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Basketball

Congress asks NBA’s Silver for briefing on gambling scandal

  • David Purdum

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    David Purdum

    ESPN Staff Writer

    • Joined ESPN in 2014
    • Journalist covering gambling industry since 2008

  • Shwetha Surendran

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    Shwetha Surendran

    ESPN

      Shwetha Surendran is a reporter in ESPN’s investigative and enterprise unit.

Oct 24, 2025, 02:41 PM ET

Members of Congress sent a letter Friday to NBA commissioner Adam Silver requesting a briefing and expressing concern over “allegations of illegal gambling and sports rigging” after Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups, Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier and former NBA player and coach Damon Jones were indicted in a pair of sweeping federal investigations this week.

The bipartisan letter, signed by six members of Congress on the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, requested a briefing with Silver by Oct. 31.

ESPN has reached out to the NBA for comment.

The committee, which oversees consumer protection and sports, said in its letter that it has previously investigated “steroid use in Major League Baseball, anti-doping measures at the Olympic Games and the sexual abuse of Olympic athletes.”

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Committee members requested more details on alleged NBA-related illegal gambling activity, the actions that the league has taken “to limit the disclosure of non-public information for illegal purposes” and if the NBA’s code of conduct is effective in prohibiting players and coaches from such activity.

They also questioned in the letter if the league is “reevaluating the terms of its partnerships with sports betting companies.” DraftKings and FanDuel are the NBA’s official gambling partners, alongside a number of authorized gaming operators.

In the letter, committee members also asked for clarification of any gaps in existing regulations that allow for fraudulent betting activity. Silver said on “The Pat McAfee Show” on Tuesday that more regulation is needed to reduce opportunities for game manipulation related to gambling and to combat bad fan behavior in arenas, which may stem from losing wagers.

“I think, probably, there should be more regulation, frankly,” Silver told McAfee. “I wish there was federal legislation rather than state by state. I think you’ve got to monitor the amount of promotion, the amount of advertising around it.”

Illegal gambling in the league based on nonpublic information is not a “new problem,” the letter noted, referencing former NBA referee Tim Donaghy’s case in 2007, as well as the more recent investigation into former Toronto Raptors player Jontay Porter.

Donaghy was sentenced to 15 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy charges and admitting to betting on games he officiated. Porter admitted to manipulating his performance in two games for the benefit of gamblers as part of the same scheme involving Rozier and Jones. He pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentencing.

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DeAndre Jordan signs with Pelicans for front-line depth

Oct 24, 2025, 11:13 AM ET

Free agent center DeAndre Jordan is joining the New Orleans Pelicans on a one-year, $3.6 million contract, Jeff Schwartz of Excel Sports Management told ESPN’s Shams Charania.

The Pelicans announced Jordan’s hiring Friday without disclosing terms.

In New Orleans, Jordan will look to find playing time on a front line led by star Pelicans big man Zion Williamson, who has missed at least 12 games in every year of his NBA career. The Pelicans are without center Kevon Looney, who is missing the start of the season with a left knee injury. They used a trio of centers — Yves Missi and rookies Derik Queen and Hunter Dickinson — during their season-opening loss to the Memphis Grizzlies on Wednesday.

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Missi, who started Wednesday’s game, is questionable to play Friday against the San Antonio Spurs after twisting his right ankle against the Grizzlies. He is listed as day-to-day.

Jordan was with the Pelicans on Friday morning and was expected to be available to play against the Spurs.

A three-time All-NBA center and 2023 champion with the Denver Nuggets, he is entering his 18th season in the league. Jordan, 37, had spent the past three seasons with the Nuggets.

Brought in to be a veteran leader in Denver’s locker room, Jordan often proved to be the Nuggets’ most reliable option at backup center, and he appeared in 56 games last season, his most since 2020-21, while averaging 3.7 points and 5.1 rebounds in 12.3 minutes per game.

Jordan has appeared in 1,111 career games with 791 starts. The Pelicans are his eighth NBA team.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Basketball

Sources: Mark Walter presenting Lakers bid to NBA committee

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    Ramona ShelburneOct 24, 2025, 12:32 PM ET

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    • Senior writer for ESPN.com
    • Spent seven years at the Los Angeles Daily News

Businessman Mark Walter is scheduled to present his bid to acquire the Los Angeles Lakers to the NBA’s Advisory Finance Committee on Friday and could be approved as the franchise’s new majority owner by the end of the month, sources with knowledge of the process told ESPN.

The committee will review Walter’s bid at a $10 billion valuation to buy a controlling share of the franchise from the Buss family and then make a recommendation to the Board of Governors, which could vote on whether to approve Walter as soon as the end of next week, sources said.

