The recent arrests of Chauncey Billups, Terry Rozier, and Damon Jones have rocked the NBA. Commissioner Adam Silver said he “was deeply disturbed. There’s nothing more important to the league and its fans than the integrity of the competition. And so I had a pit in my stomach. It was very upsetting.” How much does this scandal actually hurt the NBA? How much should it hurt the NBA? These are two slightly different questions because perception and reality are sometimes two different things. I thought we could run through the charges against each of the three NBA-related parties in detail and see what we can learn from that deep dive…
The Damon Jones Indictment
Jones was an undrafted guard who worked his way into the NBA from the minors, playing 657 games from 1999 through 2009. He was mostly a useful bench player, who peaked at 11.6 ppg as a starter for the 2004-05 Heat team that nearly made the NBA Finals. He was also a key bench player for some early LeBron James Cavs teams from 2005 through 2008. According to Basketball-Reference.com, he made over $21.7 million for his career as a player.
He was an assistant coach for the later LeBron Cavs from 2016 through 2019, where he was most rememberd for a tiff with JR Smith, which Smith attempted to resolve by throwing a bowl of soup at Jones. According to Smith in 2023, Jones jokingly tried to spill Smith’s soup and Smith, who had “stuff going on at home and…wasn’t playing well” became angry and wanted to show Jones when to stop “playing.”
Jones hadn’t coached since 2019 but apparently was close enough to the NBA to get non-public information about games that LeBron wasn’t going to play in on February 9, 2023 and January 15, 2024. Jones allegedly leaked that information to a co-conspirator and expected a cut of any winnings on bets made from that information.
The February 9, 2023 Game
Digging a little deeper, the Lakers lost the February 9, 2023 game to the Bucks by 9 points. Coming into the game, the Bucks were 38-16 and the Lakers were 25-30. Without information about LBJ’s injury, the Bucks were favored by 5.5 points, which Milwaukee covered. For a little more context, James had just set the all-time scoring record the prior game, but the Lakers were struggling that whole season because they couldn’t integrate Russell Westbrook into their offense. They were 3-5 in the previous 8 games and LBL had missed a game a few days earlier (January 30, 2023).
Moreover, on February 8, 2023, the Lakers had just made the massive trade to ship Russ out. The players involved in the trade hadn’t passed physicals yet so the Lakers couldn’t play their new acquisitions (D’Angelo Russell, Jarred Vanderbilt, and Malik Beasley). In short, even with a healthy LeBron, the Lakers looked like distinct underdogs, and it is hard to believe a smart bettor would bet on the shorthanded post-trade team to cover the spread against a far superior Bucks team.
The January 15, 2024 Game
It’s not clear what the inside information was before this game, but the Lakers were 19-21 and took on the 27-11 Thunder in Los Angeles. LeBron had missed the previous game and was listed as questionable for the OKC game. Despite these facts, the Lakers were still favored by 1 to 1.5 points. LBJ did play and had 25 points, as they beat OKC 112-105. It’s clear that knowing James would play would be helpful information for bettors. On the other hand, James was not ruled out and was merely questionable. Even with that tenuous status for LBJ, the odds makers seemed to be leaning Lakers anyway. The inside information here was quite relevant but did not seem to affect the line.
Both these instances did not seem to confer bettors with huge advantages. On the other hand, the Department of Justice did state that these were only two examples of Jones disseminating inside information, implying that there were others. These facts, if true, may be crimes by Jones but neither seem to be the hottest inside tips a bettor could get.
The Chauncey Billups Indictment
Billups, who had a Hall of Fame NBA career, is the current Blazers coach. He was indicted for participating in mob-related rigging of illegal poker games in the Hamptons. According to Basketball-Reference.com, Billups made about $107 million as a player. He signed a five-year $10 million contract to coach the Blazers in 2021-22. Billups recently tore up the final year of his contract and, instead, signed a two-year extension. Terms have not been reported other than that it was a raise above his original contract.
So, why was Chauncey arrested? According to the DOJ, “[w]ell-known former NBA players and former professional athletes, acted as ‘Face Cards’ to lure unsuspecting victims to high-stakes poker games, where they were then at the mercy of concealed technology, including rigged shuffling machines and specially designed contacts lenses and sunglasses to read the backs of playing cards, which ensured that the victims would lose big.” Billups and Jones were both indicted as “Face Cards.”
Billups was also mentioned as an unindicted co-conspirator in a the “NBA inside-information” case as a person who gave inside info to an Eric Earnest, who was indicted for rigging the poker games AND taking inside info. According to the DOJ, on March 24, 2023, Billups told Earnest ”that several of the Blazers’ top players would sit out a game against the Chicago Bulls. Before that information became public, Fairley and his associates wagered over $100,000 against the Blazers. When the lineup change was later confirmed, betting lines shifted dramatically, and the group’s early bets yielded major winnings.” The indictment does not specifically allege Billups knew that the info would be used for betting but, based on the poker game allegations, it would be reasonable to conclude that Billups wasn’t telling Earnest this information for posterity.
