NEW YORK CITY — This time last year, Anfernee Simons was living in Portland and playing under Trail Blazers head coach Chauncy Billups.
Today, Simons is a member of the Boston Celtics, preparing for a primetime Friday night showdown against the New York Knicks. And, across the country, in what’s become the biggest bombshell story in sports, Billups has been arrested as part of a federal investigation into illegal betting activities.
Billups, a Hall of Famer, was indicted for his alleged participation in a wide-ranging, years-long scheme to defraud card players in poker games. And, though he wasn’t explicitly named, he was also heavily implied in an illegal sports betting scheme that described a “Co-Conspirator 8” as an NBA head coach residing in Oregon.
At Celtics shootaround on Friday morning at Madison Square Garden, Simons told reporters he checked in with Trail Blazers star Damian Lillard to make sure everyone was okay, and appeared visibly impacted by the news of his friend’s arrest.
“It hit me pretty tough for sure,” Simons said. “Just in shock. And obviously, I’ve got a great relationship with Chauncey. Even after the trade, he’s checking in on me, and I’m checking in on him. So we had a great relationship, and I think, like I said before, it’s an unfortunate situation for him to be in, especially for him and his family, all the media attention that’s coming in, the scrutiny.”
Simons is far from the only Celtics player who has a relationship with someone arrested in Thursday’s expansive FBI sweep.
Former Celtics guard Terry Rozier, a friend of Jaylen Brown’s and several others on the roster, was accused of participating in an illegal sports betting scheme that leveraged insider NBA information — and was consequently arrested, too.
According to the indictment, the defendants “had access to private information known by NBA players or NBA coaches” that would likely affect the outcome of games or players’ performances and provided that information to other co-conspirators in exchange for either a flat fee or a share of betting profits.
Brown, who was teammates with Rozier for four seasons, said he wasn’t completely sure of what was going on with the betting cases, but noted that the accusations were not “conducive” to Rozier’s character.
As Vice President of the NBA players’ union, he also made clear that it’s part of his job to get to the bottom of what’s going on.
“If those guys are innocent, it’s not a great look for them publicly, and media-wise,“ Brown said. “So we got to make sure if they are, they’re exonerated and their images are cleaned up. But I think right now, just kind of getting all the information, getting to the bottom of it, is the most important thing.”
Jaylen Brown says the NBA hasn’t properly prepared for the gambling climate
Anfernee Simons said that players sometimes find themselves in tough situations when it comes to people inquiring about game information.
Though Simons himself didn’t get into specifics, injury reports have become a potential source of illegal sports betting; it’s not uncommon for players or coaches to know a specific player’s availability status before that knowledge is made public, and that information could impact player prop bets.
“We just got to make sure the players are aware of all the risks of a simple conversations with different people about the game information,” Simons said. “You just got to be careful when there are conversations. And so that’s what they tell us — because it could be a tricky situation with a friend or mutual friend. It’s a hard situation to be in. You just got to be smart in that situation. And, if it’s not public, don’t say it.”
Brown said that insufficient measures were taken by the NBA to prep players to deal with the growing sports betting landscape.
“How can we protect players more with this environment?,” Brown said. “There’s been little to no conversation around that. It’s all about — a lot of times — how can we increase business, and increase revenue? And I’m not sure if we’re having enough conversations about: what is the aftermath or the consequences?”
Brown said that the rise of sports betting has had lots of consequences that haven’t been sufficiently addressed.
“I think a lot more could have been done to help players and prepare players,” Brown said. “But even in the aftermath, I (think) little care or attention to detail goes into it. They’re like, ‘You make X amount of money or X, Y and Z; you should be able to deal with all the extra negativity, the people approaching you, the parlays.’ It creates a negative discourse around the game and players when people have money involved. Obviously, it’s a part of it, but definitely some of the experiences, the fan engagement, the fan interactions that we’ve had over the years where fans feel like they can come on the court and touch players and things like that, it’s leading to situations that we can avoid if more conversations were had right now.”
Brown said more needs to be done in this regard.
“We don’t benefit from any of the profits or anything like that, but we’ve got to deal with a lot of the extra negativity and scrutiny behind all the gambling stuff. And then on top of that, it creates more integrity issues, etc. So I’m not sure what the answer is going forward, but definitely something that we got to spend more time having conversations about.”
For now, the Celtics’ attention will turn to Friday night’s showdown against the Knicks, in which the team will be eager to rectify last season’s Semi-Finals loss. The sports betting scandal won’t impact Friday’s game, Brown said, though the story looms large in NBA circles.
“Tonight should be a fun one,” Brown said. “Looking forward to coming out and competing.”
