[MicroBob]

exactly.

And I think I'm going to retract my thought of MAYBE Stern could see the big picture on this one because it's such a tough sell to all the people who will automatically mean that this will somehow make it easier and more convenient for big sports-gamblers to rig games.

Stern could conceiveably outline all the different ways this ref was betting on games with illegal mob and bookie stuff out of NYC or wherever and reiterate that this situation has absolutely nothing to do with LV or the legal sports-betting there.

But for many people it would just fall on deaf ears.

It's going to be tough enough for the NBA to gain back their credibility at all.
If somehow an LV team got good and made a run through the playoffs then the speculation that it was somehow 'designed' by the league or by the mob or whoever would just run rampant.

In fact, any LV win or loss would be widely speculated to have been pre-determined.
And god forbid if they miss a couple FT's with 1 second left and trailing by 8 and thus fail to cover the 7 point spread or something totally routine.

Or if LV finishes out of the playoffs and then gets a high pick in the NBA draft-lottery.
"RIGGED!!!!! The NBA is getting paid off by those evil thugs in LV. It's SOOOOO obvious!!!"
"Notice how they got the 3rd pick in the draft because so-and-so is who they really wanted. But giving them the 3rd pick doesn't make it TOO obvious."

blah blah blah.

LV doesn't even have a team and I can already hear the loonies complaining about every little paranoid situation their idiot-minds can dream up.

nope, even with all the reassurances in the world from Stern or anyone else I just think NBA hoops in LV will be too difficult a sell now because it will all be the most gigantic of conspiracy theories every single day even when nothing is happening.