''Personal Foul: A First-Person Account of the Scandal That Rocked the NBA'' is an autobiography written by former

National Basketball Association The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United S ...

(NBA) referee Tim Donaghy and published by

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

-based VTi-Group, Inc. in December 2009. Donaghy, who had resigned from the league as a central figure in the

2007 NBA betting scandal The 2007 NBA betting scandal was a scandal involving the National Basketball Association (NBA) and accusations that an NBA referee used his knowledge of relationships between referees, coaches, players and owners to bet on professional basketball ...

, describes his involvement in and inner workings of the scandal, as well as his gambling addiction. Originally named ''Blowing the Whistle: The Culture of Fraud in the NBA'', the book was canceled by publisher

Triumph Books Triumph Books is a Chicago-based sports book publisher. The company is well known for its "instant books", such as its illustrated tribute to NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt, which was released 10 days after his death in a crash in the 2001 Daytona ...

because of liability concerns. Pat Berdan, Donaghy's liaison with Triumph, said the book was canceled after the NBA threatened legal action—which the NBA denies. Donaghy eventually found a new publisher, VTi-Group, that was willing to release his book. It was subsequently renamed ''Personal Foul: A First-Person Account of the Scandal That Rocked the NBA'' and released in December 2009. "We approached Mr. Donaghy after learning that his original publishing deal fell through. With a background in web media and traditional publishing, Mr. Donaghy felt that our firm was the best fit to become the publisher for this unique project." said Benjamin Daniel, a project manager at VTi. In the book, Donaghy describes his time as a referee in the CBA and NBA, discussing the NBA's inner workings, refereeing bias, TV media markets, owners in the NBA, marriage and divorce, NBA "scandals" (NBA favoring big-market teams, manipulating playoffs to extend to Game 7, star player privileges and so forth), his time in jail, court process, solving the NBA's problems, referee personalities, and his life story.

References

NBA controversies Sports autobiographies Basketball books 2009 non-fiction books {{sport-bio-book-stub