Another NBA player is under investigation in the Jontay Porter betting scandal. This time, it's not a fringe player.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier is under investigation for a March 2023 game in which he left in the first quarter due to a foot injury, amid suspicious pre-game betting activity on his prop unders.
Rozier hasn’t been charged with a crime or accused of wrongdoing. It couldn’t be learned if investigators have determined whether he was deliberately helping bettors.
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“In March 2023, the NBA was alerted to unusual betting activity related to Terry Rozier’s performance in a game between Charlotte and New Orleans,” NBA spokesman Mike Bass said. “The league conducted an investigation and did not find a violation of NBA rules. We are now aware of an investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York related to this matter and have been cooperating with that investigation.”
A representative for Rozier declined to comment.
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The game in question took place on March 23, 2023, when Rozier was a member of the Charlotte Hornets. The betting on Rozier was strange enough that day to raise alarms at U.S. Integrity, a firm that works with sports entities, gambling operators and government agencies to monitor betting markets for suspicious activity.
U.S. Integrity notified sportsbooks — and the NBA — that unusual wagers were coming in on Rozier failing to meet certain statistical benchmarks, such as the total number of points or rebounds he would record in the game. Some of the sportsbooks stopped accepting bets on Rozier’s stats that day, people familiar with the matter said.
During the previous two seasons, U.S. Integrity sent out just three alerts about NBA games, people familiar with the matter said. Two of those were about games involving Porter. The other was the game involving Rozier.
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Authorities believe some of the people who arranged for Porter to fix his performance in two games last season had inside information that prompted them to bet large sums of money against Rozier a year earlier.
Statement from Rozier's attorney: "We're aware of the 2023 investigation which determined there was no wrongdoing by Mr. Rozier. We're confident that the gov't investigation will arrive at the same conclusion." Rozier scored 5 pts in the 3/23/23 game when he injured his foot pic.twitter.com/MZwRO9QxU6
— Matt Rybaltowski (@MattRybaltowski) January 30, 2025
Rozier missed the final eight games of that season due to the foot injury and returned to play the following year before being traded to Miami at the deadline last year.
Porter received a lifetime NBA ban for his willful involvement in the scheme last year and continues to face federal prosecution.
The complications of this story arise with the NBA's laissez-faire attitude toward tanking. As long as teams don't announce they are doing it intentionally, it's common for players to sit out games late in the season while teams vie for lottery positioning.
The questions are:
- whether Rozier told staff his foot hurt
- whether the team assessed him as having a legit injury
- whether Rozier was aware of the bets made on his unders prior to the game
- whether the decision to sit Rozier was made by his volition, the team's out of an abundance of caution or the team's as an intention to reduce their winning percentage
If there had been communication of a plan for the team to do so, then the issue is with that information being leaked to bettors. If, however, the team was not involved and Rozier was the one who came forward with the injury, that can have catastrophic repercussions for Rozier and the league, which has thus far contained the damage from the Porter incident.
Rozier, 30, is averaging 12 points and four rebounds per game, with major drops in production and efficiency this season for Miami.
