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We are three days into the NBA season, and it feels like enough basketball and talking points for it to already be January.
Serious matters
What to know about Billups, Rozier arrests
Shocking breaking news reverberated throughout the NBA and sports world yesterday morning when Chauncey Billups, Terry Rozier, and Damon Jones were among the over 30 people arrested by the FBI. It was part of multiple illegal gambling investigations, mostly separate but with some alleged overlap. Billups and Rozier were arrested in separate cases, while Jones was indicted in both investigations.
The NBA placed Billups and Rozier on immediate leave after they were charged with wire fraud conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy. Let’s go over everything we know so far and what to possibly expect moving forward.
The Chauncey Billups part of this
The Portland Trail Blazers coach was arrested at 6 a.m. PT in Oregon following the team’s opening night loss to Minnesota. The allegations against him involve participation in illegal poker games that were rigged and run by the mafia. In a news conference, FBI director Kash Patel even dropped “a La Cosa Nostra” reference like you’d hear in a movie.
Billups allegedly participated in illegal poker games as a “face card” or celebrity face to help make the games seem safe and fair for the players at the tables. These games allegedly had shuffling machines that could read cards in the deck, an X-ray table that could read the cards when face down and even specially marked cards that could be read by certain contact lenses and glasses worn by the cheaters. Some real “Mission: Impossible” type of stuff.
Billups was not named in the sports betting investigation but fits the description of someone the FBI says gave information about Blazers players sitting out a game in March 2023.
What does this mean for Billups? Aside from potential legal ramifications — the potential sentence on each of those charges is up to 20 years — it obviously ends his NBA career in any capacity if convicted. He signed a contract extension last season, but that would be voided.
My reaction throughout the day: It’s hard for me to wrap my head around Billups truly being in on this — outside of just believing he was getting people to a poker game he played in. In talking to friends, people around the league and former teammates of Billups, most seemed to have the same assumptions about his “accidental involvement” in any of this. At the same time, there are tweets from 2024 and this podcast clip from 2023 mentioning these Billups poker games, as “known” nefarious endeavors.
I do not believe the part of this in which people are assuming he gave insider information about the Blazers players missing games for betting purposes. I’m open to the poker game stuff being true, but not the insider info on missed games. Maybe that’s naive of me, but also everybody knew the Blazers were tanking back then.
We don’t truly know his financials, but it doesn’t feel like a player with his success, career earnings and current salary would do that. We’ll see.
The Terry Rozier part of this
You may remember the NBA had already investigated Rozier in potential involvement with altering games for the benefit of prop bettors. The NBA also cleared Rozier of any wrongdoing. It dates back to when the Miami Heat guard was on the Charlotte Hornets, when there were allegations that he removed himself from games to hit the under on prop bets. He allegedly told a childhood friend this would happen, and that friend sold the information to bettors.
The indictment also claims Rozier paid for that friend to travel to Philadelphia to collect the money and counted it with Rozier at the guard’s home.
If the NBA cleared Rozier on this investigation, why did he get arrested by the FBI? That’s the big question here. Rozier’s attorney said it was for the photo op and the “perp walk” they made Rozier go through when he could have turned himself in, which does not admit guilt. It would just show he’s cooperating with the investigation.
It’s possible the league didn’t have all of the information or evidence the FBI has. Although former players and coaches say NBA investigations usually involve former law enforcement agents, sometimes ex-feds, helping conduct the investigations. So it’s not just some in-house people asking questions.
More might have come to light in this case since the NBA cleared Rozier. The reason for the “perp walk” and including him in these sweeping arrests could be part of “sending a message” and “winning the press conference.” Two different legal experts told me that while I hosted SiriusXM NBA Radio yesterday.
As for Jones … he’s alleged to be part of the poker games in New York and having sold inside information about players missing games to help bettors. Including information about a star Lakers player missing a game in February 2023. LeBron James, whom Jones played alongside and coached in Cleveland, missed the game in question. It’s important to note LeBron is not involved in any of these allegations.
This is just the beginning of this legal process, and it could take months or even years for it to be settled in court. We won’t have any answers soon, but for now a ton of questions will continue to pile up.
Follow developments with our live analysis all day.
The Last 24
Who are the NBA’s most reliable stars?
🏀 Mr. Reliable. Law Murray has put together tiers of which stars are the most reliable to their squads. No Luka in Tier 1.
🤝 Embracing betting. The NBA used to vehemently oppose legalized gambling. It has embraced it under Adam Silver.
🌞 Good start. The Suns have another new coach and won their first game. Fort -year old Jordan Ott is laying a foundation.
🏀 Adjustment period. Cameron Johnson has been traded a couple of times. It’s not always easy to adjust but he’s doing it.
