The new NBA season is less than a week old and the league’s been hit by a massive gambling scandal that’s included multiple indictments for more than 30 people.
Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups, Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier and former NBA player Damon Jones were all arrested as part of the investigation. Billups and Rozier were placed on ‘immediate leave’ after they were indicted.
FBI director Kash Patel and U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Joseph Nocella Jr. announced the indictments Thursday.
Billups is charged in connection with an illegal poker operation tied to the mafia. By using high-tech cheating technology, he and other defendants allegedly rigged illegal poker games to steal millions of dollars from victims.
Rozier is charged in connection with an alleged insider sports-betting conspiracy. The Miami Heat guard allegedly shared non-public information on NBA teams and athletes with bettors from December 2022 to March 2024.
Both Rozier and Billups deny the allegations. Jones is charged in connection with both.
It’s one of the most shocking storylines to affect the league in recent history. Here’s how notable league stars, analysts and figures are reacting to the developments.
Bam Adebayo: Terry Rozier has Heat’s ‘full support’
The Miami Heat play their first game since guard Terry Rozier was placed on immediate leave from the team by the NBA in the wake of his alleged role in the league’s gambling scandal. Heat captain Bam Adebayo addressed the situation after morning shootaround in Memphis and told reporters, ‘we stand behind him. Full support.’
‘You support him through and through,’ Adebayo said, according to ESPN. ‘That’s our brother at the end of the day. It felt kind of weird without him being here, actually, because he’s the first person I get to talk to in the morning. He brings that great energy to our team.’
‘Terry is somebody who is very dear to all of us,’ added Heat coach Erik Spoelstra. ‘He’s had a real positive impact on our locker room, and the staff and players alike, and that includes last year, when he wasn’t in the rotation often times. We send our thoughts and our care for him as he goes through this.’
Nikola Vucevic blasts prop bets: ‘Disrespectful to the game’
Chicago Bulls center Nikola Vucevic had a harsh take on the current reality for NBA players, and prominent sports figures around the world, now that legalized gambling is ever-present in society. While speaking to reporters Friday in Chicago, Vucevic called the unintended consequences of legalized sports gambling, and particularly prop bets, ‘a big problem for the world. It’s a big addiction for people.’
‘In general, gambling is a problem, not only here, but worldwide,’ Vucevic said, according to The Athletic. ‘I think now that it’s got into sports here, a lot of people involved with it, a lot of people gamble. It’s unfortunate a lot of people get stuck in it and it’s hard to get out. It’s available on your phone. All you gotta do is download an app and you can just play. We, as players, feel it a lot when we step on the court. Nowadays, you hear it more often. Before you used to hear, ‘Hey Vuc, get a win.’ … Now, it’s like, ‘my parlay is 10 rebounds. I need 10 boards.’ Or ‘Hey, my parlay is 15 points.’ Or you come out of a timeout and you hear people say that and a lot of times you turn it’s 14, 15-year-old kids and, honestly, it pisses me off. It’s disrespectful to the game.’
Jaylen Brown says players need help from NBA
As more teams held regularly scheduled player availabilities in the aftermath of Thursday’s arrests, more players were asked to react to the scandal and the potential ramifications for the league. Boston Celtics star Jaylen Brown, a vice president for the National Basketball Players Association, said he wants players protected better from the current gambling environment.
‘That whole world was introduced a couple years ago, and I don’t think they took players into consideration, especially with the energy and the behavior that goes around gambling and how that directly correlates with players. We don’t benefit from any of the profits, or anything like that, but we got to deal with a lot of the extra negativity and scrutiny behind all the gambling stuff. And then on top of that, it creates more integrity issues.’
‘They’re like, ‘You make X amount of money or X, Y and Z, you should be able to deal with all the extra negativity, the people approaching you about the parlays,” Brown added, according to ESPN. ‘It creates a negative discourse around the game and players when people have money involved. … It’s leading to situations that we can avoid if more conversations were had right now.’
NBA analysts, Hall of Famers react to scandal
ESPN’s ‘Inside the NBA’ crew of former NBA players Shaquille O’Neal, Kenny Smith and Charles Barkley weighed in on the scandal on Thursday, Oct. 23.
O’Neal said he played card games with teammates when he was in the league, but it was limited to that, as the NBA made sure to tell players what not to do.
‘One of those things [was] where somebody asks you if a certain player is playing, you say no,’ O’Neal said. ‘All these guys knew what was at stake and I’m just ashamed that they put themselves, put their family and put the NBA in this position. We all know the rules, we all know the letter of the law.’
Smith was surprised given how much Billups, Rozier, Jones and others were making in their roles that they’d allegedly get involved in the scams.
‘But we have to realize gambling is an addiction,’ Smith continued. ‘The addiction of it is what makes you make illogical decisions … regardless of your ethnic background, regardless of your physical background and regardless of your financial status. So let’s understand that.’
Smith also cautioned against projecting these allegations onto the league as a whole.
‘Because there are people who get speeding tickets doesn’t mean everyone in the league speeds,’ he said. ‘So don’t look at this group of people starting to get investigated as the entire league.’
Charles Barkley countered Smith’s argument that what Rozier was allegedly doing was not an gambling addiction.
‘These dudes are stupid,’ Barkley said. ‘Under no circumstances can you fix basketball games … How much is [Rozier] going to benefit taking himself out of the game to get unders? Like, he’s making $26 million dollars [per year].’
Barkley clarified Billups’ charges are a different matter but maintained that the alleged actions can’t be explained by addiction.
‘The notion that guys are making all this money and giving information, come on man, stop that,’ Barkley said. ‘Ain’t got nothing to do with addiction, that’s just total stupidity on these two dudes’ parts (sic).’
Mychal Thompson, a retired player who won NBA championships with the Los Angeles Lakers in 1987 and 1988, said the news left him in ‘a state of shock.’
‘The thing that pops up to me is any athlete or any coach or whoever’s involved and thinking about gambling today, why do you need to do it?’ Thompson told USA TODAY Sports. “Because players are making tens of millions of dollars, so why… would you need to make an extra few thousand bucks? Why risk your career when you could make $100 million or $200 million?
That’s what makes no sense to me.’
Warriors mull NBA’s relationship with gambling
Two-time NBA MVP Stephen Curry isn’t worried about the integrity of the league in the wake of these allegations.
‘I think on the whole, everybody’s very mindful of what to do, what not to do, and understanding the landscape of sports right now in general,’ Curry said, per the BBC. ‘And that’s not just a NBA thing, this is new territory for everybody. So I think, on the whole, we all are very responsible.’
His Golden State Warriors teammate Draymond Green said he was shocked but doesn’t think the league partnering with gambling companies contributed to this scandal.
‘But I’m not going to sit here and be like, ‘man, you all partner with a gambling company, you open a can of worms.” Green said. ‘That can of worms can be open with partnering with gambling companies or not … Partnering with a gambling company is not going to make gambling more accessible to us. The accessibility is what it is.’
Warriors coach Steve Kerr said teams go through what is allowed regarding gambling at the start of the season.
‘Our legal counsel, Woody Dixon, came and talked to the team four days ago,’ Kerr said. ‘Every team in the league does this, goes through bulletin points, of everything that is not allowed in this issue. So our players are well aware, all players are well aware of what they’re allowed to do, what they’re not allowed to do.’