Deep in the weeds of the 23-page federal indictment alleging game fixing in the NBA, prosecutors cite a text from former NBA journeyman Damon Jones to his co-conspirators.
“Get a big bet on Milwaukee tonight before the information is out! (Player 3) is out tonight. Bet enough so Djones can eat to (sic) now!”
Player 3, it turns out, was LeBron James, whose absence in the Los Angeles Lakers game could understandably affect the outcome. James did not, in fact, play that night which Jones knew because – though he wasn’t an official part of the Lakers staff – he worked with the NBA star during pre-game workouts.
Access equals information, which is, essentially, how the sausage is made in point-shaving.
Much like insider trading on the stock market, inside information on teams – either from peripheral personnel such as Jones, or in the form of a direct link, a la Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier – can be worth a lot of money. And for the co-conspirators it was, including two people indicted in the case involving Rozier.
Shane Hennen and Marves Fairley are career criminals with serious charges on their lengthy rap sheets. Hennen spent 30 months in prison for intent to distribute cocaine and was separately arrested for assault after stabbing someone. Fairley was accused in 2018 of murdering a man in witness protection. The judge, however, cited a “number of matters involving the defendant, state and others,’’ and he was given a 15-year suspended sentence with no time served.
Now set that aside temporarily and consider all of this under the backdrop of the NCAA’s Wednesday decision to allow student-athletes to gamble on professional sports.
Cursed by undeniable bad timing, the national body announced just 24 hours before the indictments that it was reversing its long-standing rule prohibiting college athletes from betting on sports in which an NCAA championship is wagered. Though they still cannot wager on college sports, as of November 1 student-athletes are free to gamble on professionals.