Like the rest of the NBA world, Jaylen Brown was a bit stunned to learn about the arrests of former teammate Terry Rozier and Blazers coach Chauncey Billups on Thursday morning.
‘I’m not completely sure what’s going on,” Brown told reporters in New York Friday morning. “My job as vice president of the union is to get to the bottom of it and figure it out. I know some of those guys personally, obviously Terry played here. It’s not conductive of his character but we’ll get to the bottom of it as a union and figure out what the next steps for it is.”
Rozier and Billups were placed on ‘immediate leave’ by the NBA after being arrested by the FBI for their involvement in two separate gambling schemes.
Rozier is accused of taking part in an illegal sports betting scheme in which participants heavily bet against Rozier prop bets in a 2023 game when he was a member of the Hornets. The guard only played nine minutes in that game before exiting due to a sore foot.
Billups is charged in an indictment that alleges he was involved in a conspiracy to rig underground poker games that were put together by Mafia families. Billups was one of 31 arrested as part of that scheme including former Cavs player and coach Damon Jones.
Brown had some pointed words for the NBA and how they’ve handled gambling in the aftermath of those arrests.
“Me personally, that whole world was introduced a couple years ago, and I don’t think they took players into consideration, especially with the energy and the behavior that goes around gambling and how that directly correlates with players.
“We don’t benefit from any of the profits or anything like that, but we’ve got to deal with a lot of the extra negativity and scrutiny behind all the gambling stuff. And then on top of that, it creates more integrity issues, etc. So I’m not sure what the answer is going forward, but definitely something that people have got to spend more time having conversations about.”
Brown will be in a position to try to enact some change on that front as a vice president of the NBA players’ association. In the meantime, he is trying not to let the scandal impact him on the floor.
“It don’t affect me,” Brown said. “I don’t pay attention to that stuff. People bet. Don’t bet on me, I’m going to tell you that right now, but I don’t know how it affects everybody else. That’s a personal question.”
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