What former NBA referee Tim Donaghy has brought upon the league will not soon disappear. Donaghy’s involvement in shady dealings will leave increased doubt and suspicion where many observers long have had them.

Players, fans, writers and broadcasters often have said to themselves and out loud, “What kind of call was that?” There is little doubt they will continue to do so, possibly even more often because of Donaghy.

Perhaps the scariest concept, among many, for commissioner David Stern is that Donaghy was considered among the league’s better officials and thus earned the privileged duty of working playoff games.

Man, how bad were some of the other officials, if a dude with his own personal and financial gain was judged one of the best? It could also be argued, how good was Donaghy to be able to overcome those personal interests to still be assessed as one of the best?

Unquestionably, Donaghy’s guilty plea on two felony counts Wednesday in New York that he’d been providing inside information to gamblers will make many wonder exactly what his motives and actions actually have been over the past four seasons.

Former Kings fan favorite and current New Orleans Hornets guard Bobby Jackson said Wednesday morning he has done a mental check of games Donaghy worked involving himself and his teams.

“It also has to make you wonder if he was cheating, if there were other refs cheating and how many?” said Jackson, who is known for playing so hard that he often surrenders his body’s health in hopes of winning a game.

“This guy has disgraced the game for players and for the fans, who pay a lot of money to see a game they think is fair,” Jackson said. “If we’re out there playing games and he’s out there affecting the outcomes of games to win games for his friends and buddies man, I don’t know what’s going on.”

There is Bobby Jackson, the hooper and there is Chris Jackson, the local consultant, who sits courtside as a Kings season ticketholder. The two Jacksons aren’t related by blood, but they are bonded by their questions that will long remain unanswered.

“This whole (scandal) shocked me,” Chris Jackson said, “because to be perfectly honest, I’d always been the guy who said, ‘No way, no how,’ when you’d hear all the conspiracy theorists talking about people wanting the (Los Angeles) Lakers to win certain games.

“And the other part of this was the conversation about putting a team in (Las) Vegas, the epicenter of gambling.”

And certainly the 2001 scandal involving Enron made us all aware that scoundrels come in all shapes, sizes and financial backgrounds. We can look back for examples of the rich taking advantage of the less fortunate as well as men such as Donaghy, who presumably gambled his way into trouble and then attempted to gamble his way out.

Says Chris Jackson, “What I’m most interested to see is how the NBA comes out of this. It’s not unique to them. It’s just the league’s time in the box, right now. And it’s not like this won’t or can’t happen again.”

So true, it may not happen again to the NBA, then again it may. The way sports and life are now, there are no guarantees other than surely there are some wacky, wild, crazy and unpredictable occurrences ahead on the landscape.

Mr. Donaghy’s underhanded ways certainly caught me by surprise. All this time, I just thought the referees were bad. Never did I really think the dudes were cheating. Now, even if it was just one, there will always be a question.