Ron Kantowski argues that the betting scandal is yet another reason the NBA needs Las Vegas

Friday, July 27, 2007 | 7:26 a.m.

Last weekend I was sitting in a local watering hole - and this was before the rain began - when the pompous mug of disgraced NBA referee Tim Donaghy flashed onto the plasma screen for the umpteenth time in a 15-minute period, thereby breaking Lindsay Lohan's record of a bazillion in a half-hour.

Almost immediately, a beefy guy wearing an old-school Kobe Bryant jersey - No. 8 instead of 24 - jumped to the following conclusion as if he were Bob Beamon warming up for the '68 Olympics.

"There goes our NBA team," beefy guy groaned.

My reaction, almost as swift, was that NBA replica jerseys should come with either sleeves or a personal grooming kit. But beefy guy was right: Amid the fallout of the Donaghy debacle, my colleagues in the national press have blamed Las Vegas for everything from the Lindbergh kidnapping to Celine Dion.

OK, so we are partly responsible for prolonging C.D.'s career long after that "Titanic" song dropped off the adult contemporary charts. But don't try to pin Tim Donaghy on us.

We tolerate guys who do lame Elvis Presley impressions and gals who have inflated well, opinions of themselves, proof that we don't draw lines very often around here. But if we did, rogue NBA referees with attitudes and gambling problems would find themselves on the other side, next to those who leave $5 tips at Piero's and hit 16 with the dealer showing a deuce.

As for the national press, some of these purveyors of morality, who have been known to drop entire expense checks on blackjack and table dances, I might add, could find themselves standing next to Donaghy if they don't keep spreading fallacies about the streets where we live.

"Kind of makes you wonder about the extent of Charles Barkley's professed habit - and the commissioner's repeated comments over the years that 'everybody gambles' regarding the NBA in Vegas," wrote Jon Saraceno of USA Today.

Or this, from the Sacramento Bee's Ailene Voisin: "Stern should ... divorce his league from Las Vegas. No more exhibition games. No more Olympic-qualifying tournaments. No more summer-league competitions. No more selling franchises to casino owners. No more conversations with Mayor Oscar Goodman about the possibility of locating a franchise in Southern Nevada."

She forgot no more NBA All-Star games and 6-inch heels on Eva Longoria at courtside.

Although I have never shared a deep-fried Twinkie with Ms. Voisin, I remember Saraceno from his sun-worshiping days at Caesars Palace. Bob Arum certainly does. The Las Vegas fight promoter once famously undressed Saraceno, and his pal Wally Mathews, for spending more time at poolside than ringside when the big fights came to town.

Actually, I agree with Saraceno most of the time. But when he closed by mindlessly ruminating that "Las Vegas needs the NBA, but the last thing David Stern needs is to create more doubt in the minds of advertisers or the American public," you have to wonder if he missed a few spots with the Coppertone.

These would include, but not be limited to, the following:

A) Donaghy did not bet in Las Vegas.

B) Only 5 percent of the money wagered on the NBA is bet legally here while the other 95 percent is usually bet through guys back east nicknamed for nuts or rodents.

And, last but not least,

C) When large sums of money are bet on teams that don't warrant it - the Knicks, for instance - the guys in the sports books blow a whistle so loud that it can be heard at FBI headquarters .

Remember when those frat boys from Arizona State talked a couple of the Sun Devils into shaving points in a meaningless game against Oregon State?

Well, even before "Hedake" Smith started clanking free throws off the rim, our sports book guys had Efrem Zimbalist Jr. on the line.

At least I'm not alone on that island.

"Odd how that these pristine leagues have not dared to rub shoulders with Las Vegas by relocating a franchise to the Strip even though they could learn a lot from its what-happens-here-stays-here philosophy of self-inspection," wrote Selena Roberts of The New York Times.

"Any strange swing on a betting line. Any aberrant pattern of wagering. Any whiff of an irregularity. Any rumors of a fix. And the Nevada regulators - think of them as pit bosses of the state's desert floor - act to stop the problem before it mushrooms into an industry crisis."

Congratulations, Selena. You get it.

So that addresses the second part of Saraceno's declaration. As for the first part, Las Vegas needs the NBA for what? Entertainment? Self-esteem? Something to do when "Spamalot" is dark and beefy guys wearing Kobe Bryant jerseys scarf down the last shrimp cocktail?

Since when did we become Milwaukee?

Because the NBA is more concerned with perception than reality, it played into the misguided concerns of the columnists as well as the beefy guy at the bar by postponing a meeting about putting an NBA team in the new downtown arena that may or may not get built.

"I canceled the meeting, not out of any rational response, but my feeling about it was it was not something I wanted to juxtapose " Stern said during his act of contrition - er, news conference - to discuss Mr. Donaghy, apparently no relation to the guy who drank beers with Crazy Guggenheim on the Jackie Gleason Show.

That was wrong, because no matter what Saraceno and his pals in the national press believe, the NBA needs us more than we need the NBA. Our system of checks and balances at the betting window might eventually restore confidence among a skeptical public. Then when a ref blows his whistle, it might actually be because some rookie traveled, not because the guy in the striped - er, gray - shirt owed Paulie Walnuts a lot of money.

But if Stern doesn't want our help in rehabbing the NBA's Lindsay Lohan image, I suppose he can juxtapose in Oklahoma City until the cows come home.