Should Walter be approved, it would give him one of the most valuable collections of professional sports franchises in the world. He is the controlling owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, who begin the World Series on Friday night in Toronto. Walter also owns the WNBA’s Los Angeles Sparks, the Billie Jean King Cup, the new Cadillac Formula 1 team and the Professional Women’s Hockey League. He is a part owner of Chelsea FC of the English Premier League.

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If approved, the $10 billion valuation and purchase of the Lakers will shatter the record set by Josh Harris’ purchase of the Washington Commanders for $6.05 billion in 2023 and topped by Bill Chisholm’s $6.1 billion purchase of the Boston Celtics in July.

Walter is no stranger to record-breaking purchases. His $2.15 billion purchase of the Dodgers in 2012 turned heads at the time but has since proved prescient as the team is now valued between $6.8 billion (Forbes) and $7.73 billion (Sportico).

The Buss family will retain a minority ownership stake of more than 15%, allowing Lakers governor Jeanie Buss to remain in her role for the foreseeable future.

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NBA Cup: Court designs for Lakers, Celtics and more

The Emirates NBA Cup 2025 is around the corner — games tip off on Oct. 31 — with sleek-styled courts for all 30 teams.

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Each team will play four group-play games on designated “Cup Nights.” Teams have been placed into groups of five — they’ll play two games at home and two on the road. Eight teams — the best team in each group with two wild-card teams from each conference — will advance to the knockout rounds, with a chance to win the NBA Cup trophy.

Continuing a previously established tradition, each team will have a competition-specific court, designed by artist Victor Solomon, containing distinct team gradients and Cup trophy designs on each key and center court.

Team slogans and trademark designs are featured along the sideline for some teams.

Prior Cup champions, the Milwaukee Bucks and Los Angeles Lakers, will have the year they won the Cup on the base of the trophy at center court.

Here is the 2025 edition of NBA Cup court designs across the league.

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Jaylen Brown wants more NBA protection over betting issues

Oct 24, 2025, 02:10 PM ET

Boston Celtics forward Jaylen Brown said the NBA isn’t doing enough to protect players from issues surrounding sports betting, speaking about the issue a day after a prominent player and coach were arrested for their alleged roles in a nationwide gambling scandal.

“They’re like, ‘You make X amount of money or X, Y and Z, you should be able to deal with all the extra negativity, the people approaching you about the parlays,'” Brown said Friday at Madison Square Garden before the Celtics face the New York Knicks. “It creates a negative discourse around the game and players when people have money involved. … It’s leading to situations that we can avoid if more conversations were had right now.”

Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups and Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier were among dozens who were indicted Thursday from a pair of federal investigations. Rozier allegedly informed a friend that he would pull himself from a March 2023 game while he was with the Charlotte Hornets, with hundreds of thousands of dollars of bets made on Rozier under props for the contest.

While Billups’ charges are related to his alleged role in rigged poker games, he also matches the description of a co-conspirator who allegedly told a bettor in advance that a number of Trail Blazers starters would miss a March 2023 game.

Billups, Rozier among 34 arrested by FBI

Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups, Heat guard Terry Rozier, and former Cavaliers player and assistant coach Damon Jones were arrested as part of a pair of wide-ranging investigations related to illegal sports betting and rigged poker games backed by the Mafia, authorities announced.

• FAQ: What we know about the cases
• Timeline: Sports betting scandals since 2018
• Wetzel: True cost of sports betting
• From 2024: Jontay Porter banned for life

Attorneys for both Billups and Rozier said their clients dispute the allegations against them.

Brown, who is a vice president for the National Basketball Players Association, said he wants to help get to the bottom of what happened. But he also lamented the NBA not doing enough proactively or reactively to help players.

“I don’t think once, from my conversations with the union, that the NBA has been like, ‘How can we protect players more with the environment?'” Brown said. “There’s been little to no conversation around that. It’s all about, a lot of times, ‘How can we increase business and increase revenue?’ I don’t think we’re having enough conversations about what is the aftermath or the consequences that some of that stuff has.”

Brown and Rozier were teammates on the Celtics from 2016 to 2019. Brown said the allegations against Rozier were “not conducive of his character” but noted that the union has an investigative team to look into the matter.

“Obviously, if those guys are innocent, it’s not a great look for them publicly and media-wise, so we’ve got to make sure if they are exonerated, then their images are cleaned up,” Brown said. “But I think right now, just kind of getting all the information and getting to the bottom of it is the most important thing.”

