All Bets Are Off

Hey. It’s been a while. One might say long time no see. So for me, about 33 years. Get it?

You may be wondering what brought me out of blog retirement. Well, I think the title gives it away, but for those who can’t (or didn’t) read the title, this has to do with the NBA gambling story that broke last week. 

If you haven’t heard, which seems impossible, the NBA is embroiled in a gambling controversy that involves Terry Rozier and current head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers Chauncy Billups among others. Apparently, not only are players and coaches fixing poker games that have connections to organized crime, but the FBI and other federal officials are investigating potential point shaving during NBA games. I won’t claim to be in the know about the gory details of the investigation, but from an outsiders perspective, this has the potential to be one of the biggest stories in recent sports history. 

Now, before I get into it, I want to start by saying that I was always a proponent of legalized sports betting. I’m no degenerate gambler. As a matter of fact, I’ve only ever bet on 1 game in my lifetime. And guess what? I lost. But, in my opinion, a hard working person should be able to throw a few bucks on a game every now and then to make it a little more exciting. It would be a bit hypocritical of me to say otherwise, seeing how I spent 3 years picking NFL games based on the spread. I’ll admit, the commercials are getting quite infuriating, but overall I think it’s a good thing as long as there are resources for those who struggle with gambling addiction. 

Unfortunately for the NBA though, a scandal of this magnitude goes beyond anything we’ve seen before. The worst part about it? This is the second time this has happened. 

I ask you to go back to the year 2007. Young “Not as Blind” Owl was a freshman in high school trying to convince his mom to let him play football and, more importantly, an NBA referee actually got caught gambling on games and changing the outcomes. Tim Donghy, a veteran ref was busted and treated as a bit of a scape goat in the whole situation. Even my moronic 14 year old self knew that he was the sacrificial lamb, and things definitely went way deeper than just him. The Untold series on Netflix actually does a great job of going into more detail on this. I suggest you give that a watch. Couple this with the mysterious retirement of Michael Jordan years earlier which some have speculated had something to do with gambling, and you had a recipe for disaster. 

But, thanks to Donaghy keeping his pie hole shut, and the PR machine working in overdrive, the NBA weathered the storm. That is…until last week. 

I won’t bore you with the details of the latest scandal. If you want that, go find it elsewhere. But what I will talk about is the incredibly dangerous waters that the NBA are swimming in right now. 

The knee jerk reaction by some is to just axe legal sports betting and wipe the slate clean. That ship has sailed. Every sport is balls deep into it and there’s no going back now. Also, the availability and regulation of sports betting is what brought this scandal to life. The private companies keeping an eye on the trends of who bet what on what game is most likely the evidence that the feds have. 

The bigger issue here is the integrity of the NBA as a whole. Tim Donaghy isn’t just some lone wolf anymore. Point shaving and trading inside secrets has now otherwise been proven to be happening in NBA games. How could any gambler even think of betting a penny on an NBA game now? Until the league proves otherwise, smart people should assume every game is fixed. That’s just logic. 

Not only that, your diehard fans wonder when a ref makes a bad call, or if a head coach sits a star player in a game, or even if a player takes a questionable shot at a bizarre time. You have to wonder, “Why did they actually do that?” The whole thing is compromised at all levels. 

But I'm not here to just shit on the NBA. I’m here to provide solutions. 

If the NBA wants to keep what little shred of integrity they have, there’s a few steps they have to take. First, and most importantly, they need to make an example of those involved in the scandal. I’m talking full on death penalty so to speak. They’re done. No hall of fame, no money, no nothing. Totally done. Easier said than done, but it needs to happen. 

The other thing the league has to do is a tad more complicated and I’m not sure it’s possible. They need to truly water down their gambling options. No more player props, live bets, or anything like that. It just needs to be basic betting based on the spread. I’m not naive, it’s still possible to fix games in this fashion, but it is significantly more difficult and way harder to conceal. Like it or not, basketball is one of the easier sports to change a couple little things and nobody will notice, but limiting the opportunities for shenanigans is the best option. 

Just like almost everyone said back in ‘07, this can’t be all that comes out. I happen to think this is the tip of the iceberg. More will come out and it may further condemn the NBA. They're at a treacherous crossroads here. They could take one road and they’ll continue to be a legitimate sport. Or. They could handle this poorly and end up going down a “sports entertainment” path and end up hanging out with the likes of professional wrestling. Which road will they take? Well, only time will tell. All I know is, I’m even more out on the NBA than I was before this, and I didn’t think that was possible.