Terry Rozier Investigated in Major Betting Conspiracy

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00:00This one, got to tell you, hard to believe.

00:02I know that's been sort of investigated already.

00:06They'll be looking at it some more, but boy, I mean,

00:10a player of this magnitude in terms of financially, Sam,

00:14and I want to underline that, financially speaking,

00:16it's not that Rozier is, you know,

00:18going to go on the hall of fame or anything like that,

00:20but when you're making 20, $30 million,

00:23and it's on a single game prop where, I mean,

00:27I'm guessing six figures was in play for several people,

00:30maybe, I mean, that's a heck of a favor.

00:33Why not just give those people the money, man?

00:35Like, I don't know, to me, this one doesn't add up.

00:38I'm going to hope, by the way,

00:40that this one is completely false.

00:42Yeah, it's definitely a head scratcher, Craig,

00:45when you talk about a guy like Terry Rozier,

00:47who at the time, I think,

00:49was the Charlotte Hornets' highest paid player in history.

00:52So this was a guy making,

00:54it was a year into his four-year $96 million extension.

00:59Wall Street Journal broke the news this week

01:01that he's been named,

01:02or is currently being investigated, rather,

01:04by federal agents

01:05as part of a larger sports betting conspiracy scheme,

01:09a network of gamblers and bettors across the country

01:13that they're looking into allegedly

01:15manipulating these outcomes of games

01:17across not only the NBA,

01:19but also college sports as well.

01:21We've talked recently on this show

01:22about the Eastern Michigan College basketball games

01:25that have been under scrutiny as well.

01:27That is potentially part of this investigation.

01:30So it could kind of all be connected.

01:33This was the same investigation, of course, last year

01:37that led to Jonte Porter,

01:38the former Toronto Raptors swingman,

01:41who, as you point out,

01:43was not a guy like Rozier making $25 million a year.

01:46This was a guy on a veteran minimum contract

01:48who had kind of been fighting his way to stay in the league.

01:52Had been on five teams,

01:53who was in significant gambling debt,

01:55and would text these gamblers

01:58who'd been named in this criminal investigation,

02:00hey, I know I'm not gonna play tonight much,

02:03or I'm gonna fake an injury,

02:04bet on my unders, that sort of thing.

02:06And that set off red flags

02:08because you've got a guy named Jonte Porter,

02:10who nobody really knows who that is.

02:12All of a sudden, he's the most bet player

02:14at all these sports books.

02:15So that was pretty easy for investigators to catch.

02:18It's a little different with Rozier.

02:20He's not a LeBron James by any means,

02:22but there are gonna be nights

02:23when because of the matchup or something like that,

02:27people are gonna bet a lot on Rozier.

02:29So it was really interesting to see

02:32them kind of catch this one game in question

02:34is when he was a member of the Charlotte Hornets

02:37in March, 2023 against a game against the Pelicans,

02:42in which he only played nine minutes.

02:44There was some weird social media

02:46kind of discourse at the time.

02:47A lot of people wondering,

02:48hey, it's like a minute to game time.

02:50Why have Rozier's markets been pulled?

02:52This wasn't a guy who had been injured recently.

02:55There was no questionability.

02:56So anytime a guy gets pulled before game time,

02:59it's usually because some last minute injury reporting,

03:02but there was no reporting surrounding that.

03:04So a lot of people were wondering why.

03:06A lot of people actually posted on social media

03:07that I don't know whether it was a joke

03:10or whether there's some truth to this

03:11that they had inside info

03:12that he wasn't gonna play much.

03:13Of course, what does that really mean?

03:16Does that mean,

03:17oh, I just have been following the NBA closely.

03:19I have a buddy who works for the team.

03:20I know Rozier.

03:21We don't know all these things yet.

03:23So we're kind of still figuring out

03:24exactly what is going on.

03:26All we really know is that this one game

03:28where he went from playing 30 minutes all season

03:30to just nine saw a sizable amount of action

03:33on all of his unders specifically.

03:35So his lawyer has come out

03:37and denied pretty much any wrongdoing saying,

03:40you know, there's no way he was involved in anything bad.

03:42We'll let the investigation play out.

03:44I would be frankly shocked if it comes out

03:46that he was purposely throwing the game.

03:49You have to wonder what the incentive here would be.

03:51But of course, there are a lot of dumb people in the world.

03:54And, you know, athletes can be some of them.

03:57You know, we've seen the NFL guys

04:00blatantly breaking the rules by, you know,

04:02they have the team policy on the door.

04:04Don't gamble in the facility.

04:05Guys doing it anyway, saying they didn't know.

04:07Of course, that's different

04:08than actually manipulating an outcome of a game.

04:10So it'll be really interesting to see

04:11what comes out of this.

04:12And I don't think it's, you know,

04:13this could just be the tip of the iceberg.

04:15Again, this is a larger investigation that caught Porter

04:19and allegedly involves college basketball as well.

04:21So possibly other names could come out of this.

04:23We'll see what happens.

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