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Terry Rozier has Heat’s ‘full support’ after arrest, Adebayo says

Oct 24, 2025, 02:50 PM ET

The reality began setting in for the Miami Heat on Friday when they gathered for a morning shootaround practice and Terry Rozier wasn’t with the team.

And that almost certainly won’t change anytime soon.

Rozier has been placed on indefinite leave by the NBA after he was arrested Thursday by federal agents and charged for his alleged role in a scheme in which prosecutors say he conspired with friends to help them win bets they made based on his performance in a March 2023 game when he was with the Charlotte Hornets.

“You support him through and through,” Heat captain Bam Adebayo said in Memphis, Tennessee, before Miami’s game against the Grizzlies. “That’s our brother at the end of the day. It felt kind of weird without him being here, actually, because he’s the first person I get to talk to in the morning. He brings that great energy to our team.”

Billups, Rozier among 34 arrested by FBI

Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups, Heat guard Terry Rozier and former Cavaliers player and assistant coach Damon Jones were arrested as part of a pair of wide-ranging investigations related to illegal sports betting and rigged poker games backed by the Mafia, authorities announced.

• FAQ: What we know about the cases
• Timeline: Sports betting scandals since 2018
• Wetzel: True cost of sports betting
• From 2024: Jontay Porter banned for life

Adebayo made clear how the team still feels about Rozier.

“We stand behind him,” Adebayo said. “Full support.”

The Heat are now searching for ways to move on, much like how the Portland Trail Blazers must do without coach Chauncey Billups — also arrested Thursday and placed on leave for his alleged involvement in another gambling scheme.

“Terry is somebody who is very dear to all of us,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “He’s had a real positive impact on our locker room, and the staff and players alike, and that includes last year, when he wasn’t in the rotation often times. We send our thoughts and our care for him as he goes through this.”

Rozier, through his attorney, has denied any wrongdoing. The Heat aren’t commenting on the legal part of the case, nor are the Hornets, the team that Rozier was with during the March 23, 2023, game in question.

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Rozier was in the starting lineup for Charlotte and played reasonably well in his 9½ minutes of action, with five points, four rebounds, two assists and a steal. That remains one of only two times in his career that he had that many points, rebounds and assists in a first quarter.

He cited foot pain as his reason for not returning to that game and sat out the final eight Charlotte games that season. The Hornets had already been eliminated from playoff contention, and it’s not uncommon for players — even those with minor injuries — to be held out of inconsequential games toward the end of a season.

But Rozier had allegedly told a childhood friend, Deniro Laster, who has also been indicted, that he would pull himself from the game. Laster allegedly sold the information to two bettors for about $100,000. Those bettors, along with their associates and a network of proxy bettors, used the info to bet hundreds of thousands of dollars on Rozier’s unders, according to the indictment.

Rozier paid for Laster to travel to Philadelphia to collect the proceeds from the scheme, according to the indictment, and then drove to Rozier’s home to count the money with him.

The Heat met as a team Thursday, hours after Rozier was arrested by federal authorities in Orlando, Florida, and spent part of that session discussing how best to support their teammate.

“That’s our brother,” forward Jaime Jaquez Jr. said. “We’ve had a lot of time with him. You know, see what happens. There’s a lot of stuff that we don’t know. Just waiting for more information to come out.”

Rozier was not in the rotation for Miami’s season-opening game in Orlando on Wednesday. He was in uniform and on the bench, eligible to play if the Heat decided they needed him. There was no indication that night that any new legal trouble was looming.

By the time the team left Orlando on Thursday, it was obvious that Rozier wouldn’t be with the club again for some time. The challenge now for the Heat, Spoelstra said, is to figure out how to move forward.

“You’re left with no other choice,” Spoelstra said. “The league doesn’t wait. It doesn’t stop for you. … You have to learn how to compartmentalize and focus on the most immediate thing. And that’s preparing for an important game tonight.”

ESPN’s David Purdum and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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NBA intel: Wemby domination and more first-week findings

  • Tim Bontemps

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    Tim Bontemps

    ESPN Senior Writer

      Tim Bontemps is a senior NBA writer for ESPN.com who covers the league and what’s impacting it on and off the court, including trade deadline intel, expansion and his MVP Straw Polls. You can find Tim alongside Brian Windhorst and Tim MacMahon on The Hoop Collective podcast.

  • Brian Windhorst

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    Brian Windhorst

    ESPN Senior Writer

    • ESPN.com NBA writer since 2010
    • Covered Cleveland Cavs for seven years
    • Author of two books

Oct 24, 2025, 11:22 AM ET

A thrilling start to the NBA season came to a screeching halt on Thursday, when Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier, Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups and former player and coach Damon Jones were arrested as part of FBI investigations into illegal sports betting and rigged poker games.

