In his first public comments since Thursday’s arrests in two FBI investigations of insider sports betting and poker cheating, NBA commissioner Adam Silver said Friday night he was “deeply disturbed” by the allegations involving an NBA coach, a current NBA player and a former player who is a confidant of one of the NBA’s biggest stars.
“My initial reaction was I was deeply disturbed,” Silver told Amazon Prime reporter Cassidy Hubbarth in a tunnel at Madison Square Garden during the first quarter between the Boston Celtics and New York Knicks. “There’s nothing more important to the league and its fans than the integrity of the competition, so I had a pit in my stomach. It was very upsetting.”
Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups, Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier, and former NBA player and assistant Damon Jones, who had recently worked with his close friend LeBron James, were among those arrested Thursday morning as part of two separate federal gambling investigations. Billups was accused of participating in a rigged poker game that involved numerous members of multiple crime families. Rozier was accused of taking himself out of a game in March 2023 when he was with the Charlotte Hornets to help a co-conspirator win a prop bet on his individual totals. Jones was charged for his alleged involvement in both cases and accused of selling information about James’ play with the Los Angeles Lakers so bettors could take advantage of it (James was not accused of wrongdoing or directly named in the indictment of Jones).
The comments from Silver appeared to be his first public comments about the case involving Rozier, who was previously investigated by the NBA, which announced Jan. 30 that it did not find that Rozier had violated league rules.
Rozier’s lawyer, Jim Trusty, mentioned the league’s investigation on Thursday while saying that Rozier would fight the federal charges, saying that the player “was cleared by the NBA.”
Silver said the league learned about the March 2023 game from gambling regulators and betting companies. A firm that monitors betting markets for suspicious activity notified sports books and the NBA of unusual patterns of wagers on Rozier ahead of the Hornets’ game against the Pelicans on March 23, 2023. Rozier played that night, but recorded just five points and four rebounds in 10 minutes before exiting with a foot injury.
Cassidy Hubbarth interviewed NBA Commissioner Adam Silver during Celtics-Knicks on Prime. pic.twitter.com/KB42EssfpU
— NBA on Prime (@NBAonPrime) October 25, 2025
“We then looked into that situation, and we’re very transparent about it. And while there was that aberrational betting, we frankly couldn’t find anything,” Silver said. “Terry, at the time, cooperated. He gave the legal office his phone. He sat down for an interview. And we ultimately concluded that there was insufficient evidence, despite that aberrational behavior, to move forward. We then worked directly with the law, law enforcement. As they said at the press conference, the league has been cooperating. That was obviously over two years ago. So the federal government has subpoena power, and can threaten to put people in jail, can do all kinds of things that a league office can’t do. So we’ve been working with them since then, and of course what they announced yesterday was an indictment..”
Rozier and Billups have been placed on administrative leave. Both of them, along with Jones, made their initial court appearances separately on Thursday.