Terry Rozier is a man who has earned well into the nine-figure range with his talent on a basketball court. And now, thanks to an indictment, we can see the exact moment he tanked his career and reputation for a mere $200,000, if prosecutors are accurate.
In case you haven’t heard — and you’d be pretty hard-pressed to avoid the scandal if you pay attention to sports, or watched any kind of news on Thursday evening — Rozier, who plays for the NBA’s Miami Heat, was among more than 30 charged in a massive sports betting scandal that involved both NBA figures and the Mafia working in concert, according to The New York Times.
The biggest name in the arrests was Chauncey Billups — currently the head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers and an NBA champion as a player, along with a Pro Basketball Hall of Fame inductee. He was listed along with Mafiosi with nicknames like “Albanian Bruce,” “Flappy,” “Juice,” and “The Wrestler.” Paulie Walnuts would be proud.
The betting scandal, FBI Director Kash Patel said, netted “tens of millions.” For Terry Rozier, however — another one of the indicted basketballers — it might have netted just $200,000.
There have long been rumors about Rozier’s involvement in gambling that started in March 2023. Then, as Sports Illustrated noted, a firm that monitors legal sports books found that there was a pattern of unusual betting on the star guard — then with the Charlotte Hornets — hitting the under on points, rebounds, and other markers in a game against the New Orleans Pelicans.
For those of you unfamiliar with betting, the over-under is essentially a number which you can bet that predicts how many of a certain stat — combined points, points by a player, rebounds, etc., will get. The betting services take into account a wide number of factors, set the number so that they’ll make money no matter how people bet because of the cut they take, and voila — gambling in a nutshell.
It used to be, in the old days where your options were mob-run illegal sports betting or Vegas, over-unders were designed mostly for matches as a whole, or occasionally for certain high-profile players. Nowadays, with apps allowing all kinds of betting options, there are over-unders for how many points or rebounds a benchwarmer on the University of North Dakota at South Platte, Western Campus will get, pretty much.
Rozier, it turned out, would hit the under in almost every stat that game — mostly because he exited the game, allegedly with a foot injury, in the first 10 minutes. He wouldn’t play another game in the 2022-2023 season and was traded to the Miami Heat the next. In January 2025, the NBA effectively cleared Rozier, saying it had “conducted an investigation and did not find a violation of NBA rules.”
Prosecutors disagreed, and the 2015 first-round draft pick now faces serious charges for that incident. From the Times:
Is Rozier guilty?
On March 23, 2023, an N.B.A. player left a game in New Orleans after playing just 10 minutes. His team said the player, Terry Rozier, was experiencing “foot discomfort.”
But according to federal prosecutors, Mr. Rozier’s departure was a key moment in an insider-trading scheme. Before the game, they say, Mr. Rozier had informed his childhood friend Deniro Laster that he would be exiting the game early, so that Mr. Laster and others could bet hundreds of thousands of dollars on his underperformance for the Charlotte Hornets.
On Thursday morning, Mr. Rozier was arrested in Orlando, Fla., and charged with wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy. He was one of dozens of people — including Chauncey Billups, the head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers — named in two indictments aimed at illegal gambling.
The New York Post said that those involved got $200,000 out of the scam — and you can see the exact moment at which it began to unfold:
Here’s a quick clip from the Hornets-Pelicans 03/23/23 game under investigation. It appears as though Terry Rozier tweaks his foot after hitting this jumper. He grabs at it and seems to be limping. He did play a few more minutes before checking out for good. pic.twitter.com/P2P84os8sx
— J.E. Skeets (@jeskeets) January 30, 2025
From the Post:
With just under three minutes left in the frame, Rozier made a pass to Larry Nance Jr., who missed a bunny shot, from beyond the three-point line in what would be the final time he touched the ball that night.
On the ensuing possession, Pelicans forward Brandon Ingram hit a deep ball to put the Hornets down 33-20, leading to a Charlotte timeout.
Rozier, near the basket as the ball went through the hoop, appeared to walk off the court slowly.
“Albanian Bruce” must have been proud, as he finished with five points with four rebounds and two assists — all hitting the under, and all cheating in an illegal manner by sharing the inside information that he’d be exiting the game early, if true.
To be fair, there could be another explanation for this. J.E. Skeets, the podcaster who posted it, said that he watched the entire beginning of the game and “it looks like he came into the contest with a lingering foot issue. He’s moving slowly right from the jump.”
I watched all of Rozier’s first 9:36 from this game, and if I’m being honest, it looks like he came into the contest with a lingering foot issue. He’s moving slowly right from the jump. Then again, this was a mid-March game in New Orleans — everyone looked sluggish.
— J.E. Skeets (@jeskeets) January 30, 2025
But, of course, that’s what he would do, wouldn’t he, if he didn’t want to draw attention. This was quite late in the season, too, and the Hornets were playing out the stretch with a 23-51 record at the time, according to Pro Basketball Reference. Furthermore, between the start of December 2022 and his final game of the 22-23 campaign, he’d only missed three games and averaged over 30 minutes a game most nights. It’s theoretically possible that he had a foot injury.
Of course, both aren’t mutually exclusive, too: He could have been injured and/or tired, and he could have known he was going to pull himself out, and he told his friends to bet the under, and they did. Furthermore, the unusual betting patterns, while not dispositive, are damning. He was playing on three days rest, and there was nothing from his prior performance, against the Indiana Pacers, that indicated he was in bad condition. He’d scored 23 points and also dished out nine assists; while his shooting from the field was poor (7-19), he’d gone 7-for-7 from the free-throw line and had played over 36 minutes.
Even after being cleared, Rozier has effectively been a dead man walking in the NBA, as his reputation and performance have both suffered since the scandal emerged.
From reliably scoring just about a 20 points-per-game average with the Hornets in four full seasons with them, he’s scored 16.4 points per game in 31 games with the Heat in 2023-2024 and then 10.6 in 2024-2025. According to Spotrac, he’s currently still on a $96.2 million guaranteed contract he signed with the Hornets in 2022, with the Heat set to pay him over $26 million this year. Rest assured they’re going to try to find a way out of paying that, not only because they can’t play an indicted player but because of the massive salary cap hit for a guy who’s barely good for double figures in points.
All, allegedly, for $200,000, for a man who’s made $135 million in career NBA salary. Not quite a Faustian bargain, that — and at least Dr. Faustus didn’t have an entire team or sport that he let down, either.
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