Questions remain on the status of those investigations. And while those indictments overshadowed the opening days of the NBA’s 80th season, its first handful of games showed us plenty about what could be next on the court.

With that in mind, we checked in with league coaches, scouts and executives on what stood out across the opening week of the regular season. Nothing, though, matched the buzz around the league after Victor Wembanyama’s evisceration of the Dallas Mavericks Wednesday night — a performance that felt like a warning to the rest of the NBA.

There’s something different about Wemby’s game

Bontemps: Wembanyama, who missed the back half of last season after a deep vein thrombosis diagnosis, had a busy summer off the court. But when he spoke to the media at the start of training camp, he made sure to emphasize that for whatever people saw on social media, he wasn’t spending the summer relaxing.

“I can assure you, nobody has trained like I did this summer,” Wembanyama said. “And this is my best summer so far. I can tell the progress is just incredible. I feel better, I look stronger and the scale says I’m heavier. So, everything is a green light.”

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In the wake of Wembanyama’s impressive 40-point showing in Dallas, those preseason comments now feel like an early declaration of what was to come this season. It could have been taken as Wembanyama being arrogant, but he said it in a simple, matter-of-fact tone, both because it is just what he truly believes, and because he is capable of doing things virtually no one else has ever contemplated, let alone been able to achieve.

After watching him toy with Dallas, there was a clear recognition that if he keeps going like this it’s going to take a lot of luck to slow him down.

“He’s clearly gotten bigger, stronger, more aggressive, playing with more force,” a Western Conference scout said. “And he’s going to take over the whole f—ing league if he stays healthy.”

Windhorst:In the preseason, scouts started to notice something about Wembanyama: In lieu of launching from deep, he was playing bully ball.

After hoisting a whopping 8.8 3-pointers per game last year, nearly half of the 19 shots he was averaging per game and nearly four more per night than during his rookie season, Wembanyama was going the opposite way. He was driving to the basket, looking to establish position and even seeking contact.

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Stephen A.: Wemby can take the Spurs to the conference finals

Stephen A. Smith analyzes Victor Wembanyama’s 40-point performance vs. the Mavericks.

Last season only 40% of his shots were in the paint. In the preseason, albeit a small sample size, that number soared to 75%. After averaging six free throws per 100 possessions last season, it leapt to 11.8 per 100 in the preseason.

So when Wembanyama dropped 40 in the season opener in Dallas, stealing the show from No. 1 pick Cooper Flagg’s debut with a tour de force of basket attacks, it verified the hand he started to show the league.

Wembanyama took just two 3-pointers, his fewest in a game since his rookie season. (He took fewer than five 3s once all season.) He had 11 free throws against the Mavericks. That happened once in a regulation game last year.

Said one team source: “He’s relishing playing bully ball.”

After a promising opener, a major question faces the Houston Rockets

Windhorst:After Amen Thompson left the season opener in overtime with cramps, Rockets coach Ime Udoka went with big man Alperen Sengun as the de facto point guard. In the wake of losing Fred VanVleet and the commitment for the still raw Thompson to be the team’s primary point guard, there’s a debate among league executives about whether the Rockets will eventually need to acquire a veteran point guard as a trusty option.

“Their answer is on the roster, I’m a believer in Reed Sheppard and he will step into that role [alongside Thompson],” a veteran executive said. “You can focus on what he can’t do, but I’ve followed him since he was a teenager and all he’s done is overcome doubters. Just give him time.”

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But, again, there’s a debate.

“Sheppard is such a target on defense, it’ll be tough to play him at times,” a league scout said. “He doesn’t have good awareness, he doesn’t show good feel and he’s often out of position. He does have good hands.”

Sheppard defended 11 drives in the Rockets’ opening loss to the Thunder, and he was blown by five times, according to ESPN Research.

Bontemps:Although Houston didn’t win the game, and likely won’t have VanVleet back at any point this season after he tore his ACL last month, the Rockets came out of Tuesday’s loss having earned a ton of respect from the NBA cognoscenti.

That was led by the performance Sengun had. Not only did he have 39 points, but his five 3-pointers on Tuesday were a remarkable contrast to the 21 triples he made all of last season.

“If he does that,” an assistant coach said of Sengun’s shooting, “It’s a game changer for them.”

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What did we learn from the Rockets’ loss on opening night?

Kendrick Perkins discusses the Rockets’ loss to the Warriors and how they can learn from their mistakes.

