NBA Strongly Denies Quietly Suspending Terry Rozier in 2023

Hours after the arrest of Terry Rozier, ESPN reporter Brian Windhorst said that the then-Hornets guard faked an injury in 2023 and was instead pulled from games by the NBA.

Federal prosecutors say Rozier told a friend that he would leave a March 23 Hornets–Pelicans game early, setting up the friend to bet the “under” on Rozier’s prop bets. Rozier played 10 minutes, well below his season average of 35, and according to Windhorst, sportsbooks caught irregular betting patterns on the day of the game and flagged the league.

“The sportsbooks caught it. They told the NBA right away. And guess what? The NBA… Rozier didn’t play the rest of the season. And he had faked the injury, so it wasn’t because of the injury. The NBA pulled him. They pulled Jontay Porter too. They flagged Jontay Porter and pulled Jontay Porter,” Windhorst said on The Rich Eisen Show.

The NBA told Front Office Sports that any gambling investigation was unrelated to Rozier missing Charlotte’s final eight games of the 2022–23 season.

“Any assertion that the NBA had anything to do with Terry Rozier not playing games following his departure from the game on March 23, 2023, is categorically false,” NBA spokesperson Mike Bass said. “Per team doctors, Rozier had a real foot injury confirmed with an MRI.”

Official injury reports from March 24 to April 9 listed Rozier as out with right foot discomfort.

Windhorst told Eisen that Rozier’s case was similar to Jontay Porter, the former Raptors big man who was given a lifetime ban for his involvement in another sports betting scandal.

Porter was investigated after playing just three minutes on March 20. He played in just one more NBA game on March 22, 2024, before reports of the NBA’s investigation against him came out on March 26, 2024. The NBA dealt Porter a lifetime ban less than a month later.

Windhorst questioned why, unlike Porter, the NBA allowed Rozier to play again.

“The issue, I think is, Jontay Porter, they caught, convicted, and tossed him out of the league within weeks. Rozier didn’t,” Windhorst said.

On Friday morning, Windhorst appeared to walk back some of his reporting during an appearance on ESPN’s Get Up. He called the idea that the NBA pulled Rozier from games a “conspiracy theory.”

“I’ve seen things go around about conspiracy theory about how Rozier was held out of games because the NBA was doing stuff. Unfortunately, it’s just that the NBA ain’t the feds. And that is definitely something to worry about and to be concerned about as gambling is more a part of our lives,” Windhorst said.

Windhorst told FOS that he spoke to the league after his appearance on The Rich Eisen Show and was informed that the Hornets made the decision to sit Rozier for the final eight games of the 2022-23 season. 

“The sportsbooks and the NBA’s integrity monitoring partners flagged the irregular betting on Rozier and the league was aware of the possible issue very quickly. He then did not play for the rest of the season,” Windhorst wrote in an email. “In the case of Jontay Porter the following season, the NBA did pull him after a second incident of suspicious wagering was flagged by the integrity monitors, which I mentioned. The cases were similar but slightly different, the league explained.”

He added that he never implied a conspiracy on the NBA’s part.

“On Eisen, I said the NBA would have to explain at some point what happened that allowed Rozier to keep playing, never did I say or imply there was a conspiracy. I subsequently had that conversation with the league about their process. On TV this morning, I reported the league’s explanation for why they weren’t able to corroborate the charges against Rozier and allowed him to play.

“In conjunction, I also questioned why there was a belief there was a conspiracy. The league investigated Rozier, which was public, and then decided to allow him to continue to play, which was public. It is not a good look for the NBA that he was allowed to play but I think that underscores their limited investigative power not a conspiracy, which implies something wholly different.”

— Dennis Young contributed reporting.