Head coach Chauncey Billups of the Portland Trail Blazers and Terry Rozier #2 of the Miami Heat.
Soobum Im | Nick Cammett | Getty Images
NBA head coach Chauncey Billups and player Terry Rozier are each having their multi-million-dollar salaries withheld by their respective teams after their arrests for separate gambling-related criminal cases, CNBC confirmed Wednesday.
Billups, the head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers, and the Miami Heat guard Rozier were placed on leave from their teams by the NBA last Thursday after their arrests that day.
Billups, a former Detroit Pistons player who was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2024, reportedly earned about $4.7 million for the 2024-25 season.
In April, the Trail Blazers signed him to a multi-year contract extension through the 2026-27 season for an undisclosed amount.
Rozier’s salary for this season is about $26.6 million.
The Associated Press first reported that the salaries of Billups and Rozier are being withheld. CNBC confirmed that with people familiar with the matter.
CNBC has requested comment from the men’s lawyers.
The Heat declined to comment, and the Trail Blazers on the salary suspensions, which came to light two days after the NBA said it was conducting a broad review of betting-related issues to “protect the integrity of the NBA and our affiliated leagues.”
Billups, 49, and the 31-year-old Rozier are charged in separate indictments in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, New York.
Rozier is accused, with five other defendants, of a conspiracy that involved confidential information about basketball players and teams being leaked to or obtained by gamblers, who then allegedly used the information to make bets.
Rozier specifically is accused of telling a defendant in the same case, while playing for the Charlotte Hornets, that he planned to leave a game in March 2023 early due to a purported injury.
The other man and two other men charged in the same indictment then used that information to make so-called prop bets totaling more than $200,000 that Rozier would underperform statistically in certain areas of his play, the indictment alleges. Many of those bets paid off when Rozier exited the game after just nine minutes, according to the indictment.
Rozier’s lawyer, Jim Trusty, denies that Rozier did anything wrong.
“Terry is not a gambler, but he is not afraid of a fight, and he looks forward to winning this fight,” Trusty said last week.
Billups is accused of crimes related to his alleged participation in a scheme with alleged Mafia members to swindle players in underground poker games out of millions of dollars with cheating devices.
Billups’ lawyer, Chris Heywood, said last week, “Anyone who knows Chauncey Billups knows he is a man of integrity; men of integrity do not cheat and defraud others.”