And while rival teams are not expecting Sengun to make several 3-pointers every night, the big man looked comfortable enough that opposing scouts and executives did buy it as a real development.

Sengun also earned plaudits for his vision and shot creation. And whether Thompson, Sheppard or another player is Houston’s answer at point guard, Sengun will spend plenty of time as the Rockets’ offensive hub. Going up against the best team in the league Tuesday night, it produced big-time results.

“He’s way better than I ever thought he would be, and the thing that’s impressive about him is he’s got a really strong command of the game as far as directing traffic,” a scout said. “He’s thinking the game at a higher level than a lot of his teammates.

“They know it, and they’re following his lead.”

A messy offseason gives way to a strong start for Jonathan Kuminga

Bontemps: Kuminga’s contract negotiations as a restricted free agent provided drama all summer long in the Bay Area. But for all the noise that came along with those negotiations, if Kuminga can play like he did Tuesday against the Los Angeles Lakers — playing with energy and effort, sharing the ball and working on defense — he can be more than useful for Golden State.

“He did what he needed to do,” a Western Conference assistant coach said.

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But what stood out about Kuminga’s performance went beyond his box score statistics: 17 points, 9 rebounds, 6 assists and 1 turnover. At least in the eyes of one executive, it was seeing Kuminga playing like someone thriving in his role.

“Forget the shooting. Forget the couple plays where he scored, forget when he guarded Luka,” they said. “But he was playing with a smile on his face. I just haven’t seen much of that from him. It’s always been him having a chip on his shoulder and looking like he’s proving himself. He’s guarding a couple positions, playing hard.

“I think you’ll see more games like that than more DNPs like in the playoffs.”

Windhorst: You won’t see Al Horford Friday night when the Warriors play in Portland; he won’t play back-to-backs and he’s going to have limited minutes by design in the regular season. But while Kuminga’s contract situation dominated the conversation around the Warriors over the summer, Horford’s addition was sometimes overlooked. But not by those in the know.

“Horford was one of the best signings in the league over the summer, it broke our hearts because we wanted him badly,” an Eastern Conference executive said. “And they got him for $5 million.”

Well, $5.6 million, but the point remains. For a team that needs size but craves shooting and versatility, Horford is an ideal fit.

It was one game, but prior Lakers concerns were confirmed

Bontemps: Yes, it was one game. Yes, it was one game being played without LeBron James.

But for the concerns about the supporting cast around Luka Doncic and James this season and its viability to lift this team into contention status, Tuesday’s loss did little to quell them.

Deandre Ayton had an ineffectual 10 points and six rebounds in 34 minutes, and no other player reached double figures outside of Doncic and Austin Reaves. Marcus Smart struggled mightily off the bench. The supporting cast was a combined 5-for-17 from 3-point range and had little hope of doing anything to slow Golden State down defensively.

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Shaq delivers personal message to Deandre Ayton

Shaquille O’Neal implores Deandre Ayton to do better after the Lakers’ performance vs. the Warriors.

“Luka is awesome,” one scout said, “and the rest of the team is, ‘who we thought they were.’

“[Reaves] was good until he ran out of gas because he had to do so much, but outside of them I couldn’t tell you who their third best player was.”

With ESPN’s Shams Charania reporting that James is targeting a mid-November return, the Lakers will be without the league’s all-time leading scorer for around 15 games to start the season. Can the Lakers survive in the brutal West until James returns without digging themselves too big of a hole?

“They have a chance because Luka doing that isn’t a one-off performance,” the scout said of Doncic’s 43-point night against the Warriors. “They need some of these other guys to step up. So can they survive it? Yes. They’ll have games where some of these guys hit shots. But you look at their roster, and it’s 1-2-3 — and 2 is out — and then a huge gap.”

An assistant coach put it simply:

“Luka is going to have to do what he did every night just to give them a chance.”

Windhorst:Lakers coach JJ Redick tried to nip the idea that James’ body language was an issue in the bud. He said the day after the opener that James was very active and helpful in the Lakers’ full study after the loss. It was a clear “nothing to see here” maneuver even if it was totally true. Be that as it may, the Lakers clearly miss James on the floor.

“I know it’s crazy to say, but their 40-year-old is maybe still their best transition player,” one West scout said. “When he’s not out there they are less dynamic.”

Doncic might be their centerpiece and offensive leader, and Reaves might improve on his 20 points per game average from last year. But James is still an offensive engine — and his absence is already felt.

“One thing you can say for LeBron that’s been true for more than 20 years,” the scout said, “is he always generates easy baskets for himself and his teammates.”

