On a day where folks should be looking to the opening week of the 2025-26 NBA regular season, ‘Thursday Night Football’, a nice slate of NHL games and the start of the 2025 World Series, Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups, Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier and former NBA player Damon Jones found a way to steal the sports spotlight for themselves.

In a stunning development, authorities announced that Chauncey Billups, Terry Rozier and Damon Jones were among more than 30 people arrested for their involvement in fixed poker games and illegal sports gambling in an operation linked to the New York mafia.

FBI Director Kash Patel announced that the ring “tens of millions of dollars in fraud and theft and robbery across a multi-year investigation.” Billups and Rozier have since been taken into custody and placed on leave by their respective teams.

According to Chad Millman, the illegal operation included X-ray machines built into the poker tables to read the cards that were face down, contact lenses/glasses to read pre-marked cards and hidden cameras in the card trays.

A video of said glasses that were worn in the illegal schemes can be seen below:

More to come.

Every professional sports league has strict rules about gambling, and it’s going to be awfully difficult for Billups and Rozier to justify a second chance.

Just last year, Jontay Porter of the Toronto Raptors received a lifetime ban from the NBA for betting on basketball games. Consider how MLB has steadfastly refused to induct the late Pete Rose due to his involvement, refusing to honor the all-time hits leader in the Hall of Fame.

No matter how you try and slice it, Billups and Rozier ruined the integrity of the game with their involvement in the ring. Billups is a Hall of Fame player who had the chance to turn the Blazers back into a competitive team, and Rozier has been a rock-solid player over the past five years.

If this is the end for both of them on the court, it’s a darn shame it had to end this way.