SAN FRANCISCO — In his first pregame news conference of the season, and his tenure as a full-time NBA head coach, David Adelman didn’t hear as many basketball questions as he probably would’ve liked.
That’s because a somber cloud hung over the league on Thursday, after the arrests and federal indictments of an active player, Miami’s Terry Rozier, and a sitting head coach, Portland’s Chauncey Billups, in a wide-ranging FBI gambling investigation.
“It’s tough,” Nuggets guard Bruce Brown said Thursday morning before the team’s season opener. “I know Chauncey’s a great guy. I’ve hung around him a little bit. It’s just unfortunate.”
The indictments — particularly Rozier’s, which involved NBA players and coaches divulging nonpublic information to associates for the purpose of placing bets — raised another round of questions about the spread of such information and, more generally, the potential for corruption associated with the proliferation of online sports betting.
“It’s new, so it’s like anything else. When the world changes, there’s gonna be hiccups,” Adelman said Thursday evening. “People get themselves in tough situations. I think all you can do is just keep pounding the rock and just (emphasize), ‘Hey, you’ve gotta be careful and understand what this is.’
“(Betting) is such a part of our culture now and community, it’s not going anywhere. … You have to bring it up maybe more. Have more meetings about it. Mention it more throughout the year. Because you care about your players and you care about your staff, and you just don’t want to see them get in a tough situation.”
Rodney Billups, who is Chauncey’s brother, is an assistant coach on Adelman’s staff and remained with the team Thursday. Adelman declined to specify whether they had a conversation about possibly stepping away from the team for personal reasons, but he stressed the importance of supporting his coworkers.
“Whatever Rodney needs for his family is all I care about,” Adelman said. “The situation itself, I only know what I’ve read. You guys know what I know. When your family member is affected by something, you have to support that person. Rodney has been nothing but great for us since he’s been here.”
Adelman and Warriors coach Steve Kerr both explained that the NBA facilitates meetings with each team about gambling and information disclosure. One example in Thursday’s indictment alleges that a co-conspirator told a bettor several Portland players would be sitting out a March 23, 2023, game as the Blazers were tanking for a better draft pick, allegedly leading to more than $100,000 in wagers that Portland would lose.
“They give us the guidelines of what it is,” Adelman said. “Obviously, a tricky situation with some of the ‘don’t text, don’t talk,’ that kind of stuff. You’ve just gotta be careful in casual conversation with what you say. That’s the only level of it I know. They give us all the advice about it.”
“I feel very comfortable sharing details because the league is really adamant about this stuff,” Kerr said. “Every team has to listen closely and hear everything, and a big part of that meeting was, (if) you tell one of your friends that ‘so and so is not playing’ and then that person tells someone else, you are liable. We know this.”
Players also deal with an increased proximity to emboldened, aggressive fans on the internet stemming from the gambling industry.
“Obviously, after every game, we get DMs about not hitting people’s parlays,” Brown said. “… There’s been games where I’ve been called every name in the book, just because I didn’t hit a 3 or two. I mean, that’s just the state of the game we’re in, since sports betting (became) legal. So I mean, just kind of deal with it. Not think about it. Don’t check your DMs after games.”
The arrest of Billups marks the second time in as many years that a Nuggets player or coach has had a sibling embroiled in a criminal case involving betting. Michael Porter Jr. was on the team in 2024 when his younger brother Jontay Porter became the first active player banned from the NBA for gambling-related reasons in 70 years.
In the case of Billups and Rozier, much remains unclear as lawyers representing both released statements Thursday expressing their intention to fight the FBI’s charges.
“For me to have an opinion of my shock value would be unfair to the people involved in it,” Adelman said. “The defendants and then obviously the federal government. … I just hope it plays out correctly, in the right way. I care about the people involved that I know. It’s a tricky situation, and I’m just hoping for the best for everybody. This is not how we want to start the season in the NBA.”
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