NBA Hall of Fame head coach and Guard Arrested Thursday
According to Shams Charania of ESPN, Portland Trail Blazers Head Coach, Chauncey Billups, and Miami Heat Guard Terry Rozier were arrested on Thursday morning for their involvement in separate gambling investigations.
Billups was arrested this morning in Oregon as apart of an illegal poker operation tied to the mafia. Billups will appear in court for his initial arraignment later today. Billups is one of 31 defendants who are under police custody for this investigation.
Rozier was arrested this morning in Orlando, and the shady part is Rozier did not play in the Heat’s season-opening 125–121 loss to the Magic due to a coaching decision. This could be a coincidence, but it’s still fishy.
ESPN reports that Rozier’s attorney, — , said that him and the FBI met multiple times when multiple sportsbooks across the country flagged suspicious betting interest on some of Roziers stats in a specific Hornets-Pelicans game on March 27th, 2023.
NBA’s commissioner Adam Silver spoke on the “Pat Mcafee Show” Tuesday, and the topic of gambling came up. “We’ve asked some of our partners to pull back some of the prop bets, especially when they’re on two-way players, guys who don’t have the same stake in the competition, where it’s too easy to manipulate something, which seems otherwise small and inconsequential to the overall score,” Said Silver. “We’re trying to put in place — learning as we go and working with the betting companies — some additional control to prevent some of that manipulation.”
“This is an illegal gambling operation and sports-rigging operation that spanned the course of years, across 11 states.” Kash Patel, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation said.
“We take these allegations with the utmost seriousness, and the integrity of our game remains our top priority,” a statement from the NBA said.
Information surfaced that NBA superstar LeBron James might have some involvement in the scandal. Former NBA player and coach Damon Jones is alleged to have provided insider information about a star player’s injury status (that player is strongly implied to be LeBron, including adding they placed bets in James’ house) to bettors ahead of a February 9 2023 game between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Milwaukee Bucks.
<a href=”https://medium.com/media/76e0bdf862170291047098aa4de63ef6/href”>https://medium.com/media/76e0bdf862170291047098aa4de63ef6/href</a><a href=”https://medium.com/media/052a6349687fbc5d3594a32cbf7d011b/href”>https://medium.com/media/052a6349687fbc5d3594a32cbf7d011b/href</a>
(This will be updated as new information develops)
BREAKING: NBA Player and Coach arrested in Gambling Investigation was originally published in FanZone Report on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.