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DeAndre Jordan Lands Pelicans Contract, Updated Roster and Salary Cap for NBA Season

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Veteran center DeAndre Jordan agreed to a deal with the New Orleans Pelicans.

Jordan’s agent, Jeff Schwartz, told ESPN’s Shams Charania his client will sign a one-year, $3.6 million contract to join the Pelicans.

The Pelicans entered the day with $4.2 million under the $187.9 million tax line. They were also $5.9 million under the first apron, so they still have some wiggle room even with Jordan’s deal to operate before facing potential restrictions.

Updated 2025-26 Pelicans Depth Chart

PG:Jordan Poole, Jeremiah Fears

SG:Herb Jones, Jordan Hawkins, Jose Alvarado

SF:Trey Murphy III, Saddiq Bey

PF:Zion Williamson, Kevon Looney, Karlo Matković

C:Yves Missi, Derik Queen, Hunter Dickinson, DeAndre Jordan

The Pelicans are adding Jordan one day after announcing Jaden Springer had been waived.

Jordan found a comfort zone on the Denver Nuggets after accepting a role well below how he had been utilized to that point. Starting with the 2022-23 campaign, he signed three successive one-year contracts with them. For its part, Denver determined he offered value that didn’t necessarily show up in the box score.

The 36-year-old was once again a bit-part player for the Nuggets in 2024-25. He averaged 3.7 points, 5.1 rebounds and 0.5 blocks in 12.3 minutes per contest over 56 appearances.

Jordan rolled back the clock a bit in mid-March while replacing an injured Nikola Jokić in the starting lineup. He had 11 points and 15 rebounds in a 116-111 victory over the Houston Rockets and posted 10 boards, 17 rebounds and seven assists in a 129-119 loss to the Chicago Bulls the following night.

The challenge of building out a roster goes beyond figuring out how the pieces fit on the court. All of the personalities need to mesh in the locker room to withstand the mental grind of an 82-game regular season and then the playoffs.

While Jordan provided some depth behind Jokić at center, his more intangible contributions are why he kept finding a job with the Nuggets.

“He’s always talking, he’s super vocal, encouraging, [and is] always keeping guys in good spirits,” guard Jamal Murray told reporters after the Rockets win in March. “I just think he does a great job of staying involved. As a player, you want to play, you want to play, you want to give back to the team in that way, but he does such a good job of just adapting to his role on the team and being a team guy.”

Sooner or later, that wasn’t going to be enough to justify a roster spot in the Mile High City. Now, Jordan is off to help add some positive vibes to New Orleans.

Head coach Willie Green will likely be relying on Jordan as the Pelicans’ third center behind Yves Missi and rookie Derik Queen. He could take on the role Hunter Dickinson played in the opener against the Memphis Grizzlies.

Dickinson was only on the floor for five minutes in the game, all in the first quarter, but he was minus-12 in that short burst. It was the second-worst mark for any Pelicans player after Saddiq Bey (minus-13), who played 30 minutes.

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Why the Giannis era in Milwaukee might be teetering

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    Jamal CollierOct 24, 2025, 07:00 AM ET

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      Jamal Collier is an NBA reporter at ESPN. Collier covers the Milwaukee Bucks, Chicago Bulls and the Midwest region of the NBA, including stories such as Minnesota’s iconic jersey swap between Anthony Edwards and Justin Jefferson. He has been at ESPN since Sept. 2021 and previously covered the Bulls for the Chicago Tribune. You can reach out to Jamal on Twitter @JamalCollier or via email Jamal.Collier@espn.com.

FROM A DIMLY lit room more than 6,000 miles away across the Atlantic Ocean, Giannis Antetokounmpo appeared on a projector screen in the interview room at Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee.

It was Sept. 29, Bucks media day, the first day a team could officially gather before the start of training camp for the 2025-26 season.

Most of his teammates shuffled in and out of the same room to answer questions before they headed to the court to pose for new photos for the year.

Antetokounmpo had come down with COVID the week before and had not yet been cleared to travel. It was after 8 p.m. in Greece and Antetokounmpo’s voice was raspy, still recovering, but he dialed in. He sat with his right fist resting on his temple to open the session.

Bucks television analyst and host Lisa Byington asked how he was feeling. “Good,” he said, smiling. “I look good on camera.”

The room laughed, a temporary reprieve from what had been at times an uneasy, tense summer for the franchise.

An hour earlier, in the same interview room, Bucks governor Wes Edens justified the team’s bold summer transaction — stretching the remaining $113 million on Damian Lillard’s contract over the next five years to free up enough cap space to sign free agent Myles Turner — by pointing to Antetokounmpo’s continued commitment to the franchise.

