Browsing: Basketball

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  Jamal CollierOct 24, 2025, 02:32 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.

INDIANAPOLIS — Shai Gilgeous-Alexander let out a long exhale as he sat and leaned back in his chair in the postgame interview room Thursday night. The Oklahoma City Thunder had just finished their second straight double-overtime game to begin the season, something no other team in NBA history had ever done.

And for the second straight contest, the Thunder pulled off the victory, outlasting the Indiana Pacers 141-135 in a rematch of last season’s NBA Finals, which Oklahoma City won in an epic seven-game series in June.

“I’m tired, but it’s expected,” said Gilgeous-Alexander, who set a career high with 55 points. “It’s a good way to break the ice on the season, shake the rust off, kind of bust the lungs up, get my cardio back.”

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Thunder coach Mark Daigneault had planned to limit his team’s minutes following its grueling victory over the Houston Rockets on opening night, and there was a moment in the first overtime period Thursday night — with the Thunder trailing 118-113 with 3:16 remaining — where he said it would have been easy to pump the breaks.

But Gilgeous-Alexander, who played 45 minutes Thursday after playing 47 minutes in Tuesday night’s opener, wanted to keep going and didn’t want to let a chance to win slip away.

“Two things. Being in the moment and understanding that we’re down five, it’s three minutes left, there’s a lot of time left,” he said. “Then also understanding the beginning of the season is just as important as the end of the season.

“The difference in home-court advantage in the playoffs could be one game and one win. We know firsthand home court in the playoffs is very helpful, especially when you go seven games. So we don’t ever want to take an opportunity for granted.”

In Thursday’s rematch, the Thunder were missing Jalen Williams, Cason Wallace, Isaiah Joe and Alex Caruso but got big contributions from second-year guard Ajay Mitchell, who finished with a career-best 26 points off the bench.

“Everybody has a lot of trust in him and his talent,” Daigneault said about Mitchell. “But I think the steadiness in these two environments … in both games he didn’t really blink. So we knew the talent and impact, but sometimes it takes guys a little bit, they seem a little wide-eyed. That was not the case for him.”

Gilgeous-Alexander gave Mitchell a big hug as the final buzzer sounded, in part because of the exhaustion, but also because he wanted to commend the young guard for the best game of his career.

“Different guys stepping up,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “A lot of guys were stepping up tonight. Like, to play that much last game, obviously we’re a little banged up. This team never makes excuses. It’s always ready for their moment.”

The Pacers pushed the defending champs to their limit despite playing short-handed. Already without star point guard Tyrese Haliburton for the entire season, they also lost Aaron Nesmith, who fouled out in the fourth quarter, and Andrew Nembhard, who injured his left shoulder in the first half and did not return.

Carlisle said Nembhard will get further testing on his shoulder Friday but didn’t sound optimistic, saying the injury could “potentially present some big challenges.”

Still, the Pacers were able to push the champs to the brink again, just like they did during the Finals. Pascal Siakam had 32 points and 15 rebounds, and Bennedict Mathurin finished with 36 points and 11 rebounds.

“Grit is what our makeup is going to have to be this year,” Carlisle said. “There are going to be a lot of challenges. We’ve just got to be able to take on these challenges on a long-term basis.”

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SAN FRANCISCO — Aaron Gordon’s 10th and final made 3 on Thursday night at Chase Center felt like the final dagger. It came with 26 seconds left in regulation, putting the visiting Denver Nuggets up by three and punctuating a career night for the 12th-year forward.

But the biggest perimeter fireworks show in Gordon’s life happened to come against the greatest shooter of all time.

Five seconds later, out of a timeout, Stephen Curry stepped into a semi-contested 34-footer off a screen and buried it to tie the score. Five minutes later, after Curry opened overtime with another made 3 and closed it with two free throws, the Golden State Warriors finished a 137-131 win to overshadow Gordon’s 50-point masterpiece.

“The bigger the moment, the more he rises,” Draymond Green said of Curry. “He’s this quiet guy … but he loves the show. Anytime there’s a show to be put on, he’s going to do it.”

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Gordon’s stat line was jaw-dropping: 50 points on 17-of-21 shooting and 10-of-11 from 3. He made eight straight 3s to open the game, one shy of an NBA record.

“Ridiculous,” Curry said. “Whatever he did this summer, it worked.”

Two seasons ago, Gordon made only 29% of his 1.9 attempted 3s per game. Last season, he made a significant leap, hitting 43.6% of his 3.4 per game.

But Thursday night’s performance was altogether different. Gordon had never made more than seven 3s in a game. Against the Warriors, he became only the 17th player in history to make 10 3s in a losing effort. That has happened to Curry seven times and no other player more than once.

This time, Curry was the one delivering disappointment to quell a special night. Curry’s 42 points — on 14-of-25 shooting and six 3s — were the second most he has scored in his 17 home openers. The Warriors struggled when he was off the floor against the Nuggets but won his minutes by 15 points.

“The shot he made to tie it toward the end [of regulation], it’s a shot that only he can make,” Nuggets coach David Adelman said.

The Warriors’ biggest strategic choice of the night came late in the fourth quarter. During a timeout huddle, assistant coaches Terry Stotts and Chris DeMarco suggested to head coach Steve Kerr that he deploy a bigger lineup of Curry, Jimmy Butler, Jonathan Kuminga, Green and the newly acquired Al Horford.

It’s a five-man, jumbo-sized grouping (by Warriors’ standards) that Kerr said he hadn’t even thought about using during training camp. They had never even practiced together.

“Where we going to score?” Kerr said. “That was my biggest concern. Could we execute [offensively]? But [Stotts and DeMarco] reminded me we have Steph and Jimmy, and they’ll find a way to score.”

The use of a larger lineup for the typically smaller Warriors allowed them to match up better defensively, especially with Horford’s ability to switch at the center position and Kuminga’s continued growth as a two-way wing to open his fifth season.

“It was really fun to watch a group that’s never played together close a game against one of the best teams in the league,” Kerr said.

That five-man group erased a seven-point Denver lead in the final 3:50 of regulation and beat the Nuggets by six in overtime.

“I did [previously] think that was a possibility to be a closing lineup,” Green said. “Or a starting lineup. Or a middle of the game lineup.”

The win moved the Warriors to 2-0, gathering some early momentum as they try to establish themselves as a legitimate conference contender in the Denver tier. The Nuggets (0-1) travel home to face the Suns on Saturday night.

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  Neil PaineOct 23, 2025, 06:30 AM ET

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  Neil Paine writes about sports using data and analytics. Previously, he was Sports Editor at FiveThirtyEight.

As we noted in this space last year, the NBA has been notoriously stingy about letting new teams into its championship club. Before the Toronto Raptors broke through in 2019, only 11 different franchises had combined to win the previous 39 titles (dating back to 1980) — and just six of those crowned a first-time champion.

