Charles Barkley called two of the individuals involved in the matter “stupid.”
Kenny Smith said the situation is “super unfortunate.”
One day after the “Inside the NBA” crew made its ESPN debut, the three analysts, as well as host Ernie Johnson, had a huge story to discuss that had little to do with the actual game of basketball.
On Thursday morning, federal prosecutors unsealed two indictments that outlined separate schemes to rig sports bets and poker games. More than 30 people were arrested, including former Clippers player and current Portland head coach Chauncey Billups, who was charged with participating in a conspiracy to fix high-stakes card games run by Mafia families.
Also arrested were Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier, who is accused of being part of a scheme to provide private insider NBA information to help others profit from online bets, and retired player Damon Jones, who has been charged with taking part in both schemes.
“All these guys knew what was at stake, and I’m just ashamed that they put themselves and put their family and put the NBA in this position,” O’Neal said during Thursday’s broadcast. “We all know the rules. We all know the letter of the law. And it’s just unfortunate — you know, innocent till proven guilty, but usually when the FBI has something, they have you.”
He added: “I know Chauncey. I know Damon very well, played with Damon. … I’m ashamed that those guys will put their families and their careers in jeopardy. There’s an old saying in the hood, all money ain’t good money. So if you’re making $9 million, like, how much more do you need? Especially if you know you get caught, you can do jail time, lose your career, put a bad image on yourself or your family or on the NBA.”
Smith pointed out that “gambling is an addiction which could make you make illogical decisions,” but Barkley interjected his opinion that addiction had nothing to do with the decision Jones and Rozier made to help others make fraudulent bets.
“This ain’t got nothing to do with addiction. These dudes are stupid,” Barkley said. “Why are they stupid? You under no circumstances can you fix basketball games. Under no circumstances. … Like, Rozier makes $26 million. Him betting, giving people information or taking himself out of games — how much is he going to benefit taking himself out the game to get unders?”
Barkley added: “You can’t fix ball games. Like I said, this is separate from Chauncey, but the notion that guys are making all this money and giving information — come on, man, stop that. That got nothing to do with addiction. That’s just total stupidity on these two dudes parts.”
Billups — a five-time All-Star who was the 2004 NBA Finals MVP as a member of the Detroit Pistons and is in his fifth season as Portland’s coach — and 10-year NBA veteran Rozier were placed on immediate leave, the league announced Thursday.
Billups’ attorney issued a statement Thursday night strongly denying the allegations against his client.
“Anyone who knows Chauncey Billups knows he is a man of integrity,” attorney Chris Heywood said. “Men of integrity do not cheat and defraud others.”
Jones played three seasons with LeBron James on the Cleveland Cavaliers from 2005 to 2008 and was an assistant coach during the Lakers star‘s second stint in Cleveland. In one of the indictments, prosecutors allege Jones was an unofficial coach with the Lakers from 2022 to 2023 when he used inside information for sports betting.
Shaquille O’Neal has an issue with a recent ranking of the all-time best NBA players.
On Monday, Bleacher Report released its list of the “top 100 NBA players ever,” based on a compilation of rankings from a “legion of B/R NBA experts, writers and editors.”
O’Neal finished just outside the top five. He didn’t seem to have an issue with that.
Shaq’s beef was with the placement of his former Lakers teammate, the late Kobe Bryant, who landed outside of the top 10.
“Kobe at 11 is criminal,” O’Neal wrote on X in the comments of a Bleacher Report post that revealed the list’s top 20. He left his comment a little more than an hour after the original Bleacher Report post went live.
Bryant is followed on the list by Hakeem Olajuwon, Kevin Durant, Oscar Robertson and Jerry West.
O’Neal has made no secret of his feelings on where Bryant ranks among the league’s all-time greats. In 2023, the Diesel told The Times that his “first team” on such a list would be himself, Bryant, Jordan, Johnson and James.
(Coming off the bench for O’Neal on that hypothetical team were Curry, Allen Iverson, Duncan, Karl Malone, Isiah Thomas and Abdul-Jabbar.)
Last month, in connection with the Netflix docuseries “Power Moves with Shaquille O’Neal,” Shaq revealed another personal top 10 list in which he ranked Bryant at No. 2, behind Jordan and just ahead of James.