Focusing on March 24, 2023 specifically, the news that Portland was sitting a few starters is not a huge revelation. The Blazers were 32-40 and had lost 6 of their last 7 games. They were hopelessly out of the playoff/play-in hunts and the decision to tank was imminent. The odds did change from Blazers favored by 1 to Bulls by 3.5 when Dame Lillard was downgraded to questionable and Anfernee Simons and Jerami Grant were ruled as out. The Bulls, who were very much in the playoff hunt, won 124-96.
The information allegedly provided by Billups definitely increased the degree of certitude that the Bulls were going to cover. Still, who bets a late March game between a .500ish Bulls team and a functionally eliminated Blazers team with any degree of certitude? While the information provided by Billups was not the hottest tip, the fact that an active NBA coach might be hanging out with dudes who rig high stakes illegal poker games and pass those same dudes non-public team information is not acceptable regardless of legality.
Usually, head coaches don’t hang out with gamblers. The closest analog I could think of was in baseball, in 1947, when Dodgers manager Leo Durocher was suspended a season primarily for associating with gamblers, as well as accumulation of other incidents that bothered the commissioner. Durocher did return to manage in 1948 and remained gainfully employed as a manager for various teams through 1973.
Unlike Billups, Durocher could not be pinned with specific wrongdoing and, frankly, Durocher had a better resume as a manager than Billups has had as a coach.
The Terry Rozier Indictment
Rozier was drafted 16th by the Celtics in 2015 out of Louisville. After four years as a bench player for the Celtics, in 2019, Rozier signed with the Hornets for three years and $56.7 million, replacing Kemba Walker at starting point guard. Over the course of that contract, Rozier averaged 19.3 ppg, 4.4 rpg, 4.3 apg. In 2022, Charlotte re-signed Rozier to a four-year $96 million contract, which expires after the 2025-26 season. In total, he has made $135 million and, if he is paid the final year of current contract, his career earnings would be about $160 million.
The allegations against Rozier are most serious. According to the DOJ, on March 23, 2023, Rozier tipped off a friend Deniro Laster that “Rozier planned to leave the game early due to a purported injury. Rozier provided this information to Laster for the purpose of enabling Laster to place wagers based on this information.” Laster and others placed more than $200,000 in under bets against Rozier that night. Rozier left the game after nine minutes. The DOJ also painted this vivid picture after the game: “Laster collected the cash and drove through the night to Rozier’s house, where together they counted the profits together.”
At the time, the Hornets were 23-50 and their season was cooked. They lost the game 115-96 on the road to the 35-37 Pelicans, who were in the play-in hunt. Rozier did not play in the eight remaining games. The Hornets were in New Orleans that night and were set to play in Dallas the next game.
This is where things get wonky. Placing huge bets against Rozier clearly set off alarms with the sportsbooks but not much was noted publicly. Then in late 2024, Jontay Porter of the Raptors pulled a similar shtick, where he left two games early with injuries and allowed bettors to hit on heavy under bets (January 26, 2024 and March 20, 2024). This seemed really blatant, as he was a fringe player who was unlikely to be a hub for large bets under ordinary circumstances.
This time, the NBA was publicly discussing Porter. On April 10, 2024, Silver said the NBA was investigating Porter for a “cardinal sin” and, if it was true, “I have to ban him from the game.” One week later, Silver announced that Porter was banned from the NBA and the press release articulated the plan: “The league’s investigation found that prior to the Raptors’ March 20 game, Porter disclosed confidential information about his own health status to an individual he knew to be an NBA bettor. Another individual with whom Porter associated and knew to be an NBA bettor subsequently placed an $80,000 parlay proposition bet with an online sports book, to win $1.1 million, wagering that Porter would underperform in the March 20 game…. Due to the unusual betting activity and actions of the player, the $80,000 proposition bet was frozen and was not paid out.”
On May 3, 2024, David Purdum of ESPN reported that the NBA was talking about changing betting options to avoid another Porter issue: “[a]mong the changes that have been discussed is prohibiting betting on players on two-way contracts between the G League and the NBA, sources said. More extreme measures such as not allowing bets on the ‘under’ on a player prop have been considered, sources said, but there are concerns that restricting wager types could push bettors into the unregulated betting market.”
The NBA was conspicuously silent, however, about Rozier until January 30, 2025, when the DOJ announced it was investigating him for the 2023 incident. At the time, the NBA made a statement acknowledging that it had previously conducted an investigation and found no violations.
All was radio silent until the arrests a few days ago. Rozier’s attorney, Jim Trusty, quickly put out a statement noting that DOJ had told him that Rozier was not a target of the investigation and that the DOJ officials “appear to be taking the word of spectacularly in-credible sources rather than relying on actual evidence of wrongdoing.”
Shortly afterwards, Brian Windhorst reported that the NBA secretly shutdown Rozier for the rest of the 2023 season: “I just want to point something out. The sports books caught the irregular betting on Terry Rozier the day it happened… And guess what? The NBA— Rozier didn’t play the rest of the season and he had faked the injury. So, it wasn’t cause of the injury. The NBA pulled him.” Windy is evidently implying that Rozier didn’t play because the NBA wanted to squelch attention on his alleged misdeed.