In a league long defined by dynasties, parity seemed like a distant dream for so long. But that 2019 season turned out to be a pivotal point, with seven different teams hoisting the Larry O’Brien Trophy in as many seasons since — the only seven-year stretch in league history that featured seven unique champions.

Granted, only two of those seven — the 2019 Raptors and 2023 Denver Nuggets — were true first-time winners. Even the 2025 Oklahoma City Thunder, whose franchise lineage goes back to the Seattle SuperSonics and their lone title in 1979, are technically multitime champions. But the pattern still underscores how much the NBA’s power structure has loosened in recent years.

That’s good news for the 10 franchises still searching for their first ring.

NBA titles are never easy to win, but the path to one seems more attainable now than it was for decades. To find out which of those 10 teams is most likely to break through, we built a model that projects every franchise’s title chances over the next six seasons. The framework starts with each team’s preseason odds since 1985 (including for this season at ESPN BET), then layers in two key ingredients: the weighted average age of each roster — based on recent regular-season wins above replacement — and the age and performance of each team’s best player (again based on WAR).

Using those factors, we can estimate a probability of winning the title for each team in each of the next six seasons, then simulate that stretch thousands of times to see how often a new name joins the list of champions, and who is most likely to be “next in line.”

Across 2,500 simulations, there’s roughly a 75% chance that at least one of those 10 ringless teams finally captures a title by 2031, which makes sense historically, as most distinct five-year blocks in league history have produced at least one first-time winner. So, which team will it be? Let’s see who the model says is due to make some history for its city and fans.

Notes: “Odds to be next” are a team’s chances of becoming the next ringless franchise to win a championship by 2031. “2025-26 title odds” are based on preseason lines.

Jump to a team:
ORL | MIN | LAC | IND | MEM | PHX | NO | BKN | CHA | UTAH

Odds to be next: 24.0%

Average roster age: 25.6 (youngest)

2025-26 title odds: +1800 (4.2% implied chance)

Closest they’ve come before: Lost NBA Finals (1995, 2009)

The Magic seemingly have been on every short list of “next contenders” in recent years, as they snagged Franz Wagner and Paolo Banchero in consecutive drafts and began to forge a cohesive path toward contention under coach Jamahl Mosley. Now, after a couple of first-round playoff exits — with their full ascent put a bit on hold last season because of injuries to Wagner and Banchero — the Magic seem as ready as they will ever be to take the next step.

Though they lost a fair amount of talent over the offseason, Desmond Bane and Tyus Jones join Wagner and Banchero as part of the league’s youngest roster by weighted WAR in recent seasons. ESPN BET gives the Magic the ninth-highest title odds at +1800, their highest since opening the 2010-11 campaign at +1000. The model also accounts for their overall youth, plus the dynamic young pair of Wagner (24 years old) and Banchero (23) when looking ahead to what could be a bright future.

Franz Wagner and Desmond Bane anchor a youthful Magic roster. Fernando Medina/NBAE via Getty Images

Odds to be next: 20.5%

Average roster age: 29.0 (22nd)

2025-26 title odds: +1600 (4.7% implied chance)

Closest they’ve come before: Lost Western Conference finals (2004, 2024, 2025)

Despite their slightly higher odds to win the 2026 title, the model gives the Wolves a slightly lower chance at becoming the next first-time winner than the Magic because of age. Although top star Anthony Edwards (24) is right in line with the Magic’s leading duo, the rest of Minnesota’s core is older. That doesn’t mean the Wolves have missed their window by any means; they have been knocking on the door of a breakthrough for a while now. A pair of five-game conference finals losses could be read any number of ways — are they due, or just plateauing? — and they were one of the teams that lost the most in an otherwise quiet offseason. But Minnesota is the closest to being the next inaugural champ this season, even if Orlando has a better chance over the entire six-year period to come.

Odds to be next: 15.5%

Average roster age: 33.2 (30th)

2025-26 title odds: +1600 (4.7% implied chance)

Closest they’ve come before: Lost Western Conference finals (2021)

There are some factors no statistical model can account for — and the alleged Kawhi Leonard salary-cap circumvention scandal that LA currently finds itself embroiled in is near the top of the list, if the league’s investigation leads to penalties the way previous instances of cap manipulation have, though it’s worth noting that Leonard and the Clippers have denied any wrongdoing and the league’s investigation is ongoing. But, as of writing, the Clippers’ roster, age and championship potential still give them a decent chance at becoming the NBA’s next breakthrough franchise.

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Los Angeles is actually tied with Minnesota for the league’s seventh-highest 2025-26 title odds (+1600), meaning the Clippers are tied with the Wolves for the best chance to be a new winner in 2025-26. The Clippers also have one of the top players of any would-be first-time champion in Leonard, who was still one of the league’s best on a per-minute basis when he did play a season ago. On the downside, the Clips project to have the league’s oldest roster: Leonard is 34, James Harden is 36, Brook Lopez is 37 and Chris Paul is 40 (!). And Leonard followed one of his more durable seasons in 2023-24 with another injury-plagued campaign in 2024-25.

For a franchise desperate to win before the window closes, three straight first-round exits is enough to make you wonder if it has already slammed shut.

Odds to be next: 13.1%

Average roster age: 27.5 (13th)

2025-26 title odds: +8000 (1.0% implied chance)

Closest they’ve come before: Lost NBA Finals (2000, 2025)

The Pacers likely would have been No. 1 if not for the heartbreaking loss of Tyrese Haliburton to a torn Achilles tendon in Game 7 of the 2025 NBA Finals. The injury cost him not just the biggest game of his career, but also the entire 2025-26 season, derailing the momentum Indiana had built toward the first NBA championship in the history of a franchise that was an ABA dynasty and has come close in the NBA but never quite managed to get over the hump.

Haliburton, the best player on our list of first-time championship candidates by recent WAR, will have more chances to lead a team with a unique NBA title blueprint after this season. But the model gives a lot of weight to a team’s chances in the upcoming season because uncertainty typically only grows as more time passes — and that’s bad news when your franchise cornerstone is sidelined for the foreseeable future.

Odds to be next: 6.9%

Average roster age: 27.1 (11th)

2025-26 title odds: +10000 (0.8% implied chance)

Closest they’ve come before: Lost Western Conference finals (2013)

Despite coming off a much better season in 2024-25 (48 wins) than in 2023-24 (27 wins), the Grizzlies had longer odds of becoming the next new champ a year ago than they have now. What gives? Well, going into last season, Memphis was still full of the potential that it could claim from back-to-back 50-win seasons in 2022-23 and 2023-24, particularly with Ja Morant returning from a lost season. But the Grizzlies stalled at good-not-great status, Morant didn’t play like a full-blown superstar, they fired their coach and were swept by an average of 19.5 points by the Thunder in the first round. Memphis then traded Bane to Orlando for Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Cole Anthony, four unprotected first-round picks and one first-round pick swap.