Bryant ranks fourth in all-time NBA scoring (33,643 points) and his “Mamba Mentality” work ethic is still cited as a major influence on current athletes. He spent the first eight years of his career as Lakers teammates with O’Neal, with L.A. winning three NBA titles during that span.
Those Lakers also lost to the Detroit Pistons in the 2004 NBA Finals. Soon after, O’Neal was traded to the Miami Heat, with tension between the two superstars seen as one of the main reasons for the move. O’Neal won another NBA title with the Heat in 2006. Bryant won two more with the Lakers, in 2009 and 2010.
Over the years, O’Neal and Bryant acknowledged their rocky relationship as teammates but also insisted that they actually were close friends.
“I just want people to know that I don’t hate you, I know you don’t hate me. I call it today a ‘work beef,’ is what we had,” O’Neal told Bryant on “The Big Podcast with Shaq” in 2015.
“We had a lot of disagreements, we had a lot of arguments,” he said later. “But I think it fueled us both.”
Years later, when it appeared their feud might be heating up again, the two NBA greats took to social media to nip that notion in the bud.
“Ain’t nothin but love there,” Bryant wrote of his relationship with O’Neal.
“Kobe and I pushed one another to play some of the greatest basketball of all time and I am proud that no other team has accomplished what the three-peat Lakers have done since the Shaq and Kobe Lakers did it,” O’Neal said. “And sometimes like immature kids, we argued, we fought, we bantered, we assaulted each other with offhand remarks on the field. Make no mistake, even when folks thought we were on bad terms, when the cameras are turned off, he and I would throw a wink at each other and say let’s go whoop some ass.
“We never took it seriously. In truth, Kobe and I always maintained a deep respect and a love for one another.”
Shaquille O’Neal was a dominant force in the NBA, a 7-foot-1 gentle giant who shattered boards, racked up four titles and left an indelible mark as one of the best centers in basketball history. But since his retirement in 2011, Shaq has shown that his impact goes far beyond sports.
Now, in the business world, from offices and boardrooms, Shaq is focused on remaining the most dominant ever.
Beyond his impressive height, one of O’Neal’s most distinguishing traits is his sense of humor. In the “Power Moves with Shaquille O’Neal” Netflix series, which premiered on June 4, he acknowledges that his mindset is “80% humor and 20% seriousness” when it comes to running his businesses. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t take his responsibilities seriously. In fact, he believes that some people tried to exploit his outgoing nature when he first started his business ventures.
“Yes, a lot of people try to take advantage and that just drives me to do more things,” O’Neal told L.A. Times en Español.
Shaquille O’Neal walks on the court before Game 1 of the NBA Finals between the Pacers and Thunder in Oklahoma City.
(Julio Cortez / Associated Press)
He is accustomed to people trying to exploit his perceived weaknesses.
“They always said, ‘With the way he shoots free throws, he’ll never win a championship.’ OK, maybe that’s true, but I’m going to dominate the game so much that free throws don’t even matter.”
He brings the same mentality to his position at Reebok, where he is president of basketball — a position he assumed in 2023 — and is leading a push to bring relevance back to a brand that once bet on him to be a star.
“When I went to Nike, they said, ‘Yeah, we wanted to give you your own sneakers, but we gave them to another guy.’ And I said, ‘Excuse me? To this guy?’ And then when I went to Reebok, they said, ‘We believe in you, we’re going to give you your own shoes,’” O’Neal recalls.
That loyalty was not forgotten. Today, 30 years after signing with Reebok as a player, O’Neal is back, not to launch retro updates of his shoes, but to make decisions, train a new generation of athletes and reshape the brand’s place in a fiercely competitive market.
Shaq didn’t join Reebok’s executive team just for nostalgia’s sake. His vision is clear: Take a chance like they took a chance on him in the 1990s.
“They took a chance on young Shaq. He took a chance on young AI [Allen Iverson]. He took a chance on young Shawn Kemp. And we turned the plan into a dominant number two. Never number one, but never number three,” O’Neal explained.
With that logic, the former player decided not to bet Reebok’s current NBA marketing budget all on one superstar.
“I wanted to go the traditional route. ‘Hey, let’s go for Shai [Gilgeous-Alexander]. Let’s go for Jaylen Brown.’ But when you talk to agents, these guys want big numbers. … You’re going to spend 85 or 90% of the budget,” O’Neal said.
His team — including his son, Shareef — convinced O’Neal to invest in emerging talent with a strong social media presence and a mindset of their own.