“I had a great conversation with Giannis back in June out here, and he made it clear that he was very committed to Milwaukee,” Edens said. “He likes being here, likes his family being here. … Obviously, we’ve had some kind of bad fortune in these last couple of years in the playoffs, but there’s a lot of positives. If we were really going to make the most of our opportunity with Giannis, we felt that we needed to do something substantial, and that’s what we did.”

Four seasons removed from the 2021 NBA championship that Antetokounmpo helped deliver to Milwaukee, only he and Bobby Portis remained on the current roster.

Jrue Holiday, Khris Middleton and Brook Lopez, the rest of that championship core, are elsewhere. Lillard saw his two-year tenure in Milwaukee cut short after he tore an Achilles in the first round of the playoffs last season and was waived, an unceremonious end to what was supposed to be a long-term, dominant partnership. The Bucks lost in the first round of the playoffs both years he was there.

Antetokounmpo is now the only player on the roster who has made an All-Star team.

Back in the interview room, he was asked about the meeting with Edens. He paused.

“A meeting? Say that again? I had a meeting with Wes?”

“I … I really, I cannot recall that meeting.”

The uncomfortable disconnect quickly went viral.

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The awkwardness of that media day misstep served as an inauspicious start to the season.

A week later, ESPN would report that the Bucks and Knicks had engaged in talks surrounding Antetokounmpo. Those talks never progressed, sources told ESPN, but Antetokounmpo had entertained the idea.

The Bucks have refused to consider a future in which Antetokounmpo is playing elsewhere. Antetokounmpo always had as well. But for the first time, he not only publicly admitted his interest in another franchise but provided an on-the-record timeline for his decision.

“I’ve said this many times: I want to be in a situation that I can win,” Antetokounmpo said. “I’ve communicated with my teammates, communicated with the people I respect and love, that the moment I step on this court or in this facility, I wear this jersey, the rest does not matter. I’m locked into whatever I have in front of me. Now, if in six, seven months I change my mind, I think that’s human, too.”

That door, once locked and closed, had been opened.

“We just got to put our heads down, stay locked in all year long and try to win some games,” Antetokounmpo said. “Hopefully, get in the playoffs and then don’t get eliminated in the first round. That’s pretty much it. And then we go from there.”

Still, as the Bucks enter the season, they insist they are on the same page as their star. “There’s no bigger difference,” one team source told ESPN, “than the perception of the outside compared to what’s going on in-house.”

JON HORST INSISTS the Bucks have been in this position before.

Since he became the team’s general manager in 2017, Horst, who received a contract extension in April, has faced questions about how he plans to keep Antetokounmpo in Milwaukee. The level of inquiry hit a crescendo this offseason.

When asked about it, Horst dispelled the premise.

“It’s no different than any other offseason,” Horst said at media day.

It’s the same message the Bucks sent throughout the summer, waving their hands — there’s not much to see here! — despite Antetokounmpo’s own acknowledged wandering eye.

Precedent might fuel Horst’s confidence.

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Each time Antetokounmpo’s future has been in question, the GM has doubled down more of the team’s future: first by acquiring Jrue Holiday in 2020, then by using Holiday to trade for Lillard in 2023, and then by waiving Lillard to create space to sign Turner this summer.

In response, Antetokounmpo, who will turn 31 in December, signed extensions both summers.

The unprecedented waive-and-stretch for Lillard was widely panned around the league, but it’s viewed much differently internally. Team sources were concerned about whether Lillard, at 36, could return to the player he was — and did not want to waste a year of contention in a conference decimated by injuries.

Perhaps more importantly, they knew they could not waste another year with Antetokounmpo. “The biggest misconception is that this was a panic move,” a team source told ESPN. “It wasn’t. It was a basketball decision. Dame on the other end of it, you’re not sure what that was going to look like. Meanwhile, Myles is a perfect fit. We want to win here.”

But it might be harder to do so now, with this roster, than at any time in Antetokounmpo’s prime.

He’ll be without an All-Star guard or wing for the first time since 2015-16, perhaps not coincidentally the last time the Bucks missed the playoffs. They entered the season with the eighth-best odds to win the Eastern Conference, according to ESPN BET, behind the 76ers and Celtics despite the injury uncertainty surrounding Joel Embiid and Paul George in Philadelphia and Jayson Tatum in Boston.

The burden on Antetokounmpo has never been higher. Despite playing just 27 minutes in Milwaukee’s 133-120 victory over the Washington Wizards on opening night, Antetokounmpo scored 37 points, grabbed 14 rebounds and dished out five assists. But his usage rate, the percentage of Bucks plays that ended with an Antetokounmpo shot attempt, free throw or turnover — was nearly 49%.