Ostensibly, those moves were made to set the Grizzlies up for a quick rebuild around Morant and Jaren Jackson Jr., but they left their current title odds remote (+10000) and injected far more uncertainty into their long-term outlook.

Odds to be next: 5.3%

Average roster age: 27.8 (16th)

2025-26 title odds: +50000 (0.2% implied chance)

Closest they’ve come before: Lost NBA Finals (1976, 1993, 2021)

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Speaking of potential first-time winners with odds trending in the wrong direction, no team on last year’s version of this list lost more championship potential since last fall than the Suns. As hard as it is to remember, there was still some shred of belief that their big three of Kevin Durant, Devin Booker and Bradley Beal could stay healthy and lead them on a playoff run. Instead, they crashed out to 36-46 and missed the playoffs before KD and Beal were sent packing as part of a franchise reset.

What’s left over isn’t without intrigue — Booker is not yet 30 and remains one of the league’s most potent scorers, and newcomers Jalen Green and Dillon Brooks have had their moments in Houston over the past few years. But the Suns have a long way to go, and they are too far away from the destination right now to rank any higher.

Odds to be next: 4.6%

Average roster age: 26.1 (fifth)

2025-26 title odds: +50000 (0.2% implied chance)

Closest they’ve come before: Lost Western Conference semis (2008, 2018)

For all the noise around other disappointing teams such as the Sixers and Suns, the Pelicans were arguably the biggest flop in the NBA last season, falling from 49-33 in 2023-24 to 21-61. Now, they are arguably the biggest wild card on this list, with uncertainty throughout the roster.

That starts with Zion Williamson, who is still only 25 years old and has the talent to lead a franchise but has played 30 or fewer games in two of the past three seasons. Add in a bevy of players hoping for bounce-backs (Herbert Jones, Dejounte Murray, Saddiq Bey) plus a chaos agent in Jordan Poole, and this team’s future is impossible to predict — though it would be shocking if the Pels, who have never even made a conference final, cut in front of any of the other teams waiting in this first title line.

Odds to be next: 4.4%

Average roster age: 25.9 (third)

2025-26 title odds: +100000 (0.1% implied chance)

Closest they’ve come before: Lost NBA Finals (2002, 2003)

The Nets showed up on our list of teams that added the most net WAR talent this past offseason, thanks in large part to the acquisition of Michael Porter Jr. But that came as part of a summer of upheaval in Brooklyn, which also saw the Nets say goodbye to Cameron Johnson and D’Angelo Russell and draft four players in the first round. They will be one of the youngest teams in the league, which helps their probability here, and they have given themselves a chance to build a winner if any of their prospect lottery tickets hit. Still, the odds are we won’t see a parade outside of Barclays Center anytime soon.

Odds to be next: 2.9%

Average roster age: 26.4 (seventh)

2025-26 title odds: +100000 (0.1% implied chance)

Closest they’ve come before: Lost Eastern Conference semifinals (1993, 1998, 2001, 2002)

If this ranking was about which teams would have the most exciting guards and wings, the Hornets — with LaMelo Ball, Collin Sexton, Brandon Miller and Kon Knueppel — would surely be higher. But we’re talking championship potential in the next six years, and that’s something that must be seen out of Charlotte to be believed.

The Hornets have never made it as far as the conference finals in their history, and it’s now been 23 years since their last second-round appearance. Just getting back to the playoffs at all for the first time since 2016 (which carries +900 odds per ESPN BET) would be nice; they will cross the bridge of worrying about championships down the road, if it ever actually comes to that.

Odds to be next: 2.9%

Average roster age: 27.8 (15th)

2025-26 title odds: +100000 (0.1% implied chance)

Closest they’ve come before: Lost NBA Finals (1997, 1998)

A couple of years ago, it looked like the Jazz had the key players around whom to build something interesting, between budding star Lauri Markkanen and dynamic running mate Sexton. But both players fell off in 2024-25, and Sexton was shipped to the Hornets in June, leaving the Jazz deep in rebuilding mode again. Although No. 5 pick Ace Bailey has the talent to help Utah move forward and Markkanen is coming off a strong EuroBasket showing eager to bounce back in his NBA numbers as well, Utah is next to Charlotte in the basement of the future rankings for now.

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Boston Celtics guard Jaylen Brown took up an unlikely yet comical role off the court.

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Ahead of the Celtics’ season opener Wednesday, Brown served as a pre-audition guest judge as part of comedian Druski’s “Coulda Been Records” Boston auditions.

Brown particpated in a role similar to that of Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson — who made an appearance in May — as the decision-maker to determine if contestants should advance to the next round of their audition for the record label: to get in front of Druski, the fictional label’s CEO.

Brown made four appearances in the auditions. The first was as an aspiring rapper named “Blicky,” who donned a Jayson Tatum jersey. He also joked with a contestant who said she was there to support her brother, implying the contestant would be a perfect fit for the comedian’s reality dating show.

“She needs to be on ‘Coulda Been Love,’ that’s a keeper right there for Druski,” Brown quipped.

The Celtics guard also hilariously asked a contestant, “BStar,” what WNBA team she played for before she broke out dance moves, prompting Brown to send her to the official audition.

His final approval came for “Smeet,” who did a motivational speech from the Sylvester Stallone film “Rocky.”

Brown scored 25 points, grabbed 6 rebounds and dished out 4 assists in the Celtics’ 117-116 loss to the Philadelphia 76ers on Wednesday.

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Oct 23, 2025, 08:12 PM ET

On Thursday, 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 into illegal sports betting and rigged poker games.

Here’s what we know about the allegations, what’s next for the people involved and what this might mean for the NBA.

What are the two cases?

Doug Greenberg: Though they both involve current and former NBA players, the FBI made clear in its news conference that these are two separate cases, albeit with some overlap.

The first involves betting on NBA games, using insider information from players and coaches, and the second involves rigging high-stakes, Mafia-associated poker games against high rollers after enticing them to play with former NBA players, including Jones and Billups.

What is the FBI alleging happened in the sports betting case?

Brian Windhorst: That NBA players have taken themselves out of games, allegedly to win “under” prop bets, and that people with inside knowledge have leaked information about player availability before it was made public.

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According to the case filing, between December 2022 and March 2024, a group of co-conspirators placed bets on at least seven NBA games using nonpublic information. Those games involved the Charlotte Hornets, Orlando Magic, Trail Blazers, Los Angeles Lakers and Toronto Raptors.

Rozier is accused of sharing inside information, removing himself early from at least one game for the benefit of gamblers and profiting from those bets, according to the indictment.

