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Jontay Porter was hit with a lifetime ban from the NBA and a lengthy prison sentence thanks to the betting scandal that derailed his career. Now, another player has ended up in the crosshairs of investigators who are looking into whether or not Terry Rozier may have also been involved with the group of unsavory gamblers he worked with.
Every major professional sports league has rules that explicitly bar players from both gambling on games they’re involved in (for reasons that should be fairly obvious) and prohibiting them from wagering on any contests and events organized by the league.
It doesn’t take a genius to understand why those guidelines are in place, as the powers that be need to do everything they can to maintain the integrity of their sport in a day and age when plenty of fans have managed to convince themselves games are rigged to further a narrative or benefit more marketable teams and players.
That’s especially true when it comes to the NBA, which actually had a number of games rigged by disgraced referee Tim Donaghy before his years-long scheme was exposed in 2007.
Last year, the league found itself with another scandal on its hands courtesy of Jontay Porter, who was playing for the Raptors when he ended up at the center of the investigation that determined he’d colluded with a ring of gamblers to facilitate the prop bets they placed on him to profit before the illegal operation was exposed.
Porter was subsequently banned for life and pled guilty after being charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud for his role in the criminal plot (he’s expected to be sentenced to between 41 to 51 months in federal prison when he learns his fate at a hearing currently scheduled for May 20th).
Now, The Wall Street Journal reports another player has become embroiled in that scandal in the form of Heat guard Terry Rozier, who officials say was at the center of some “heavy” bets placed by the same gamblers involved with Porter during a game that transpired during his time with the Hornets.
The contest in question took place on March 23, 2023, a showdown between Charlotte and New Orleans where Rozier played less than ten minutes and eventually left the game with a foot injury after recording five points, four rebounds, two assists, and a steal.
An NBA spokesperson says the league was alerted to suspicious betting patterns involving Rozier at the time but didn’t find any evidence of wrongdoing after conducting its own investigation (it’s worth noting he missed the last eight games of the season after prematurely exiting due to the aforementioned ailment).
With that said, the league acknowledged Rozier has now attracted the attention of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York and added it has “been cooperating with that investigation.”
This case seems decidedly less cut-and-dry than the Porter situation, so we’ll have to wait and see how things pan out.