For comparison, Charlotte’s LaMelo Ball led the league in usage last season at 35.9% (Antetokounmpo was second at 35.2%).

And the Bucks also lost their starting point guard, Kevin Porter Jr., to an ankle injury in Wednesday’s opener that coach Doc Rivers acknowledged “didn’t look good.”

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Washington Wizards vs. Milwaukee Bucks: Game Highlights

Washington Wizards vs. Milwaukee Bucks: Game Highlights

YET AS ANTETOKOUMPO also openly considers his legacy within the sport, Milwaukee is approaching another reckoning point: the summer of 2026.

Antetokounmpo has two more years remaining on his contract after this one, but the final season is a player option. He will become eligible next summer to sign an extension. It’s this window that could dictate what his future holds.

“Always got to hold ownership’s feet to the fire,” a source close to Antetokounmpo told ESPN.

Antetokounmpo has proceeded to walk the finest of lines once again. He acknowledged his current dedication to the franchise but also publicly gave himself the opportunity to change his mind by spring.

“Ultimately, I’m going to make a decision,” he said. “And my decision today is that I’m here and I’m committed to this team.”

Such a declaration adds considerable pressure to the 2025-26 Bucks, a team with unproven co-stars who have to give him a reason to stay or at least win enough early to quiet some of the speculation that could surround this squad all season.

Horst, for his part, can make moves to improve the roster. The Bucks aren’t in either apron or in the luxury tax, and they have their 2031 and 2032 first-round picks to offer in a trade.

Whether Horst plays those cards, limited though they might be, remains to be seen.

“This team is built to maximize Giannis, but Giannis can actually maximize this team,” Horst said. “We understand nothing’s been given to us. This is a team that is really hungry to earn whatever we get, and they want to deserve to win. That’s going to be our style of play, playing together, and that’s going to feature the best player in the world, Giannis, and a bunch of guys that fit him really, really well.”

ANTETOKOUNMPO STOOD NEAR center court, his mouth open and head nodding in approval.

It was his first stint of his first preseason game of the season, on the road Oct. 12 against the Chicago Bulls, and the Bucks’ offense was rolling.

Milwaukee had knocked down three straight 3-pointers — a pair from Gary Trent and another from Turner — to turn a 7-7 tie into a 16-7 Milwaukee advantage in less than a minute, forcing Bulls coach Billy Donovan to burn a timeout with 7:49 remaining in the first quarter.

The Bucks went on to shoot 48 3-pointers in the game, taking more shots from beyond the arc than inside it. They made 20 of them in their 127-121 win.

Cynics might see meaningless stats from a random preseason game. Others might see proof of concept.

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“It’s a function of what we can do,” Rivers said after the game. “Last year, even though we led the league in percentage, we just couldn’t create enough. Now we feel like we can create more.”

Indeed, the Bucks were the best 3-point shooting team in the league last year, knocking down 38.7% of their shots from deep, but they ranked 18th in attempts (36.6).

In four preseason games, Milwaukee generated an average of 42.6 3-point attempts per game, which increased to 46.5 in the two exhibition games in which Antetokounmpo played.

By leaning more on Antetokounmpo as a playmaker and surrounding him with 3-point shooting, the Bucks believe they have found a formula they can win with.

Their starting lineup alongside Antetokounmpo will be Turner in the frontcourt along with Trent, Porter and AJ Green, who is fresh off a new four-year, $45 million contract extension.

The Bucks experimented with this five-out offense, allowing Antetokounmpo to be the lead initiator and surrounded by space and shooting, down the stretch last season following Lillard’s deep vein thrombosis diagnosis on March 20, which ended his regular season.

During that 16-game span, Antetokounmpo recorded five triple-doubles, second in the NBA during that span behind Nikola Jokic (8), according to ESPN Research.

It’s a style Antetokounmpo keeps calling “dangerous” and one the Bucks hope serves as a template for success this season, and potentially beyond, as they try to navigate an unknown future with their superstar and his roster.

“We’re not the favorites, but we’re going to be a problem,” Antetokounmpo said. “The team is set up in a way that is very, very dangerous. We have a lot of shooting. We have a lot of playmakers and ball handlers. We have a lot of defenders. We can switch. We have an incredible big that can space the floor and be a problem defensively. We are set up exactly how you need to set up to make a statement.”

The Bucks won their season opener. That, according to Antetokounmpo, was their first goal.

Next? “Stay healthy,” he said. “And after that get to the playoffs. Be in the playoffs and try to win a playoff series.”

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