Jones, who was an unofficial part of Darvin Ham’s Lakers coaching staff in the 2022-2023 season, allegedly sold inside information about the player availability to bettors.

Although Billups is not named in the sports betting indictment, it describes a co-conspirator whose playing and coaching career match his. That co-conspirator allegedly told a bettor that the Trail Blazers were tanking and that several players would miss a March 2023 game.

Didn’t we already know about this?

Windhorst: Yes, Jontay Porter, formerly of the Toronto Raptors, pleaded guilty for his involvement last year. The NBA investigated Rozier in 2023 after suspicious betting on his prop bets in a game between the Hornets and New Orleans Pelicans — one of the games included in the indictment — and said it “did not find a violation of NBA rules.”

When asked about that investigation Thursday, league officials said the NBA does not have the same investigative powers as law enforcement, but wouldn’t comment on what the investigation included.

What is Rozier’s alleged involvement?

Greenberg: On March 23, 2023, Rozier, then a member of the Charlotte Hornets, allegedly told Deniro Laster, a childhood friend, that he planned to remove himself from Charlotte’s game against the New Orleans Pelicans in the first quarter because of a supposed injury, according to the indictment. Laster allegedly sold this information to two bettors for about $100,000.

Those bettors, along with their associates and a network of proxy bettors, wagered on Rozier’s prop unders, according to the indictment. ESPN previously reported on betting activity involving Rozier’s props in the March 23 game.

Rozier left the game after just nine minutes, with 5 points, 4 rebounds and 2 assists. He paid for Laster to travel to Philadelphia to collect the proceeds from the scheme, according to the indictment. Laster then drove to Rozier’s home in Charlotte to count the money with him.

Rozier’s attorney, Jim Trusty of Ifrah Law, said in a statement that his client is “not a gambler” and “looks forward to winning this fight.”

Miami Heat player Terry Rozier, left, Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups, center, and former NBA player coach Damon Jones were arrested Thursday in two sweeping gambling indictments. Illustration by ESPN

How does the NBA explain letting Rozier play over the past two years?

Windhorst: This question could create much of the fallout from these bombshell allegations. The NBA process, on this investigation, will certainly be put under the microscope. It also could affect an ongoing NBA investigation into Malik Beasley because the NBA will now need to be increasingly thorough as it proceeds. Beasley was not named in these indictments but is under federal investigation and will be subject to more scrutiny in the wake of them.

How does this involve Billups and Jones?

Windhorst: Jones and a co-conspirator matching Billups’ description are accused of telling bettors about the availability of star players before that information was known to the public in 2023 and 2024. The players are not named in the indictment, but match descriptions of Damian Lillard, LeBron James and Anthony Davis. None of those players have been accused of wrongdoing.

In an interesting twist, the second game in which Jones is accused of leaking the information to bettors — Jan. 15, 2024, against the Oklahoma City Thunder — James and Davis played, despite being on the injury report. The bet, on the Thunder, lost, and the co-conspirators asked Jones for their money back, according to the indictment. Jones insisted, the indictment says, that the intel was good.

A key difference between the allegations against Jones and Billups, though, is that Jones is accused of selling inside information.

Billups’ representatives could not be reached for comment.

Why was this inside information?

Windhorst: The gap between when a player’s availability is decided and when it is announced has, for decades, been a target of gamblers trying to get inside information. As coaches, Billups and Jones would know the team’s plans for their players before they were reported to the league.

For generations, NBA teams have at times hidden the availability of players on game days, especially star players, for strategic reasons.

Sometimes, players are truly game-time decisions. And sometimes, they are called game-time decisions, even if the decision has been made hours before. It is from this area that this case seems to stem, and what the NBA must further address.

What has the NBA done about this rise in gambling-related scandals?

Windhorst: In the wake of gambling’s widespread legalization, the NBA has taken steps to improve transparency. This includes more detailed injury reports that are updated throughout the day, and fines for teams that do not follow protocol.

But as this indictment shows, the league might have to reexamine and further tighten its existing protocols.

FBI director Kash Patel speaks at a news conference Thursday during the announcement of arrests tied to illegal sports betting and poker game schemes. ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images

Who is Damon Jones?

Tim Bontemps: Jones was a journeyman NBA player, but best known for his time playing alongside LeBron James for three seasons with the Cleveland Cavaliers from 2005 to 2008, including as part of Cleveland’s 2007 NBA Finals team.

After his career ended, Jones spent time coaching with both the Cavaliers’ G League affiliate and with the Cavs during James’ second stint with the franchise from 2014 to 2018 and was an unofficial part of former Lakers coach Darvin Ham’s staff in the 2022-2023 season.

What about LeBron James?

Greenberg: On Feb. 9, 2023, Jones texted co-conspirators to bet against the Lakers in their game against the Milwaukee Bucks because “Player 3,” as he is identified in the filing, would not be playing that night because of injury. Though “Player 3” was not named in the indictment, the details, including his relationship with Jones, match those of LeBron James. James has not been accused of any wrongdoing, and a source close to him told ESPN’s Dave McMenamin that he was unaware of Jones’s gambling activity.

What allegedly happened in the Cavs-Magic game?

Windhorst: A Magic player told a friend, whom the indictment does not name but describes as “at times, an NBA player,” nonpublic information about a game against the Cleveland Cavaliers in April 2023, according to the indictment.

The Cavs had previously announced that they were resting their starters for that game, and the Magic became a heavy favorite. The friend then shared this information with a co-conspirator, who bet on the Cavs to cover the spread.

When the Magic later also benched their starters, in a common late-season tactic, the Cavs won in a blowout.

The Magic player was not named in the indictment or accused of wrongdoing.

What is the poker-related case: United States vs. Aiello, et al.?

Greenberg: Since at least 2019, a group of co-conspirators organized illegal, high-stakes poker games across the United States designed to defraud wealthy players out of their money, totaling $7.15 million, according to the indictment. These games were supported by four of the five crime families that make up the Italian-American Mafia, otherwise known as La Cosa Nostra: Gambino, Lucchese, Genovese and Bonanno.

Billups and Jones — who were known as “face cards” in the scheme — allegedly used their celebrity to lure victims into playing high-stakes poker games that were actually rigged, according to the indictment. “Cheating teams” set up an elaborate scheme involving technology that would alert the co-conspirator players to the cards on the table, allowing them to get an edge on the victims. The organizers allegedly used X-ray tables, glasses that enabled the showing of marked cards and technology that allowed a remote member of the team to let others know the cards in play, according to the indictment.

Besides the victims, everyone involved in the games, including Billups and Jones, as well as the dealers, was involved in the scheme and received a cut of the victims’ losses, according to the indictment. The victims of the poker games were not identified in the indictment.

Once the victims lost, the Mafia used extortion and violence to make sure they paid their debts, according to the indictment.

How are they connected?

