A months-long federal gambling investigation led to the arrest Thursday of Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier.
According to a report by ESPN’s Shams Charania, “Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier was arrested early Thursday morning as part of an FBI sports betting investigation, sources told ESPN’s Shams Charania. The Eastern District of New York and FBI Director Kash Patel will hold a news conference at 10 a.m. ET to announce arrests from the investigation.”
Rozier was arrested in Orlando, where the Heat stayed overnight following Wednesday’s 125-121 season-opening loss to the Magic. The Heat is scheduled to travel to Memphis on Thursday afternoon for Friday’s matchup against the Grizzlies.
Rozier, 31, has been under investigation as part of a probe connected to unusual betting activity surrounding a 2023 game while he was with the Charlotte Hornets.
ESPN reported in July that “a professional bettor placed 30 wagers in 46 minutes, all involving Terry Rozier in a 2023 NBA game.”
“On the morning of March 23, 2023, a bettor at a sportsbook in Biloxi, Mississippi, placed $13,759 in bets on the unders on Rozier’s statistics in a game that night between the Charlotte Hornets and New Orleans Pelicans,” according to the documents, which ESPN acquired through an open records request. “All 30 bets won, after Rozier, an eight-year veteran with the Hornets at the time, exited 10 minutes into the game, citing a foot issue.”
The game in question came on March 23, 2023, when Rozier was a member of the Hornets before he was traded to the Heat in January 2024.
Rozier totaled five points on 2-of-4 shooting from the field and 1-of-3 shooting on threes, four rebounds, two assists and one steal in 9:34 before leaving the Hornets’ loss to the Pelicans early with a foot injury despite not being listed on the injury report prior to that March 2023 contest. He didn’t play again that season.
The NBA conducted an investigation on Rozier and did not find a violation of NBA rules before the FBI arrested Rozier months later.
“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 when the federal investigation into Rozier was made public in late January by The Wall Street Journal. “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.”
Rozier’s attorney, Jim Trusty, told ESPN for a story published in July: “It’s unfortunate that he’s a big name in sports and is having to endure all this. My hope and expectation is that at some point that they’ll be done with their investigation and will be professional enough to let us know that it’s 100% over and that they reached the same conclusion that was reached in 2023.”
The investigation into Rozier is part of a larger government probe that led to a criminal charge and lifetime ban from the NBA for former Toronto Raptors forward Jontay Porter.
Rozier is on an expiring contract that pays him $26.6 million this season.
Unlike team-issued suspensions that don’t translate into salary-cap relief, an NBA suspension of Rozier would give the Heat salary-cap and luxury-tax relief (but not relief toward the aprons) of 50% of the salary lost during a suspension. Being expelled from the NBA would completely remove Rozier’s salary from the Heat’s payroll.
Rozier averaged 10.6 points per game on 39.1% shooting from the field and 29.5% shooting from three-point range in 64 appearances last regular season with the Heat for one of the worst years of his NBA career. That’s the fewest points he has averaged and the worst field-goal percentage he has recorded in a season since his fourth NBA season in 2018-19, with Rozier’s three-point percentage his worst for a season since his rookie year in 2015-16.
Rozier began last season as a Heat starter and was expected to be one of the team’s top offensive players, but he instead completely fell out of the Heat’s rotation toward the end of the season.
Rozier did not play in Wednesday’s season opener against the Magic in Orlando because of a coach’s decision.
The Heat traded Kyle Lowry’s $29.7 million expiring contract and a first-round pick to the Hornets to land Rozier in the middle of the 2023-24 season.