In a generally grim 2024-25 season for the Portland Trail Blazers, fifth-year Israeli swingman Deni Avdija was a bright spot, achieving career-high numbers in points, rebounds and assists.
But the arrest of Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups has people pointing to a suspicious pattern in Avdija’s playing time — and wondering whether the fix was in.
Billups, 49, was one of 30 people arrested Thursday in what the FBI says was a multimillion-dollar, Mafia-run illegal gambling and sports betting conspiracy. Also arrested was NBA player Terry Rozier, whom the FBI alleged faked an injury to make sure coordinated bets against his individual stats — that he wouldn’t reach points or rebounds totals, for example — would pay out.
Billups, who was inducted to the NBA Hall of Fame as a player in 2024, is accused in a conspiracy that took place off the court, in which he allegedly participated in rigged poker games, serving as a celebrity “face” who would lure high-stakes bettors into the trap. Billups and the other players would know what cards were coming and eventually split the take, which could be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars for a single game.
Unlike Rozier, Billups is not accused in any basketball-related schemes, and the FBI says the poker games involving the retired NBA star occurred in 2019, when he was no longer playing and not yet coaching. (He became Blazers head coach in 2021.)
Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups during a game in March. Photo by Alika Jenner/Getty Images
But after his arrest, an old social media post resurfaced which pointed out Billups’ strange coaching decisions relating to Avdija, the league’s longest-tenured active Jewish player. The tweet dated to January, when the NBA announced it was investigating Rozier for suspicious betting patterns. The account @FtblRocco, which posts regularly about sports betting, posted Jan. 30 that “If Terry Rozier is being investigated Chauncey Billups needs to be as well.”
The alleged proof: In five of Avdija’s six previous games, Avdija had played 35, 39, 34, 38 and 38 minutes. In the other, on Jan. 23 against the Orlando Magic, he played only 26 — without any injury or foul trouble. The same thing happened against the Magic a week later: He played only 25 minutes. “Billups clearly deciding to bet the under on him v Orlando,” the account posted Jan. 30 on X.
The evidence is hardly ironclad: Avdija also played only 22 minutes the next game, against Phoenix. But @FtblRocco wasn’t the only account posting its suspicions about Billups.
Following the arrest, another account said it had noticed “large liquidity spikes” in bets related to Avdija, Donovan Clingan, and other Blazers players. A liquidity spike is a sign of increased action — more money being placed — on a particular betting line.
If the FBI was investigating Billups for this, it didn’t find enough to charge him. But one has to wonder whether Avdija’s career year might have been even better without these odd fluctuations.
The Trail Blazers put Billups on leave Thursday and said the franchise was cooperating with the investigation. Meanwhile, in the Blazers’ opening game of the 2025-26 season on Wednesday — a loss to Minnesota — Avdija picked up where he left off: 20 points and 7 rebounds in 33 minutes.
Louis Keene is a reporter for the Forward. His work has also been published in The New York Times, New York magazine and Vice. He is based in Los Angeles.