Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups and Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier were arrested Thursday as part of a pair of investigations related to illegal gambling, sources told ESPN’s Shams Charania.
Rozier was arrested Thursday morning at a hotel in Orlando, Florida. The Heat lost their season opener to the Magic on Wednesday, when Rozier did not play due to a coach’s decision.
Billups’ arrest in Oregon was made as part of a separate but related illegal gambling case linked to an illegal poker operation tied to the Mafia, according to an ABC News report. Billups is expected to make an initial court appearance later Thursday.
Also, former Cleveland Cavaliers player and assistant coach Damon Jones was arrested Thursday on charges that he provided inside information about NBA games to co-defendants who used it to place sports bets, according to ABC News. Jones, 49, played for 10 NBA teams over an 11-year career from 1998 to 2009 and was a Cavaliers assistant from 2016 to 2018.
The Eastern District of New York and FBI director Kash Patel will hold a news conference at 10 a.m. ET Thursday to announce arrests from the investigations.
Sportsbooks in multiple states flagged suspicious betting interest on Rozier’s statistics ahead of a Charlotte Hornets-New Orleans Pelicans game on March 23, 2023. An unexpected surge of bets — including 30 wagers in 46 minutes from a professional bettor totaling $13,759 — came in on the under on Rozier’s points, rebounds and assists, causing sportsbooks to halt betting on the veteran guard. Rozier, then with the Hornets, played just 10 minutes before leaving the game, citing a foot injury.
Rozier’s attorney, Jim Trusty, previously told ESPN that his client met with NBA and FBI officials multiple times in 2023. The NBA said it looked into the matter at the time and did not find that any league rules were broken.
Other details of the Billups case were not immediately available. Billups has served as the Trail Blazers’ coach since 2021 and was on the sideline for their season-opening loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves. He is an NBA champion and was a Finals MVP as a player with the Detroit Pistons, and he was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2024.
Rozier, 31, is in the final season of a four-year, $96.3 million contract he signed with the Hornets in August 2021. The March 23, 2023, game was Rozier’s last of the 2022-23 season with the Hornets, who traded him to the Heat in January 2024.
His case stems from the betting scandal involving former Toronto Raptors center Jontay Porter, who was banned from the NBA in the spring of 2024 for his role in a gambling scheme around player prop bets. Porter pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges and admitted in court to manipulating his performance in two games during the 2023-24 season. He is awaiting sentencing in December.
Four men, including Porter, have pleaded guilty in the case. Two other men have been named as conspirators and have been in plea negotiations, according to court filings.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver, appearing on “The Pat McAfee Show” on Tuesday, said the league has been working with its sportsbook partners to combat attempts at manipulation.
“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,” Silver said. “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.”
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