{"id":249276,"date":"2025-10-24T19:52:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T19:52:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/249276\/"},"modified":"2025-10-24T19:52:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T19:52:08","slug":"charles-barkley-shaq-weigh-in-on-the-nba-gambling-scandal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/249276\/","title":{"rendered":"Charles Barkley, Shaq weigh in on the NBA gambling scandal"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Shaquille O\u2019Neal<\/a> said he\u2019s \u201cashamed\u201d of the people involved in the gambling scandal that rocked the NBA<\/a> on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Charles Barkley<\/a> called two of the individuals involved in the matter \u201cstupid.\u201d <\/p>\n

Kenny Smith<\/a> said the situation is \u201csuper unfortunate.\u201d<\/p>\n

One day after the \u201cInside the NBA<\/a>\u201d crew made its ESPN debut<\/a>, the three analysts, as well as host Ernie Johnson, had a huge story to discuss that had little to do with the actual game of basketball.<\/p>\n

On Thursday morning, federal prosecutors unsealed two indictments that outlined separate schemes to rig sports bets and poker games. More than 30 people were arrested, including former Clippers<\/a> player and current Portland head coach Chauncey Billups<\/a>, who was charged with participating in a conspiracy to fix high-stakes card games run by Mafia families.<\/p>\n

Also arrested were Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier, who is accused of being part of a scheme to provide private insider NBA information to help others profit from online bets, and retired player Damon Jones, who has been charged with taking part in both schemes.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll these guys knew what was at stake, and I\u2019m just ashamed that they put themselves and put their family and put the NBA in this position,\u201d O\u2019Neal said during Thursday\u2019s broadcast. \u201cWe all know the rules. We all know the letter of the law. And it\u2019s just unfortunate \u2014 you know, innocent till proven guilty, but usually when the FBI has something, they have you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

He added: \u201cI know Chauncey. I know Damon very well, played with Damon. … I\u2019m ashamed that those guys will put their families and their careers in jeopardy. There\u2019s an old saying in the hood, all money ain\u2019t good money. So if you\u2019re making $9 million, like, how much more do you need? Especially if you know you get caught, you can do jail time, lose your career, put a bad image on yourself or your family or on the NBA.\u201d<\/p>\n

Smith pointed out that \u201cgambling is an addiction which could make you make illogical decisions,\u201d but Barkley interjected his opinion that addiction had nothing to do with the decision Jones and Rozier made to help others make fraudulent bets.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis ain\u2019t got nothing to do with addiction. These dudes are stupid,\u201d Barkley said. \u201cWhy are they stupid? You under no circumstances can you fix basketball games. Under no circumstances. … Like, Rozier makes $26 million. Him betting, giving people information or taking himself out of games \u2014 how much is he going to benefit taking himself out the game to get unders?\u201d<\/p>\n

Barkley added: \u201cYou can\u2019t fix ball games. Like I said, this is separate from Chauncey, but the notion that guys are making all this money and giving information \u2014 come on, man, stop that. That got nothing to do with addiction. That\u2019s just total stupidity on these two dudes parts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Billups \u2014 a five-time All-Star who was the 2004 NBA Finals MVP as a member of the Detroit Pistons and is in his fifth season as Portland\u2019s coach \u2014 and 10-year NBA veteran Rozier were placed on immediate leave, the league announced Thursday. <\/p>\n

Billups\u2019 attorney issued a statement Thursday night strongly denying the allegations against his client.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnyone who knows Chauncey Billups knows he is a man of integrity,\u201d attorney Chris Heywood said. \u201cMen of integrity do not cheat and defraud others.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jones played three seasons with LeBron James on the Cleveland Cavaliers from 2005 to 2008 and was an assistant coach during the Lakers star\u2018s second stint in Cleveland. In one of the indictments, prosecutors allege Jones was an unofficial coach with the Lakers from 2022 to 2023 when he used inside information for sports betting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shaquille O\u2019Neal said he\u2019s \u201cashamed\u201d of the people involved in the gambling scandal that rocked the NBA on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":249277,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[136052,9038,351,136048,136050,34244,22076,136047,6135,355,136051,8385,136049,9748,99,16597],"class_list":["post-249276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-actual-game","tag-addiction","tag-charles-barkley","tag-decision-jones","tag-dude","tag-fifth-season","tag-guy","tag-mafia-family","tag-man","tag-nba","tag-nba-gambling-scandal","tag-other","tag-separate-scheme","tag-shaquille-oneal","tag-sports","tag-thursday"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249276\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/249277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}