Case in point is WNBA Chicago Sky player Angel Reese, who signed with Reebok in 2023.
“Angel reminds me of AI. She’s going to do it her way, the way she wants to do it. She doesn’t care what anyone else says,” O’Neal said.
Shaquille O’Neal, left, and Allen Iverson watch the NBA Rookie Challenge on Feb. 18, 2005, at the Pepsi Center in Denver.
(Mark Terrill / Associated Press)
He sees Reese not only as a great athlete, but as an influential figure who embodies the disruptive spirit he wants to restore in the Reebok brand.
O’Neal isn’t just impressed by what he sees on the court. He’s looking for something more.
“I’m looking for someone who isn’t getting the recognition he deserves,” he said. “We live in a world where, once they get noticed by one or two guys, they stick with them forever.”
He said he was underestimated in his early days. Despite being selected with the first pick in the 1992 draft and making an immediate impact with the Orlando Magic, he said during early career business meetings “they never looked at me. They always looked at my manager. It was like, ‘Do you think he understands business?’”
That prompted him to study business administration and management and get serious about his financial education.
“I just thought, ‘Let me get a degree … so you know I understand that I’m in charge of my own destiny,’” O’Neal said.
Now, as president of Reebok basketball, he also values athletes’ family ties, their work ethic, their environment and their desire to represent something bigger than themselves.
“I like the people, the moms, the dads, the coaches. People want to be represented in a certain way,” O’Neal said.
He doesn’t presume to have all the answers. He admits he’s had to adapt and learn.
“It’s just about challenges. I’ve always been one to step up to meet them. … I had to learn a lot, learn about this business,” he said.
To appeal to the broadest group of customers, he has relied on a close circle of advisors that includes his son, Shareef.
“I had to bring in my son to help me identify with the crazy Generation Z, because they do what they want. They follow their own path. They have their own rules,” O’Neal said.
While still a strong, determined figure, O’Neal has learned to accept feedback from others.
“I don’t think my best quality is listening,” he admits. But in his new role, he’s had to let go of some of his old-school style and trust his team.
O’Neal was one of the most dominant players the NBA has ever seen. Now he’s one of the most successful athletes in the business world. His investment portfolio includes franchises of businesses such as Papa John’s, Five Guys, 24 Hour Fitness and his own line of products and apparel. He also holds commercial endorsement contracts with brands such as Icy Hot, The General insurance and Carnival Cruises, among others.
But his business success has not been linear.
“On the road to success, there are many failures and you simply have to try to have more successes than failures,” he said.
His secret has been to surround himself with skilled people.
“I have great teammates,” O’Neal said. “My friend wins a championship by herself. It’s called delegation.”
Shaq has turned his image into a global brand, but he insists the key has been staying true to his values. It all revolves around his family.
“I am who you think I am. I realized I couldn’t have done any of this without my family and their blessings,” he says.
He said his faith and personal values help him manage the impact of his success.
“I said it about seven years ago, never call me famous,” O’Neal said. “Celebrities are jerks. I just want to be a normal person. I’m a respectful person. I love kids. I love the elderly. I love helping those in need. I love making people smile. So the answer to the question of how I keep my feet on the ground, you know exactly how I do it: Salaam-alaikum [Peace be upon you], brother.”
Shaquille O’Neal’s fried chicken chain expanded with a Valencia location serving fried chicken sandwiches, sides and shakes.
(Big Chicken)
Long before he joined he executive team, O’Neal played a major role in Reebok’s success. In the early 1990s, while Nike and Adidas were building giant empires, Reebok bet on O’Neal and Iverson, and managed to position itself as a serious alternative, especially among urban youth. But over time, the brand lost ground.
Now, with O’Neal leading the renaissance of its basketball division, Reebok wants to regain that lost space. It doesn’t intend to compete directly with Nike or Adidas for big stars, but to create an ecosystem of its own.
“It’s not about a gamble. It’s about making the right decision,” O’Neal said.
O’Neal has been many things: NBA champion, most valuable player, All-Star, entrepreneur, commentator, DJ, actor, honorary police officer, philanthropist. But perhaps his most powerful facet is that of a man who builds bridges, pushes others and constantly reinvents himself.
This new movement, he says, is strategic and personal. He is enjoying a reunion with the brand that believed in him and an opportunity to return the favor by helping Reebok connect with customers.
