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Tim Bontemps
NEW YORK — In his first public comments since Thursday’s federal indictments were announced involving Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier and Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups, NBA commissioner Adam Silver said he was “deeply disturbed” by the allegations that were presented by federal authorities.
“My initial reaction was I was deeply disturbed,” Silver said Friday in an interview with Amazon at the start of the second quarter of the game between the New York Knicks and Boston Celtics at Madison Square Garden. “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.”
Silver also explained the events that led to the NBA investigating “aberrational behavior” around a game March 23, 2023 — one of several in the indictment — involving Rozier while he was playing for the Charlotte Hornets in New Orleans against the Pelicans.
Rozier was investigated by the NBA, and the league said at the time it “did not find a violation of NBA rules” and he continued playing.
“So what happened was because bets were placed through legalized legal betting companies, they picked up aberrational behavior around a particular game in March of 2023,” Silver said. “And so, it was brought to our attention by the regulators and the betting companies. We then looked into that situation and were very transparent about it. And while there was that aberrational betting, we, frankly, couldn’t find anything.”
Silver also said that Rozier cooperated with league officials at the time, including being interviewed by them and surrendering his phone, before “we ultimately concluded that there was insufficient evidence, despite that aberrational behavior,” and reiterated that the league has continued working with the government.
“The federal government has subpoena power,” Silver said. “[It] can threaten to put people in jail, can do all kinds of things that the league office can’t do. So, we’ve been working with them since then. And, of course, what they announced yesterday was an indictment.
“And 2½ years later, he still hasn’t been convicted of anything, in fairness to Terry. Obviously, it doesn’t look good, but he’s been put on administrative leave, and so it is a balance here between protecting people’s rights and investigating. And as I said, we’ve been working with the government, and they have extraordinary powers the league office doesn’t have.”
Rozier, Billups and former Cleveland Cavaliers guard and coach Damon Jones were among 34 people indicted Thursday as part of two sweeping federal investigations involving illegal sports betting and rigged poker games.
The NBA put Rozier and Billups on immediate leave from their teams Thursday and said in a statement that it would continue to work with federal authorities on the investigations, which officials said Thursday are ongoing.
According to the case filing, between December 2022 and March 2024, a group of co-conspirators placed bets on at least seven NBA games involving the Hornets, Orlando Magic, Los Angeles Lakers, Toronto Raptors and Trail Blazers — using nonpublic information.
Rozier is accused of sharing inside information, removing himself early from at least one game for the benefit of gamblers and profiting from those bets, according to the indictment.
Rozier allegedly told Deniro Laster, a childhood friend who also was named in the indictment, that he would remove himself from the Hornets-Pelicans game in the first quarter because of a supposed injury, according to the indictment. Laster allegedly sold the information to two bettors for about $100,000.
Those bettors, along with their associates and a network of proxy bettors, used the info to bet on Rozier’s unders, according to the indictment. The money wagered was in the hundreds of thousands, according to the indictment. Many of the bets won after Rozier removed himself from the game after nine minutes, with 5 points, 4 rebounds and 2 assists.
ESPN’s Brian Windhorst and David Purdum contributed to this report.
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