Greenberg: Though these are two separate cases, three people are charged in both.

Jones allegedly sold insider information to the co-conspirators in the NBA betting case and served as a “face card” in the poker scheme.

Eric Earnest and Shane Hennen allegedly bet on NBA games using nonpublic information and were members of the cheating teams in the poker scheme, according to the case filings. Hennen also provided some of the technology used to cheat in the games, according to the indictment.

What charges do Billups and Rozier face?

David Purdum: Billups and Rozier have been indicted on charges of wire fraud conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy, according to records. Each count carries no more than 20 years in prison, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Diane Hu.

They both appeared in court Thursday and were released from custody under certain conditions. A Florida judge said Rozier would be released after putting up his home as bond and surrendering his passport. Billups also turned over his passport and is required to secure a substantial bond.

The NBA placed Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups on leave Thursday. AP

How does this connect to the Jontay Porter case?

Greenberg: Porter previously pleaded guilty to wire fraud in connection with this case and is awaiting sentencing. At Thursday’s news conference, U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella Jr. said that the co-conspirators threatened Porter into cooperating in order to clear previous gambling debts.

Is this connected to the Gilbert Arenas case?

Greenberg: In July, former NBA star Gilbert Arenas was arrested in connection with illegal poker games staged at his house in Encino, California. Though there are some similarities between that case and Thursday’s indictments, Arenas’ scheme involved the Israeli mafia and does not appear to be directly related to the more recent case.

Is this connected to the Malik Beasley case?

Greenberg: It’s not clear. In June, ESPN reported that Malik Beasley was under federal investigation on allegations of gambling related to NBA games and prop bets. Two months later, Beasley’s attorney said he was no longer a target of the investigation. The NBA has since launched its own investigation into Beasley.

What about the ongoing college basketball investigations?

Purdum: ESPN previously reported that some of the same gambling accounts that bet on Rozier and Porter props also bet on college basketball games that were flagged for suspicious betting. Sources told ESPN that the FBI has been interviewing college athletes and that they believe indictments are forthcoming.

How does this impact the Trail Blazers moving forward?

Tim Bontemps: From an on-court perspective, the biggest ramification is Billups’ removal from the sidelines for one of the NBA’s more intriguing young teams this season.

Portland, which has been an also-ran in the Western Conference for the past few years but was hoping to make a playoff push this season, traded for Jrue Holiday this offseason and signed Shaedon Sharpe and Toumani Camara to extensions last week. Billups and general manager Joe Cronin received contract extensions earlier this year, as well.

The NBA placed Billups on leave, and Portland named assistant coach Tiago Splitter, who won two championships as a player with the Spurs and was the head coach of Paris Basketball in the Euroleague, as interim coach. The Blazers face the Golden State Warriors on Friday at home.

How will Rozier’s contract impact the Heat?

Bobby Marks: Rozier signed a four-year $96.3 million contract with Charlotte on Aug. 24, 2021, and then was traded to Miami on Jan. 23, 2024. He has one year and $26.6 million left, $24.9 million, which is guaranteed. He is owed 24 payments of $1,110,126, starting Nov. 15 and concluding on Nov. 1, 2026. Including this season, Rozier has a career $161.7 million of on-court earnings.

The Uniform Player Contract (UPC) that Rozier signed has language that gives commissioner Adam Silver sole power in his discretion to suspend Rozier indefinitely or to expel him if he has bet, or has offered to bet, money or anything of value on any NBA game. There is also language in the NBA Operations Manual that prohibits any player, coach and team executive from “tipping” information that could be used in connection with betting on NBA league games. “Tipping,” is the disclosure of “confidential information” to any person who does not have a legitimate business need for the information.

If the league determines that Rozier has violated this rule, it is allowed to expel him from the NBA. His $26.6 million salary would then be removed from the salary cap. The Heat are currently $1.6 million below the luxury tax and $7.2 million under the first apron hard cap. They currently have an open roster spot.

Although Rozier has not been found guilty, the NBA banned Porter nearly three months before he pleaded guilty to wire fraud conspiracy in connection to the same gambling case.

In the meantime, the NBA placed Rozier on immediate leave.

Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier, who was arrested Thursday, has a career $161.7 million in on-court earnings. Reggie Hildred-Imagn Images

What’s the NBA’s relationship with sports betting?

Greenberg: “We are in the process of reviewing the federal indictments announced today,” the NBA said in a statement Thursday. “We take these allegations with the utmost seriousness, and the integrity of our game remains our top priority.”

The NBA was the first major American sports league to endorse legalized sports betting. In 2014, four years before the beginning of legalized online sports betting in the United States, Silver penned an op-ed for the New York Times titled “Legalize and Regulate Sports Betting.”

“Let me be clear: Any new approach must ensure the integrity of the game,” Silver wrote at the time. “One of my most important responsibilities as commissioner of the NBA is to protect the integrity of professional basketball and preserve public confidence in the league and our sport. I oppose any course of action that would compromise these objectives.”

In reaction to the Porter case, the NBA asked its partner sportsbooks to stop allowing bettors to wager on the under on prop bets involving players on two-way contracts, like Porter was at the time.

On Tuesday, during an appearance on “The Pat McAfee Show,” Silver again called for more federal regulation of sports betting and urged sportsbooks to “pull back some of the prop bets” in order to avoid potential manipulation.

Why do federal authorities consider the sportsbooks to be “victims” in this case?

Greenberg: The federal investigation considers sportsbooks to be the victims in the NBA case because the bets placed by the co-conspirators were considered to be fraudulent due to the nonpublic nature of their insider information, according to the indictment.

“The sportsbooks themselves are victims in this case,” Nocella said at Thursday’s news conference on the indictments. “As far as our investigation has concluded, they did not perpetrate anything unlawful.”

DraftKings and FanDuel, both official gaming partners of the NBA, as well as the American Gaming Association, released statements to ESPN regarding the indictments, generally lauding regulated online sports betting for its ability to detect potentially illegal betting activity, while condemning the illegal market that has no such protections.

Neither sportsbook would publicly commit to any changes to its player prop offerings, but a DraftKings spokesperson said the company “remains committed to working closely with the league to ensure the continued integrity of the game.”

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  Dave McMenaminOct 23, 2025, 03:35 PM ET

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  • Lakers and NBA reporter for ESPN.
  • Covered the Lakers and NBA for ESPNLosAngeles.com from 2009-14, the Cavaliers from 2014-18 for ESPN.com and the NBA for NBA.com from 2005-09.

Former 11-year NBA player Damon Jones was arrested Thursday amid charges that he allegedly disclosed privileged injury information about a “prominent” basketball player to facilitate illegal sports betting, authorities announced.

LeBron James was the prominent player, a source close to James told ESPN.

James was not accused of wrongdoing in the indictment.

