A Terry Rozier gambling scandal would be a nightmare for the sports world

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Good morning, Winners! Welcome back to the Morning Win. Happy Friday. Hope you’ve had a great week.

Let’s talk about this Terry Rozier gambling investigation.

The Miami Heat guard is being investigated by federal authorities who are looking into whether he manipulated his performance as part of a broader sports betting scheme.

Basically, without getting into the nitty-gritty, federal authorities have suspicions that Rozier tried to pull off the same thing Jontay Porter tried to pull off. The allegations involve the same group of co-conspirators, but the game in question for Rozier happened in 2023 instead of 2024.

The NBA launched its own investigation into the matter and reportedly found no rule violations, according to Chris Haynes, but federal authorities seem to have reason to believe they need to dig deeper into this.

EVERYTHING WE KNOW: Here are more details on the investigation into Rozier and everything at stake

A Terry Rozier gambling scandal has the potential to be destabilizing for the sports world. This should be considered a 10-alarm fire if investigators were to find any malfeasance on the Heat guard’s part.

This is the same as the Jontay Porter scandal, but it’s not.

Yes, if what is alleged is true, Rozier would’ve done the same thing Porter did in manipulating his stats to reach specific benchmarks to satisfy betting lines. That, in general, is a terrible thing to do and completely disregards the integrity of the game.

But it’d be different in that Porter made the league-minimum salary in the NBA. Whatever piece of the pie he was making off of fudging his numbers probably made a difference for him. That’s why sportsbooks no longer take bets on the lowest-paid players across the NBA.

But Terry Rozier? That dude’s current contract guarantees him nearly $100 million. He’s made nearly $134 million in career earnings throughout his time in the league. He doesn’t need the money. A betting scandal probably wouldn’t make much of a difference for him.

If he were to take part in something like this anyway? It’d be a huge blow to the sports betting industry. Detractors would point to this as proof that there’s no stopping temptation from winning over, no matter how many rules or regulations you put in place to stop it. The integrity of the game will always be in jeopardy.

Is that fair? It’s hard to say. On one hand, the regulations are doing what they’re supposed to do. One player has already been caught in a scandal and another one is potentially being investigated here. Nothing may come from this. And, even if something does, then that’s proof the system is working to catch wrongdoers in their tracks.

But, even if that’s the case, one could argue that the fact that we need a system for that in the first place makes the entire thing fraught to begin with.

Whatever you’re inclined to think about this, I’d probably hold off on any sweeping judgments. There’s an ongoing investigation and the results of that matter.

But, best believe, the sports world has its eyes on this one.

James Cook is a real one

Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images

Everybody wants to chalk the Chiefs’ success up to the referees. And, look, I get it. They get a lot of calls that go their way. But the game comes down to more than that.

James Cook knows what’s good. If you give officials nothing to call, then they can’t call anything.

“At the end of the day, you got to come in there ready to go… [expletive] that ref [expletive]. You gotta come in there ready to go, ready to play. Don’t give a ref nothing to call.”

That’s honestly refreshing to hear. Maybe this is just Cook putting on airs so he doesn’t get fined by the NFL. Regardless, the officiating talk all season has gotten exhausting.

People hate the Chiefs, They have plenty of reason to hate the Chiefs and that’s totally cool with me. But, in the end, they win a lot because they’re just that good. Do they get the benefit of the doubt on some calls? Sure. When you’re that good, it happens.

But, usually, the game doesn’t boil down to that. We’d be better off acting like we know that.

Elly De La Cruz is so fun

And I’m so glad baseball knows it. This new commercial from Major League Baseball features a stop-motion Elly doing real-life Elly things.

@mlb

He does actual video game things in real life😤 Elly De La Cruz is MAXED OUT⚡️

♬ original sound – MLB

This spot is part of the league’s “Baseball is Something Else” campaign. It’s supposed to center the game’s young stars to get people excited about this upcoming season.

This commercial, in particular, features Elly as a created player who has come to life from a video game. MLB says it took 3,000 photos to bring the stop-motion animation to life, which seems extremely arduous. But it’s also totally worth it.

It’s always good to see baseball leaning in on its up-and-coming superstars like this. MLB is in a cool place right now.