🏀 Interim in Portland. While Billups is away from the team, an interim coach was named. Tiago Splitter will be the guy for PDX.
About last night
The NBA won’t stop being awesome on the court
Only two games in the NBA last night. After a great opening night and a tremendous Wednesday, it was fair to believe the two games might not give us the goods. And yet, the NBA delivered two bangers.
The first one was a rematch of the NBA Finals between the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Indiana Pacers. You might think OKC would trounce them with no Tyrese Haliburton or TJ McConnell (injuries for both guards) or Myles Turner (he’s in Milwaukee) for the Pacers. Think again. Indiana pushed the Thunder to a second straight double-overtime game, thanks to Bennedict Mathurin (36 points, 11 boards) and Pascal Siakam (32 points and 15 boards).
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander set a career high with 55 points, going 23-of-26 from the free-throw line, in the Thunder’s 141-135 win. They’re the first team ever to win two double-overtime games to start a season. Plus, a warning: the Thunder have developed another one of those guards with Ajay Mitchell (26 off the bench).
Then the Denver Nuggets made their season debut against the Golden State Warriors. This game was just as good! Aaron Gordon went for 50 points (!!!!) on 17-of-21 from the field and 10-of-11 from deep. Nikola Jokić had a 23-13-10 triple-double. But Steph Curry scored 22 of his 42 points in the fourth quarter and overtime before he hit the Nuggets with the “night, night” in the Warriors’ 137-131 overtime win.
This is the best opening three nights in league history. At least that’s how it feels.
Points of emphasis
NBA refs are making it even harder to defend
Every year, NBA referees present new points of emphasis for what they’re going to focus on calling more strictly and consistently for the upcoming season. They have officials go around to teams and media members before the season starts (often during training camp or the preseason) to explain what these points of emphasis will be. They even post them on the NBA website and their social media accounts.
I broke down the three points of emphasis for 2025-26 in this story, showing the examples from the refs and judging how likely it is to stick around all season. That’s the funny thing about points of emphasis. They start strong but often fade in consistency throughout that season.
Point 1: Making sure landing spaces for jump shooters are clear.
Think of what Zaza Pachulia did to Kawhi Leonard in the 2017 WCF. Egregious ones are flagrant fouls, and I’d expect this to be even stricter. We saw this happen against Jalen Brunson in the playoffs, and the NBA wants to protect its shooters.
Point 2: Making sure contesting defenders aren’t swiping at limbs and only high-fiving.
Remember Dillon Brooks trying to injure Curry’s thumb in the first round and actually admitting to it? This is the reason for making sure the high-five contact is only that.
Point 3: Making sure defenders don’t stop straight-line pathways by offensive players.
This last one is often rewarding out-of-control offensive players for finding contact with the defender. And the refs fall for it. I guess the point of emphasis is to justify refs calling it poorly?
I wrote this in the article:
“The NBA doesn’t want defenders to truly defend in a one-on-one setting. That’s my interpretation of just the rules and the way the game is called in general. They want scoring because scoring means fun and possibly ratings, but definitely highlights in a ‘highlights league.’ The refs will likely be pretty consistent in continuing to call this in the offensive player’s favor.”
I stand by that assessment. The closeouts and the high-fives are good points of emphasis. Not the third one. Call it better.
Hope-O-Meter results
Are you in one of the most optimistic fan bases?
Remember that survey we did for about a week in the middle of October? We measured how much hope the fans have for their favorite NBA team during the 2025-26 season. The survey asked which team you support and your level of optimism on a scale of 1-2, and then it gave the option to submit a couple of sentences for your answer.
We always love when Bouncers share their thoughts, even when you’re being a little mean to me! Some of us? Especially when you’re being a little mean to me. We had a lot of fun with the answers from the survey! And we used it to compile rankings of the Hope-O-Meter. The highest score had the fan bases with the most hope. The lowest score was the least amount of hope.
You can read the full results of the Hope-O-Meter and the comments we published from you, The Bouncers, by clicking this post. These were the top-10 most hopeful fan bases, and I’m not sure you’ll find any real surprises with that.
Spoiler alert: The five teams with the least amount of hope from their fans were the Wizards, Bulls, Kings, Jazz, and Nets. It’s pretty rough out there, although two of those teams won Wednesday night! I’m sure you’re wondering about this next part, so I’ll say roughly 30 submitted comments included Thanasis Antetokounmpo, and only 10 of those were about the Bucks. There was this comment from someone who measured their hope about the Celtics:
“My name is Thanasis Antetokounmpo and I’m not optimistic about the Celtics because I ‘play’ for the Milwaukee Bucks.”
You’re going to cause me to become the Joker, and I don’t mean Big Honey. It’s a fun look at what all of the fan bases seem to think based on our survey of you! Take the next couple minutes and check it out.