Jones was one of 34 people arrested, along with Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups and Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier, as part of a yearslong investigation spanning nearly a dozen states and involving tens of millions of dollars, FBI director Kash Patel said.

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The investigation outlined two separate cases — one on illegal sports betting and another on rigged poker games involving the Mafia, authorities announced.

Jones was an unofficial, unpaid part of former Los Angeles Lakers coach Darvin Ham’s staff and is no longer with the team under current Lakers coach JJ Redick. Ham invited Jones to be a part of team activities after James spent the summer of 2022 with Jones present for many of his offseason workouts.

James was unaware that Jones, his former teammate and assistant coach with the Cleveland Cavaliers, was involved in gambling activity when Jones spent time around James and the Lakers during the 2022-23 season, the source said. The federal indictment alleges that before a Lakers game against the Milwaukee Bucks on Feb. 9, 2023, Jones texted a coconspirator to “get a big bet on Milwaukee tonight” because James was going to be out.

James, who passed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as the NBA’s all-time leading scorer in the previous game on Feb. 7, 2023, would go on to miss three straight games because of soreness in his left ankle.

Jones allegedly added via text: “Bet enough so Djones can eat [too] now!!!”

Without James, Milwaukee beat the Lakers 115-106.

Additionally, the indictment alleges that the following season Jones provided nonpublic information to a coconspirator in connection to the Lakers’ game against the Oklahoma City Thunder on Jan. 15, 2024.

The Lakers had no comment on the allegations against Jones when reached by ESPN on Thursday morning.

Speaking after practice on Thursday, Redick said the league’s anti-gambling rules have been reiterated to his team this season — independent of the FBI’s investigation.

“We’ve had two meetings on it already,” Redick said. “It’s obviously on the front of everyone’s awareness given the last two years, but other than that, there’s no other comment.”

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  Dan WetzelOct 23, 2025, 03:00 PM ET

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  Dan Wetzel is a senior writer focused on investigative reporting, news analysis and feature storytelling.

Nearly every sports league, team and operation (including, ahem, media outlets) wants in on sports wagering revenue. Sponsorships. Partnerships. Advertising. It’s legal, after all.

Maybe it’s direct payments. Maybe it’s advertising dollars from increased viewership that come through bigger and bigger broadcast deals. Whatever the source, sports is awash in gambling cash.

Nothing comes for free, though, and on Thursday, the bill came due for the NBA.

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Every other league can only look on and know that if there was ever a sure-bet, it’s that this won’t be the last time a parade of FBI and Department of Justice figures stage a news conference to detail a slew of indictments over unsavory behavior involving sports betting.

More than 30 people were arrested, including big shots such as Mr. Big Shot — Hall of Fame player and current Portland Trail Blazer coach Chauncey Billups. Meanwhile, officials kept citing the juicy involvement of La Cosa Nostra and New York crime families, including the Gambinos and Genovese.

Like a “Hollywood movie,” Ricky Patel of Homeland Securities Investigations said.

Try the veal, it’s the best in the city.

Gambling scandals are not new in sports — from the Black Sox to Tim Donaghy. However, the proliferation of legalized sports wagering, putting betting in everyone’s face, if not their phone, almost assuredly makes the games more susceptible.

The indictments contained fascinating high-tech details of underground poker games with X-ray card readers to help organized crime rig the action. And there were the alleged actions of Damon Jones, a former player and assistant coach who the feds say tipped off others about injuries the public didn’t yet know about.

One example: a certain unnamed Los Angeles Lakers star would be sitting out a Feb. 9, 2023, game against Milwaukee.

“Get a big bet on Milwaukee tonight before the information is out! [Player 3] is out tonight,” the indictment alleges Jones texted a co-conspirator. “Bet enough so Djones can eat to [sic] now!!!”

One Laker who sat out that night to rest a sore left ankle? LeBron James. A source close to James told ESPN on Thursday that the star had no knowledge of information about his status being leaked. The Bucks won by nine, covering the -7.5 spread. DJones, presumably, ate.

“This is the insider trading scandal of the NBA,” FBI director Kash Patel said.

It is. And it is fair for fans to wonder exactly what they are watching. The indictment mostly hinges on players purposefully taking themselves out of games with injury to assure they hit the under on individual prop bets, but that still corrupts the competition.

The proliferation of legalized sports wagering allows criminal elements to place numerous small bets on the information (and hopefully not trigger suspicion) and cash in.

The fact that players and coaches on multimillion-dollar contracts could be susceptible — Rozier was playing on a four-year, $96.2-million contract — just adds to the concern. Good luck to college sports, where the NCAA is investigating 13 men’s basketball players at six schools in a betting scheme.

Now on Wednesday, the NCAA allowed all of its athletes to legally wager on professional sports.

Hey, what bad could happen?

Sports wagering may be a boon to the bottom line, but it comes with increased suspicion into everything. That includes, quite unfairly, athletes who just simply underperform or do get injured and thus cost some bettors money. Online harassment is off the charts.

As for the presence of Billups, he’s the shiny star that attracts attention. In one indictment a defendant referred to as “Co-Conspirator 8,” allegedly told a bettor that the Trail Blazers would be tanking and several of their best players would not be playing in a March 24, 2023, game against the Chicago Bulls.

Co-Conspirator 8 is not named in the indictment, but the description of the playing and coaching career matches Billups.

In another indictment, Billups is alleged to have played in illegal poker games set up by New York organized crime. He was a famous “face card” used to attract an unwitting patsy who arrived at games with X-ray tables that can read cards face down and cameras on poker chip trays that can do the same.

The info would be sent to a remote location, then relayed back to the “quarterback” in the game who would then signal to the others involved which hand was most likely to win. The “fish” as they were known, never stood a chance. One guy lost $1.8 million, the feds said.

It will be interesting to find out how and why someone of Billups’ stature and financial security ($100 million in player earnings) would be involved in this. Still, the Trail Blazers were apparently going to tank regardless. And the fact an illegal poker game in New York or Miami might be less than reputable doesn’t seem like a huge surprise (caveat emptor), let alone threat to the general public.

So as bad as this is, it could have been a lot worse.

Yet that’s kind of the point. Unless every athlete and coach and official and trainer and so on, heeds the FBI warnings to steer clear of this stuff, then the next scandal is assuredly coming. Not only could it be worse, there’s a decent chance it will be.

Legalized sports wagering sure is good money.

It just doesn’t come cheap.

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  Jamal CollierOct 23, 2025, 01:46 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.

MILWAUKEE — Since the NBA released its regular-season schedule in August, Khris Middleton had been anticipating Wednesday’s night’s season opener.

After 12 seasons and 735 games with the Bucks — highlighted by winning the 2021 NBA championship — Middleton played his first game as a visitor in Milwaukee, this time as a member of the Wizards in a 133-120 Washington loss.

