It’s insane to wake up this morning and hear the news of this giant betting scheme that the FBI has been working on. Names like Chauncey Billups and Damon Jones highlight who is involved in this entire thing…
These two names prevalent players. Jones made one of the biggest shots in playoff history for the Cavs. Billips, the other one, was a top guard to ever play the game and truly would star against the Cavs as a member of the Detroit Pistons in the playoffs throughout the years.
I grew up loving and idolizing these guys and it just pains me to watch the press conference and hear about everything that occurred with the FBI and such. Now, I won’t go into specifics, as there are certainly going to be tons of content/videos/news about what exactly happened. My point is this is simple…
You have to wonder.
How many more players out there on various teams in various leagues are rigging and altering their performances in order to make even more money?
How many games that the outcomes of favorite teams been altered because players were trying to get rich and not win?
It’s not as if this is a completely new idea. It’s that this reaffirms and solidifies just how prevalent it is because of today’s news. What’s even harder to think about is the fact that the answers to these questions will never be 100% confirmed and there’s no way it’ll be fully answered.
It’s interesting to see the punishment these former players receive and if it makes those thinking about doing something like this take a step back and try to stay clean, so to speak. That would have to be the hope around the sporting world. A world that just feels so much different each time news like this breaks.
My fear is that it is only going to get worse and this is because of how easy it is to bet on a phone with the tapping of a screen in a matter of seconds. We live in different times now and this goes to show it once again.
Let’s see how this plays out and if even more names are involved as time goes on. It makes just everything seem a bit…off. In various ways as this year’s NBA season has just begun in what is now quite a unique way – that’s for sure.
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