Having articulated the basics of the indictments and the surrounding facts, let’s now render some preliminary opinions on the burning issues that jump out at us….
How bad are these indictments for the NBA?
Obviously, any story that calls into question the legitimacy of play is bad for the NBA but the conduct here appears to center mostly on low leverage situations or inside information that was not as hot as one would think.
Let’s assume that the conduct alleged is true. From a practical standpoint, the harm is limited. The parties losing money are giant sportsbooks, who are insanely profitable and make money off of the addiction of laypersons. FanDuel, for example had revenue $14 billion in 2024. The sportsbooks are pretty well-protected. In fact, they quickly noticed Rozier’s betting and aborted the Porter bets in real time. The sportsbooks shouldn’t be cheated but they can take care of themselves.
What about the conduct….how bad is it?
With respect to the passing of inside information on player health status, I have a hard time getting too worked about the specific information passed herein. Damon Jones passed on information that didn’t really affect odds as much as one would think. Milwaukee was far superior to the Lakers at the time, and the Lakers were favored in the OKC game with LeBron being listed as questionable. LBJ’s presence, or lack thereof, definitely changed the risk calculus but, in my mind, the lines in both games would not have been that different if the information was public earlier.
Similarly, Billups letting his gambling associate know that the Blazers weren’t going to try in late March after having lost 6 of 7 is not a shocker either. Portland’s season was over and they weren’t trying, regardless of whether Lillard was playing. As for rigging illegal poker games, the “fish” shouldn’t be exploited but I am not sure the fish were planning on declaring the income they intended to make had they had more success in those games.
In a world where congressional members and persons close to the executive can effectively trade stocks based on non-public information, you want me to care about someone leaking LeBron’s health status a few hours early when the information wasn’t a 100% lock to win the bet? What Jones and Billups were alleged to have leaked was improper. Note that Billups was not charged with a crime for leaking, though Jones was (perhaps because he texted that he wanted a cut of the earnings made on this information). Clearly, injury information must be disseminated publicly but I don’t see this as a particularly serious issue or one that can’t be fixed by more transparency by the teams.
The Rozier allegations are a bit more troubling. Even though the game was totally meaningless, feigning injury affects confidence of the fans in the authenticity of the product. That is serious and cannot be tolerated. This potential lack of confidence is the key issue for the NBA to deal with. One would think that prop bet manipulation is not viable because the sportsbooks would recognize them immediately but people are not always too smart so the risk remains and clearly must be addressed.
What should the consequences be?
Even assuming he had no knowledge that the games were rigged, Billups can’t coach an NBA team and hang out with dudes who are rigging poker games. His coaching career is likely over, even if he prevails at trial.
Jones is not really part of the NBA and hasn’t been since 2019. He will get the worst punishment, a shunning by LeBron and Klutch for making LBJ look bad. Granted, there is no proof that Jones got the info from LBJ or betrayed James’ trust directly, but LBJ can’t be happy to be described in an indictment in any context.
As for Rozier, his story has the most variance. If he is guilty, he is done and, if he’s innocent, he can squeeze a few more years out of his career. A lot doesn’t make sense yet about his case:
-Why would a guy making $24 million per year risk it all for $200,000 in cash?
-Why would his attorney believe Rozier was not a target of the investigation and be so wrong? Is Trusty just posturing or did the change in administrations affect the results?
-The indictment alleges that Rozier injured himself in New Orleans and drove all the way to Charlotte that night to get the money. The Hornets were due to play in Dallas the next day. Did Rozier really drive back to Charlotte (a nearly 11-hour drive without accounting for stops) in the middle of the night after the game?
-Why did the NBA clear Rozier? Windy implies they did not have the subpoena power of the DOJ and/or that they had incentive to bury the potential scandal. Is it possible that the NBA had exculpatory evidence not considered by the DOJ?
Questions abound. Either Rozier was not too smart in assessing risk/reward or there’s a lot more to this story than we know.
Does Silver deserve blame for this scandal?
The USA Today just put out an editorial by Nancy Armour, echoed by many others as well, that blamed the NBA for this scandal by embracing legalized betting. Armour writes that: “[b]y giving their approval to legalized gambling, the NBA and other leagues might as well have handed an arsonist a match. There is no daylight between gaming and its toxic byproducts, especially when smartphones make irresponsible gambling and abuse of players so easy.”
Fair point but every major sports league has integrated legal gambling into their revenue streams. I would love it if they all rejected gambling revenues but that’s a pretty naïve viewpoint. Both the NBA and the NBPA support the additional revenues from gambling, despite the inevitable headaches associated with the industry. As noted above, these indictments are not serious threats to the legitimacy of the NBA on their own but could be if future scandals get more serious.
Hell, the NBA has had plenty of gambling scandals in the before times. Michael Jordan’s associations with illegal gambling was well known. Isiah Thomas was also alleged to have been involved in a high stakes game in 1990 (he angrily denied involvement). David Stern swept both issues under the rug, as well as the Donaghy Affair. Silver is merely doing his job, and some parts of his job aren’t pleasant but his compensation ain’t too bad.