NBA Continues to Face Betting Scandal as Rozier Pleads Not Guilty

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00:00In the NBA, we have players being accused and alleged improprieties involving sports betting

00:05and poker games and such. It seems as though, Sam, these players appear to not want to go down

00:13without a fight, so to speak. Terry Rozier yesterday pled not guilty to his allegations

00:19that he was involved in a sports betting scandal. What did you make of the plea and what are the

00:23next steps? Yeah, definitely thought it was interesting that he pled not guilty, despite

00:31the fact that the FBI says they have an overwhelming amount of evidence, which comes from an investigation

00:36that stemmed over two years, not just with Rozier, but with other athletes, other coaches involved,

00:43Chauncey Billups of the Portland Trailblazers, Damon Jones, former Cavaliers assistant coach,

00:48all kind of ensnared in these two sports betting and poker manipulation rings, which, frankly,

00:55the NBA is probably hoping gets over as soon as possible. It's really not a good look for the

01:02league to have this ongoing. But as part of the plea, I don't think that Rozier would have pled

01:08guilty and forfeited his two home properties to put up the $3 million bond and agree to a couple of

01:17travel stipulations and gambling stipulations as well. If he didn't think he kind of had a case

01:23here, it's really expected that he's going to file for a motion to get the case dismissed,

01:27sort of on grounds that prosecutors might have overreached with the federal statute.

01:34They might have had an improper application of the fraud law and procedural violations.

01:39What's going to happen next is there's going to be a March 3rd discovery hearing where the

01:43the evidence will be brought forth by the prosecutors. That's going to be over a thousand

01:48documents, over 55 gigabytes of data, which will be really interesting. We'll get to see

01:53more into the betting records, the exchanges between the alleged conspirators. There's over 30 people

02:00arrested in this case. So Rozier is obviously the high profile guy in the NBA, but it involves

02:05a number of other mafia backed figures, figures from his childhood. So we'll know more than he actually

02:11asked for the case to be sped up because he's in the middle of an arbitration with the NBA right

02:17now over what happens to his $26 million contract. He's not getting those installments right now

02:23because this is ongoing. It's kind of unsettled whether or not he will get that money because

02:28the case, you know, innocent until proven guilty, hasn't been resolved yet. And then meanwhile,

02:33the Miami Heat, which traded for him kind of after the game in question was when he was a member of the

02:39Hornets, they want to know if they can move his contract before the trade deadline. They're sixth

02:43in the East right now. It would be normally be a major trade ship to get something else. But right

02:49now they're kind of in limbo with something that they probably didn't even know was going on. So

02:53everyone wants it to move forward quickly. I think the NBA as well. The judge, however, said that she's

02:58not going to take any of that into account and allow the case to proceed. So this might be something

03:03that isn't even settled for a couple of years at this case. We'll know more when we get all those

03:07documents and all that data on March 3rd, supposedly. It could always be changed.

03:11Right.