Out in Manhattan Beach, Kawhi Leonard and Steve Ballmer just bumped chests and popped a bottle of champagne. The financial scandal implicating the Clippers’ star player and owner is now officially small peanuts compared to today’s bombshell involving Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier and Portland Trail Blazers head coach (and Hall-of-Fame player) Chauncey Billups.
I will not dive too deep into the details at this time, as the story is still rapidly developing. In short, Rozier and Billups were both arrested for their involvement in massive financial fraud schemes — Rozier for allegedly coordinating with bettors using private NBA information and receiving a cut of said bettors’ winnings, and Billups for alleged involvement in a ring of rigged illegal poker games. Both Rozier’s and Billups’ actions had ties to mafia families, according to the New York Times.
Given Billups and Rozier are both big names in the NBA world, navigating a gambling scandal involving the duo’s arrests may prove to be the most gargantuan challenge of commissioner Adam Silver’s career. Billups, who earned the nickname “Mr. Big Shot” in his playing days, is in the Hall of Fame and won the 2004 Finals MVP after his Detroit Pistons downed the mighty Shaq and Kobe Lakers.
Rozier is in the twilight of his career, but at the peak of his game he was a borderline All-Star with the Charlotte Hornets. He was also a key bench piece for the 2017 Boston Celtics squad who squandered the last great Wizards playoff run.
Rozier’s arrest especially is as clear a sign as any to me that the NBA has been slowly poisoning itself with its open-armed embrace of sports gambling. The consequence of the irresponsible nature with which the league has been desensitizing its viewers to this wildly addictive behavior appears to be finally rearing its nasty head.
Since the legalization of sports betting in 2018, the NBA has been passing out cigarettes to kids and collecting exponentially-growing checks from the society of smokers it’s built. Gambling is ubiquitous across the NBA viewing experience — gambling ads litter the courts and commercials air every break, the talking heads won’t shut up about player props, and the NBA’s media partners and its own League Pass have rolled out live betting integration during games.
The almighty dollar is what allows us as fans to experience the highest level of basketball in the world on demand on a daily basis. But I fear the NBA may be flying a little too close to the sun in the pursuit of profit.
It is almost too rich that every picture in every news report of Rozier features the Heat’s jersey sponsor, Robinhood, the stock trading platform with a history of anti-consumer practices.
Nameless, faceless private equity billionaires are buying up NBA teams, including the Celtics’ new owner, Bill Chisholm, who didn’t even have a Wikipedia page until this year. The NBA’s in-season tournament has been renamed the “Emirates NBA Cup,” and preseason games have been played in Abu Dhabi.
I understand that business is business, and that it is overly idealistic to wish that every NBA team operated like the Green Bay Packers or some fifth-tier English football team. But at what point does the NBA’s pursuit of profit at the expense of the fans go too far? I would argue that ship has sailed.
The NBA is detrimentally unscrupulous regarding the corporate sponsors and entities with which it chooses to do business. The league is playing an active role in exposing its viewers to antisocial and addictive behaviors like problem gambling while simultaneously pulling in revenue from private equity and human rights sportswashing regimes.
The fans deserve better than this.