A sold-out crowd at Fiserv Forum serenaded Middleton with several standing ovations throughout the evening. The first came when his name was announced in pregame introductions. Another happened when a tribute video played on the scoreboard during a first-quarter timeout. And the last took place as Middleton checked out of the game with a team-high 23 points, his best effort to play spoiler for the home crowd.

“It was almost a perfect night, if I would’ve got the win,” Middleton said. “But to get that type of recognition, appreciation from the city, the organization, that meant the world to me.”

Middleton said he kept his emotions in control, but he saw his friends and family members getting emotional at the way he was received.

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“That means a lot to me that they all feel a part of this,” he said. “They all felt like they were back at home.”

The Bucks dealt Middleton to the Wizards before the trade deadline in February as part of a multiplayer trade that brought Kyle Kuzma to Milwaukee.

In his return Wednesday night, Middleton was greeted by the team mascot and band as he walked into the arena before the game, and several team staffers stopped him for greetings and pictures. The video tribute during the game lasted over a minute, and Middleton walked onto the court to acknowledge the crowd.

“To get a standing ovation on the road doesn’t happen often,” Middleton said. “So I wanted to make sure that they knew I acknowledge them. Even though I really don’t speak too much or do too much, but that really meant a lot. That’s every player’s dream to get a standing ovation no matter where they’re at.”

Milwaukee will always love you, Khris. 💚 pic.twitter.com/6USkHDzvt9

— Milwaukee Bucks (@Bucks) October 23, 2025

What was an emotional night for Middleton was also described as “weird” by longtime teammate Giannis Antetokounmpo. The two matched up against each other several times during the game — a throwback to the 12 years they spent doing that in practice.

“Even when we became All-Stars and champions, during the summertime, playing our one-on-one battles,” Middleton said. “We talk a lot. It’s all just competitive. We both want to win, we both want the best out of each other.”

In the second quarter, Middleton got one over on Antetokounmpo, stepping under the basket to draw a charge.

“I saw his eyes light up when he saw me under the rim,” Middleton said with a smile. “So I knew either foul, take a charge to get out the way. … I’ve got worse hits from that guy. That one was light.”

Before the February trade, Antetokounmpo never had played an NBA game without Middleton as a teammate.

“Obviously, he had a great game, he still can hoop,” said Antetokounmpo, who finished with 37 points, 14 rebounds and 5 assists in 27 minutes. “He’s still a big threat when he’s out there on the court. He always plays that right way. Makes a good decision, makes his teammates better defensively. He’s always going to be in the right position and sometimes going to put his body with the line, take a charge. He’s always playing smart.”

Khris Middleton, right, and Giannis Antetokounmpo matched up against each other several times during Wednesday night’s game, then embraced on the court after it. “He still can hoop,” Antetokounmpo said. Michael McLoone-Imagn Images

Although it was Middleton’s first time as a visitor in Milwaukee since the trade, Antetokounmpo pointed out that this was their third meeting, including a matchup in D.C. a few weeks after the deal and the 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup.

“I got him,” Antetokounmpo said. “Two-one, I’m up.”

Although the Bucks won Wednesday, they lost point guard Kevin Porter Jr. in the first quarter to a sprained left ankle after he stepped on teammate Bobby Portis’ foot. Porter had 10 points on 3-of-5 shooting before the injury.

He’s scheduled to undergo an MRI on Thursday.

“It didn’t look good,” Bucks coach Doc Rivers said. “I’ll just say that. Got to hope for the best, but looking at it, it was a pretty bad sprain.”

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San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy is still uncertain to play in Week 8, but he is making progress in his recovery from a turf toe injury.

During his weekly appearance on KNBR (h/t David Bonilla of 49ersWebZone.com), 49ers general manager John Lynch said Purdy is “getting closer” to returning:

“What I can tell everyone is that we’re being [incredibly diligent]. We’ve gotten so many opinions on this thing, and it’s been pretty consistent. He’s doing a really good job. We’re taking the appropriate measures, and what I can tell you is he gets better each week, each day. I do think we’re getting closer to him returning.”

Last week saw Purdy return to practice for the first time since on a limited basis for the first time since Week 4. He was also a limited participant in their first practice session this week on Wednesday.

The toe ailment first sidelined Purdy for Weeks 2 and 3. Before Purdy was sidelined, Ian Rapoport of NFL Network classified the injury as a “turf toe variant.”

He came back for Week 4 against the Jacksonville Jaguars but suffered a setback. Head coach Kyle Shanahan then called Purdy “week-to-week.”

Mac Jones has been the team’s starter in Purdy’s place. He’s fared quite well, leading the team to a 4-1 record in his five starts and completing 67.0 percent of his passes for six touchdowns, four interceptions and 1,404 yards.

Jones has been dealing with his own injuries (knee, oblique), but he was a full participant on Wednesday and will make his sixth start if Purdy is unable to go on Sunday.

The 49ers are off to a strong 5-2 start despite being without several key players for multiple games due to injuries. They will go for their sixth win of the season, which would match their total from all of 2024, against the Houston Texans at NRG Stadium on Sunday.

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EIGHT DAYS BEFORE Al Horford signed with the Golden State Warriors, their soon-to-be veteran center found himself at a San Diego dinner with a group of men he’d only ever viewed as adversaries.

Horford calls his approach “old-school” in the modern NBA. He doesn’t “fraternize” with opponents.

“If you’re my teammate, I’m with you and I have your back and I’m all about you,” Horford told ESPN. “But all this hugging and half court at the end of the game and all this friendship. No.”

The dinner was casual. Camp was a week away. Horford wasn’t officially signed because of the Jonathan Kuminga stalemate, but he was committed.

As the wine flowed, Horford steered clear of any playoff heartache discussion with Draymond Green and Jimmy Butler, one of his fiercest — and most impolite — East rivals. But Stephen Curry cracked open the door in a very Curry manner.

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“We talked about his Game 1,” Curry said.

In the 2022 NBA Finals opener, Horford hit six 3s and scored 26 points in San Francisco, wresting away immediate series control for the Boston Celtics as he ached for his first title in his 15th season. It was one of the best games of his career. But it was soon followed by one of the most devastating.

“Then we talked about Game 4,” Curry said. “When we kind of ripped it from him.”

In perhaps the most legendary game of Curry’s NBA career, he shook off a painful foot injury and scored 43 in front of a frothing Boston crowd to recapture control and flip the series into his fourth title.

In July, three years after that NBA Finals matchup, Curry got a text from Horford.

Those on the inside say Horford decided to join the Warriors on his own, no traditional recruitment needed. Green remembers asking general manager Mike Dunleavy later in the summer if he needed to call Horford.

“You can call him, but it’s done,” Dunleavy told Green.

