Jontay Porter might be the example the NBA needed to avoid a larger betting scandal
If an NBA betting scandal was inevitable, it could have been a lot worse than Jontay Porter.
Maybe it was because of the groundswell of NBA players and coaches who publicly addressed how close sports betting had gotten to the league. Or maybe it was because Tim Donaghy showed how easily the league’s games could be manipulated. But whatever it was, many NBA fans had been expecting a gambling scandal to rock the NBA again at some point. It was only a matter of when, not if.
That anticipated moment finally arrived Wednesday.
Former Toronto Raptors center Jontay Porter received a permanent ban from the NBA for violating league rules on betting. As the most egregious example of a player influencing the outcome of his own games since the federal ban on betting was struck down in 2018, it seems fans were right in their fears. But if a sports betting scandal was inevitable in the NBA, this might have been a best-case scenario.
If Porter were a star rather than a two-way player who spent as much time in the G League as he did the NBA, this could have been a lot worse for the league. Instead, the NBA gets to make an example out of a player who might be best known as the younger brother of Denver Nuggets forward Michael Porter Jr., and hope it deters other players from going down the same path.
Not only did Jontay Porter provide confidential health information to known bettors and limit his own production to influence his prop bets, he bet on the NBA himself, including games involving his own organization. His actions undermined the very integrity championed by the NBA as important to upholding the trust fans have in its games.
“There is nothing more important than protecting the integrity of NBA competition for our fans, our teams and everyone associated with our sport, which is why is Jontay Porter’s blatant violations of our gaming rules are being met with severe punishment,” commissioner Adam Silver said in a press release.
Had it been a more prominent player, the news would have rocked the entire sports world in a similar way as the Shohei Ohtani translator scandal.
In Ohtani’s case, even the mere thought of baseball’s biggest star betting created a massive uproar, even without confirmation. Ultimately, MLB avoided the worse, as Ohtani was apparently cleared of any wrongdoing. And the NBA will go on unscathed too, if only because Porter isn’t LeBron James or Steph Curry or Kevin Durant.
Perhaps players of that stature will never be caught up in a betting scandal because of the amount of money they already make and how much is at stake for them to lose. That could apply to the next few tiers of players too. Many of these athletes are very well off. But if there was any doubt about the effectiveness of systems in place to catch anyone tempted enough to give it a try, Porter’s ban should be enough to erase it. The NBA was able to find out about bets Porter made through online betting accounts that weren’t even his own.
If this were say Anthony Edwards or Victor Wembanyama, the league would be embroiled in a fight for its credibility. Instead, because it was a player on the fringes, the NBA gets to exile a player no one will miss and use his ban to send a message to other players, coaches, referees, executives and people in its ranks that the same fate awaits them for crossing the line.
As scandals go, it could have been a lot worse.