On Thursday morning, the FBI announced the arrests of members of the NBA community after a joint investigation into sports betting activities, arrests that, while appearing to be just based on reporting, feel to be purposely timed and targeted.
Arrested were Portland Trailblazers head coach Chauncey Billups, Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier, former Cleveland Cavaliers player and coach Damon Jones and a slew of other individuals, some tied to organized crime.
Billups was charged with being involved in rigged poker games involving the mafia.
Rozier is accused of sharing insider information and benefitting from it.
Jones is charged with selling insider information about player availability to bettors.
The issue with their arrest is not the charges, crimes or ethical violations. If it’s proven they committed the crimes they’re accused of, then they all deserve to be punished.
Instead, what makes this situation feel uneasy is the way in which it happened, when it occurred and how these players were prominently featured in public despite others being involved.
The arrests came on the first day of the NBA’s 2025-26 season, a time when sports media and basketball fans worldwide would be tuning in to watch opening night games between the defending champions OKC Thunder and the Houston Rockets with newly acquired Kevin Durant and new-look Luka and the Lakers taking on Steph Curry and the Warriors.
Over 30 people across 11 states were arrested on charges including money laundering, robbery, wire fraud, gambling and extortion, yet the only faces we’ve seen plastered across our TV sets have been Billups, Rozier and Jones.
And who primarily made the attention-grabbing announcement?
Tr**p’s FBI Director, Kash Patel.
“The fraud is mind-boggling,” said Patel to reporters, saying that the incidents were a “criminal enterprise that envelops both the NBA and La Cosa Nostra.”
Again, the charges aren’t at issue, for if they did what’s been said, they deserve punishment.
However, we must dissect this through the lens of how this president operates.
The day before this bombshell investigation dropped, Tr**p was being hammered for destroying the East Wing of the White House for a $300 million ballroom that he, reportedly, might name after himself.
It kept coming up in the media, so he, along with the help of his loyally-blinded allies, instituted a distraction by flooding the media with stories about Obama’s construction projects during his time at the White House.
That, of course, is misleading for the renovations, which were actually infrastructure improvements, made under Obama were actually approved by Congress in 2008 during Bush’s presidency.
So after the distraction, he needed something big to camouflage his corruption, something that would also cause intimidation, enrage his base and act as a (covert) weapon of retribution.
Since it was the start of the NBA season, and many players in the league had spoken out against him, this was a prime opportunity for him to strike back, an act that mirrors what he’s currently doing to New York State Attorney General, Letitia James.
In addition, Tr**p has been adding his weight to sports, having wrapped his hands around MMA to the point where an actual UFC match is going to be held on the White House grounds. His other targets have been NFL and college football, where he riled up his base to go after Colin Kaepernick and attended SEC games in red states.
His latest target is soccer where he has threatened Blue states by claiming he has the power to shift 2026 World Cup games out of these cities because of “safety concerns.”
It’s a tactic Stephen A. Smith addressed when the news of the arrests surfaced.
“I’m simply making the point that in the end, you have a president in place that has a lengthy connection to the sports world, rife with friends and enemies. And those who are his enemies, he doesn’t mind inconveniencing one bit. And when it comes to the NBA brand, it doesn’t bother him,” said Smith, a rant which got him into a war of words with Patel.
“It’s not coincidental, it’s not an accident,” Smith said Thursday on ESPN’s “First Take” program. “It’s a statement, and it’s a warning that more is coming…[Trump is] coming. He’s coming,” a statement Patel said was “the single dumbest thing I’ve ever heard out of anyone in modern history.”
But if you’ve been paying attention, it’s not dumb at all.
It’s a pattern in their playbook.
If not, why do it on the opening night of the NBA?
If not, why not show the faces of the other 30+ people alleged to be part of the crime being arrested? If you know your media history, you’ll know that perp walking the mafia made for great TV.
No, what made this arrest so enticing for this administration was that it was the biggest time of the year for players in a league who have dominatingly shunned and criticized him.
And that they’re Black is an added bonus.
So while the charges levied against Billups, Rozier and Jones are serious and deserve punishment if true, the optics and timing of the arrests are as suspect as those involved.
And it’s another example added to the devious playbook that’s being played out of D.C.
