The NBA was left in chaos just two days into the new season when veteran player Terry Rozier and a head coach, Chauncey Billups, were arrested as part of an FBI probe.
Miami Heat star Rozier and Portland Trail Blazers coach Billups were detained by the FBI in separate arrests early on Thursday morning for alleged illegal gambling, according to reports.
Six arrests were made as part of the FBI’s sports betting investigations. The Eastern District of New York and FBI director Kash Patel will hold a press conference at 10am ET to announce further arrests from the investigation.
Rozier, 31, was detained at a hotel in Orlando, Florida, where the Heat were defeated by the Magic on the road Wednesday evening, according to ESPN’s Shams Charania. Rozier did not play due to a coach’s decision.
Billups, who was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame last year, was arrested in Oregon and will appear in federal court in the state later today.
The coach’s arrest was made as part of a separate but related illegal gambling case linked to an illegal poker operation tied to the mafia, according to ABC News.
Rozier’s arrest comes after sportsbooks in multiple states flagged suspicious betting activity on the player’s statistics ahead of the Charlotte Hornets-New Orleans Pelicans game on March 23, 2023.
The flurry of interest in bets came in on the under on Rozier’s points, rebounds and assists. Sportsbooks consequently halted betting on the veteran.
The unexpected surge reportedly involved 30 wagers in 46 minutes from a professional bettor totaling $13,759.
Rozier, who was suiting up for the Hornets at the time, would ultimately leave the game in less than 10 minutes of action due to what was described at the time as a ‘sore right foot.’
He had just five points, four rebounds, two assists, and a foul – numbers that appeared suspicious in the eyes of some gamblers after several sportsbooks stopped taking prop bets on Rozier that night.
The March 23, 2023, was Rozier’s final game of the 2022-23 season with the Hornets, who traded him to the Heat in January 2024.
Rozier is in the final season of a four-year, $96.3million contract that he signed with the Hornets in 2021.
It was reported in January that federal prosecutors were looking into claims that the guard manipulated his performances.
However, the NBA said at the time that it did not find any violation committed by Rozier.
‘In March 2023, the NBA was alerted to unusual betting activity related to Terry Rozier’s performance in a game between Charlotte and New Orleans,’ NBA spokesman Mike Bass said earlier this year.
‘The league conducted an investigation and did not find a violation of NBA rules. We are now aware of an investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York related to this matter and have been cooperating with that investigation.’
Other details surrounding the allegations against Billups, a former NBA champion, were not immediately available.
The 49-year-old former Finals MVP is in his fifth year leading the Trail Blazers and was on the sidelines for their season opening defeat to the Minnesota Timberwolves on Wednesday.
The arrests follow the betting scandal involving former NBA player Jontay Porter, who was banned from the league in July 2024 for his role in a gambling scheme.
The former Toronto Raptors forward pleaded guilty last year to allegations he plotted with gamblers to impact betting outcomes in their favor.
He is scheduled to be sentenced in December. He had requested permission to travel abroad and play in Greece, but was denied by a federal judge in July 2024.
Echoing findings in an NBA investigation and allegations in an ongoing prosecution of other individuals, Porter acknowledged he agreed to withdraw early from games so that co-conspirators could win bets on his performance. He did it, he said, ‘to get out from under large gambling debts.’
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 ESPN.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver said that the league was working closely with sportsbooks to combat manipulation attempts by its players.
‘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 during an appearance on the Pat McAfee Show.
‘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.’
