I am shocked by the charges against Billups although in hindsight I shouldn't be, sports and gambling have never been bigger and every ad on sports radio is either this or ED meds LOL. They are innocent until proven guilty but DAM, the bad part is anytime anything unusual happens we will question the motivation. I`ve always been neutral on Adam Silver, but between this and the K Leonard fiasco along with other discrepancies under his watch, he needs to go, this is more than a black eye, this is a MAJOR CLOUD of suspicion over the entire league. As other posters have said, Millionaires doing this for Thousands........................the hustle in reverse and for what, a thrill of winning a bet, and you risk doing Fed time...............IDIOTS
But Mafia that is another level, organized crime, I hope it is not a real day Walter White Breaking Bad story.
Notice there wasn't a replay on that missed call. Usually it goes right to replay. Nope. Whole league needs to be purged. Fans need to quit buying jerseys and $15 beers and see how quickly this gets corrected. Again, they don't call it sports "entertainment" for no reason. It's controlled entertainment to maximize fan response and money.
I'd love to see all the top brass of the NBA get arrested (if they are in on it - and which I believe they are) and bring this whole league to it's knees. See refs start singing like canarys and showing their orders to make calls and control the games. Players saying they were signaled to miss a shot or turn the ball over. They are all making a killing off this so they have to play the game to get paid.
Imagine if this happened in the 90s... Barkley and Jordan would be exiled forever... But tidbits from the NBC Sports report... https://www.nbcnews.com/sports/nba/nba-gambling-scandal-chauncey-billups-terry-rozier-rcna239490 A culture of gambling has existed in the NBA for years, multiple people said. Inside locker rooms, it is not uncommon to hear discussions of a recent game of poker or bourré, a trick-taking card game similar to spades that is popular among basketball players. A longtime team employee said that wagering and the competition that fueled it were so pervasive that nearly every team flight he was on had multiple high-dollar games taking place at once, often one between players and another between coaches. J.J. Redick, the Los Angeles Lakers' head coach, who also played in the league for 15 years, once told a story on his podcast about nearly coming to blows with a teammate because of gambling. After he referred to bourré as the “greatest gambling game” because of how the pot can grow “exponentially,” Redick said “the closest I ever came to a teammate punching me” was over a card game on a team flight. In January 2010, former All-Star Gilbert Arenas was arrested in violation of gun control laws after he and a teammate, Javaris Crittenton, took firearms to the Washington Wizards’ locker room as a result of a gambling dispute. Arenas has since said the dispute started over a game of bourré. (Arenas avoided jail time but was sentenced to two years of supervised probation in that case.) A league source told NBC News it is not uncommon for players to separate into different groups based on their salaries. A younger player, for example, may not gamble right away with a superstar on a max contract. But as salaries have increased in the NBA — the league’s highest-paid player will make over $59 million this season — the stakes on team flights have only gotten higher. Outside of flights, players also often set up with or are invited to high-stakes poker games, with cities such as Los Angeles and Houston cited as popular for gamblers, according to a source.
The ref was looking at his foot when he was clearly over the line, then looked up when he jumped, missing that he had quickly moved his right foot back. I can see how the ref missed the call based on what he was focused on.
I could see this happening actually. I do wonder if there's some deeper stuff here and this gambling stuff is actually to get to the commissioner and get him to squirm.
Yep. Another thing, I used to regularly listen to sports radio in my car, but these days except for a few programs like Dan Patrick and Cowherd, the shows don't talk about actual games, strategies, opinions, etc., they talk about point spreads, over/unders, best fantasy plays. You have to go to podcasts to get any real analysis.
https://www.si.com/nba/2020/04/25/michael-jordan-retirement-gambling-conspiracy Over the years, there’s been speculation that Jordan’s decision was less of a choice and more his end of a tacit agreement with the NBA. As the (uncorroborated) theory goes, the NBA was concerned about Jordan’s gambling ties and wanted him to take a break. Jordan “voluntarily” stepping away would serve as a face-saving measure for all involved. Perhaps the league didn’t want to publicly punish Jordan—the most marketable athlete in American history—and give fans a reason to question their loyalty to the NBA. Jordan, who earned approximately $30 million a year in endorsements during the early '90s, was likewise invested in avoiding irreparable harm to his brand. The gambling theory wasn’t entirely out of thin air. Jordan had recently been seen playing blackjack at an Atlantic City casino the night before a Bulls playoff game against the New York Knicks. He had also admitted to incurring substantial losses from gambling. Earlier in 1993, the NBA appointed Frederick Lacey, a former federal judge and U.S. attorney, to examine whether Jordan’s gambling ran afoul of league rules. [...] Writing in Sports Illustrated in 1993, Jack McCallum detailed how there were “two gambling-related Jordan bombshells” that drew NBA scrutiny: “The first came in late 1991, when a $57,000 check from Jordan was discovered by the IRS in the bank account of convicted cocaine trafficker James (Slim) Bouler; then $108,000 in checks from Jordan were found in the briefcase of slain bail bondsman Eddie Dow.” To put it charitably, Jordan had misrepresented the nature of his gambling activity and debts. As McCallum details, Jordan originally claimed that he had loaned money to Bouler only to later admit the money was to extinguish a gambling debt. Jordan also neglected to mention to Lacey—a former federal judge—that he had incurred substantial gambling debts to his golfing partner, Richard Esquinas. Jordan only added fuel to the fire during his farewell press conference. It came in his response to a journalist’s hypothetical question about whether Jordan considered the possibility that, after a year away, he’d miss the game more than he anticipated and would want to come back. Jordan responded that while he was “pretty sure” he would miss the NBA, “to come back would be different.” But Jordan stressed that he was “not making this a never issue” and suggested “five years down the line, if that urge comes back, if the Bulls have me, if David Stern lets me back in the league, I may come back.” [...] The NBA closed its investigation into Jordan two days after his retirement.
Wouldn't it be funny....if the owners of certain teams that may or may not have ties to professional gambling were able to get the mob to steal back their money from the stupid players.
There's no way these millionaires are doing it for thousands. They're doing it to pay off the people they owe their own gambling debts to, I'd (ironically) put money on that. It's how the Mafia works, and most organised crime has some version of it. You either get in deep on loans, or you get in deep on bets, or you get in deep on loans for bets (the worst) and then they own you and use you to make a LOT more money on other scams.
