While attempting to bring her home, he reportedly got into an argument with the friend's father, and it's alleged he threatened the man with the hammer.

An attorney for the longtime basketball official, who resigned in 2007, told TMZ Sports his client didn't physical harm or verbally threaten anybody and noted his client was trying to be a "good dad."

Donaghy received a 15-month sentence for his role in the betting scandal. He was released to a halfway house after 11 months, but returned to prison after violating federal probation. He finished his sentence in November 2009.

He's continued to discuss matters involving the NBA.

In June, he told KNBR the league would push referees to make calls against the Golden State Warriors, who were up 3-1 in the NBA Finals against the Cleveland Cavaliers, with hope of extending the series:

"There's no doubt in my mind (the NBA) would love this thing to go to a Game 6. I think they're going to show (the referees) a lot of plays that should've been called against Golden State and weren't. I think they're going to concentrate on (Draymond) Green and make sure that he isn't able to be in any physicality or rough house anybody in any shape or form. You're probably going to see him in foul trouble again. It's a situation where they're going to try to get a Game 6 and open things up to create some more revenue for the league."

The Dubs closed out the series in Game 5 with a 129-120 victory.

In November, he said on the Forgotten Maverick Podcast the Dallas Mavericks were "screwed" out of the 2006 NBA title against the Miami Heat based on similar call-altering suggestions from the league.

"Basically, Dallas was up in the series," Donaghy said. "With that being said, the way it was back then, was that the NBA would come in in order to extend a series, to go over plays that they felt should have went in Miami's favor that didn't and that went in Dallas' favor that shouldn't have and they started to program and training the referees to look for certain things."

He added: "I think basically Dallas basically got screwed out of a championship in that situation because the NBA started to manipulate the series to make sure it was extended and Dallas could never recover from it."

Donaghy also wrote a book about his NBA experience, Personal Foul: A First-Person Account of the Scandal That Rocked the NBA, which was released in 2009.