Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. I guess I should make a World Series pick before Game 1 tonight, huh? I’ll say Dodgers in six. They’re a great team but I don’t think this is as one-sided as a lot of people are making it out to be. The Blue Jays have the kind of offense that can mitigate the Dodgers’ starting pitching advantage. 

In today’s SI:AM: 
🏀 NBA rocked by scandal
🏈 Scandal’s impact on NFL
🙏 McCarthy set to return after Vikes flop

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Breaking down the NBA gambling allegations

The indictments filed yesterday in federal court concerning allegations of illegal gambling by current and former NBA players have the potential to be the beginning of one of the biggest scandals in American sports. It’s a complex case with lots of moving parts. Let’s try to break it down as simply as possible. 

Who are the sports figures involved?

Three NBA figures were arrested: current Heat guard Terry Rozier, current Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups and former NBA player and coach Damon Jones. 

Rozier did not play in the Heat’s season opener in Orlando on Wednesday. Billups coached the Blazers in a loss to the Timberwolves that night. Both have been placed on leave by the NBA. Thiago Splitter will coach Portland on an interim basis. 

How is each person implicated? 

There are two separate indictments here. One concerns providing inside information about NBA games to gamblers. The other concerns underground poker games allegedly rigged by Mafia associates. Rozier was indicted in the inside information case, Billups was indicted in the poker case and Jones was arrested in connection with both cases. 

Billups and Rozier, through their attorneys, denied any wrongdoing. 

What are the specifics of the alleged illegal activity?

The allegations against Rozier are similar to the actions of former Raptors forward Jontay Porter that earned Porter a lifetime ban from the NBA. Rozier is accused of letting a close friend know that he planned to leave a March 23, 2023, game early with a supposed injury. The friend sold the information to other gamblers, who, along with other co-conspirators in the case,  then placed more than $200,000 in bets on the “under” on Rozier’s statistics for the game. (Rozier was playing for the Hornets at the time, and the game in question was against the Pelicans.)

Jones is also accused of passing along inside information to gamblers. The indictment alleges that Jones sold or attempted to sell non-public information regarding the injury status of Lakers players. (Jones, a former Cavaliers assistant coach, was an unofficial assistant for the Lakers in the 2022–23 season, according to the indictment) One such player was evidently LeBron James. According to the indictment, Jones texted an unnamed co-conspirator before a Lakers-Bucks game on Feb. 9, 2023, telling the person that an unnamed player would not play and urging them to place “a big bet on Milwaukee tonight before the information is out!” (James matches the description of the unnamed player, identified as Player 3, in the indictment. He was ruled out for that game due to ankle soreness. James is not accused of any wrongdoing.)  

Billups and Jones were indicted in a separate case involving an illegal poker ring that the feds say has ties to four of the five major New York Mafia families. According to the indictment, the poker games were being fixed by the mafia through the use of rigged shuffling machines, card analyzer technology loaded onto decoy cell phones, specialized contact lenses that could read pre-marked cards and other means. 

Billups and Jones are accused of playing in the poker games that were backed by Mafia, participating as part of what the feds call the “Cheating Teams” to defraud unsuspecting marks who thought the games were on the level. The indictment alleges that the defendants used professional athletes to attract victims of the scam to play in the rigged games. Billups and Jones “received a portion of the criminal proceeds in exchange for their participation in the Scheme,” according to the indictment. 

The potential for additional fallout

Thursday’s bombshell could be just the beginning. While Billups is only named in the poker indictment, he appears to have also been involved in the inside information scheme. That indictment refers to an unnamed “Co-Conspirator 8” who is a resident of Oregon (where Billups coaches the Blazers) and was “an NBA player from approximately 1997 through 2014, and an NBA coach since at least 2021.” Co-Conspirator 8 is accused of providing information about the Blazers’ lineup for a March 24, 2023, game against the Bulls to defendant Eric Earnest, which Earnest then passed on to gamblers who made bets against the Blazers. (Portland lost, 124–96.) Earnest is also named in the poker indictment. 

While the indictment only mentions that one instance of the unnamed Billups-like co-conspirator divulging non-public information to bettors, the NBA should be very concerned about the extent to which an active head coach with ties to mob-affiliated gamblers provided inside information to those gamblers. 

In a statement, Billups’s attorney said, “Anyone who knows Chauncey Billups knows he is a man of integrity; men of integrity do not cheat and defraud others. To believe that Chauncey Billups did what the federal government is accusing him of is to believe that he would risk his hall-of-fame legacy, his reputation, and his freedom. He would not jeopardize those things for anything, let alone a card game. Furthermore, Chauncey Billups has never and would never gamble on basketball games, provide insider information, or sacrifice the trust of his team and the League, as it would tarnish the game he has devoted his entire life to. Chauncey Billups has never backed down. He does not plan to do so now. He will fight these allegations with the same tenacity that marked his 28-year career. We look forward to our day in court."

Jones’s involvement could also prove troubling. Jones played 11 seasons in the NBA for 10 different teams. He was well traveled, but also well liked, and became friends with many top players. 

“Some within the league walls see the Rozier and Billups situations as containable, even viewing the indictments as a deterrent for years to come,” Chris Mannix wrote. “Jones’s involvement, though, could cause the fallout to linger. And spread.”

One high-ranking team executive told Mannix that Jones “is the NBA’s biggest liability right now.”

Possible ties to college basketball

While Thursday’s indictments only named NBA figures, fans should be prepared for additional revelations about gambling improprieties at the college level. One of the men named in both indictments, Shane Hennen, has previously been tied to suspicious bets on college games. In an in-depth investigation into game-fixing in college and pro basketball published in February, Michael Rosenberg and Pat Forde detailed numerous unusual bets on college games that Hennen had made. (That article also mentions that Hennen had been accused of cheating at poker.) 

“We are still reviewing the documents,” Hennen’s attorney, Todd Leventhal, told SI. “But Shane maintains his innocence and we intend to fight these charges to the fullest.”

Forde reported in September that the NCAA is currently investigating 13 men’s basketball players from six schools for gambling violations. “Sources tell SI that many of these cases involve a coordinated effort by a group of individuals to fix games across the sport,” Forde reported. 

With the start of the college basketball season a little more than a week away, more bad news could be on the horizon. 

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This article was originally published on www.si.com as SI:AM | What to Know About the NBA Gambling Cases.