The conversation with Curry, though, was important to Horford. The text led to a call in mid-July. Curry’s not only the face of the franchise, but the teammate, at 37, who is closest in age to Horford, 39. He wanted to ask Curry about the medical staff and maintenance program for a pair of players who began their college careers during the George Bush administration.

“So basically the most veteran conversation you could ever have in your life,” Curry said.

Horford’s addition means four of the Warriors’ most important players are all 35 or older. If Buddy Hield starts alongside Butler, Green, Curry and Horford in a game this season, it’ll be the oldest starting lineup in NBA history.

That fact alone signifies a prioritization of the present over a protection of the future. But the much discussed two-timeline approach, while altered and increasingly minimized, isn’t dead.

The Warriors still have near full control of their future picks and gripped onto Kuminga firmly this summer, even while the young forward longed for a fresh start. They could’ve had a steady veteran such as Royce O’Neale and some second-rounders for him, but there is still clearly a partial long view approach despite a rapidly fading win-now window.

“That’s one of the beautiful things about having this organization,” Green said. “We’re not sitting here like, ‘Yo, give away everything because we don’t give a f— about what this thing looks like in 10 years.’ We do. And so I think it’s only fair to Mike that he’s given a future, too. It’s important to do it the way that we’ve done it. We found a good balance to where we can compete and possibly win now and yet still have that flexibility and resources for the future.”

The Golden State Warriors went 23-8 after Jimmy Butler made his debut on Feb. 8. The Warriors were 25-26 before Butler’s first game, but finished the season at No. 7 in the West after defeating the Memphis Grizzlies in the play-in tournament. Adam Pantozzi/NBAE via Getty Images

IN THE LEAD–UP to the trade deadline in February, Curry and Kerr echoed a sentiment first shared publicly by Green. The three delivered a unified message about the need for their front office and ownership group to be pragmatic in their approach, stating that it would be unwise to unload all their future assets for the most realistic available upgrade.

Green even told Dunleavy and controlling owner Joe Lacob the summer prior not to green-light a trade for Lauri Markkanen, considering the Utah Jazz were asking for all the draft picks and young players.

“I’m a big fan of [Markkanen’s] game,” Green said. “But I think if you want to do something so huge you better be certain that this is the move. You usually don’t win those things against Danny Ainge. I look at history.”

The Warriors tried and failed to acquire a second offensive costar next to Curry before last season and lost Klay Thompson to the Dallas Mavericks, but ripped off a 12-3 start, briefly thinking they had found a formula through depth. Then they went 3-12 over their next 15 games and spiraled into a 25-26 spot in mid-February.

“We were talking real big at 12-3 last year,” Curry said.

Curry and Green had a memorable conversation inside the Jazz visiting locker room the night the Warriors traded for Butler. Dunleavy, a former teammate of Butler’s in Chicago, vouched for him, believed in his fit, paid him a max two-year extension and pulled the trigger on a trade that cost only one future first-round pick — the 2025 selection, ensuring their future stash wasn’t handcuffed.

Curry called the approach “aggressive but reasonable,”

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It could be argued that the trade, while a rousing success, came too late and the 23-8 sprint to the finish line fatigued the older group enough to fade the Warriors out in the second round. The Warriors privately admit that Curry’s overuse in the Houston Rockets series partially led to his hamstring strain.

But the immediate contending-level success with Butler also served as a proof of concept to the stakeholders entering the summer that their new trio could compete if supplemented correctly. So they pursued Horford, De’Anthony Melton and Seth Curry, moves that don’t mortgage the future but come with the approval of Steph Curry, Kerr and Green.

Kerr called it a “commitment to Steph,” believing the front office and ownership has pivoted back to enough of a win-now approach to respectably compete in the final chapter of the Curry era.

“When you look back at the whole two timeline theory or whatever, I think it’s easy to sort of question it,” Kerr said. “But I think you just have to keep in mind the circumstances. At the time, we didn’t make the playoffs two years in a row. So when we drafted all those young guys, there was a real concern that the run had already ended. It made perfect sense to shoot for the stars with some lottery picks.”

There are certainly internal grumblings about some of the moves made and not made the past half-a-decade, most notably — as ESPN reported during the Kuminga negotiations this summer — Lacob’s unwillingness to include Kuminga in a trade for Alex Caruso a couple seasons back.

The James Wiseman draft pick at second overall in 2020 was a monumental whiff. If they wanted it, there could’ve been a trade path to Anthony Edwards at the top spot. Franz Wagner and Trey Murphy III were available to them during the Kuminga and Moses Moody selections in 2021. But that’s all revisionist history to the always diplomatic Curry.

“That whole conversation gets old quick,” Curry said of maximizing his window. “I get what everybody’s saying and the idea of it. But you make decisions with the information you have in front of you. If the information changes, then your perspective might change. That’s kind of how it is in the league in general. I say all that to say: I want to be competitive. Doesn’t mean you’re going to have a perfect situation where you’re the proverbial favorite. But I like where we are at.”

Al Horford came off the bench for 5 points, 5 rebounds and an assist in Tuesday’s 119-109 season-opening win over the Los Angeles Lakers. Horford’s 20 minutes off the bench were second only to Buddy Hield (22). Jeff Chiu/AP Photo

THE PINNACLE MOMENT of Curry’s career — that Game 6 clincher in Boston that had him in tears on the Garden floor as he won his fourth ring — was his newest teammate’s deepest professional pain.

Horford said it wouldn’t have subsided much had the Celtics not rebounded to win a championship in 2024. If Horford were still without a title — knowing which franchise and player delivered him the worst heartbreak — he doesn’t believe he could’ve joined the Warriors this summer.

“I think it would’ve been too hard for me as a competitor just because of how I operate,” Horford said. “So I just don’t think I could have.”

But the dominos fell fortunately for a Warriors core that has been circling but unable to obtain Horford for years. The championship thawed the ice. The Jayson Tatum injury changed Boston’s title chances. The new salary restrictions, Horford believes, forced him out of Boston.

“This whole CBA thing, apron stuff, it essentially destroyed that team that they built over there,” Horford said.

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So he looked elsewhere. He decided against retirement. He watched a resurrected Warriors team threaten in the playoffs without Butler. He could see it needed a capable veteran stretch center. The general manager of the team agreed.

“Mike’s been looking for a player like him his entire time here,” Kerr said. “Not just a pick-and-pop guy, but a legitimate big, who can make Draymond’s job easier, who can make Steph’s job easier. It’s really hard to find those guys.”

Dunleavy set out this summer with two tasks on his agenda — solving the Kuminga situation and supplementing the rest of the roster with veterans who best fit the Curry, Kerr, Green system.

Kuminga’s contract dispute was long, winding, messy and eventually solved. The other business, while unresolved in the public eye, was relatively tidy.

“I felt like there was a lot of upside in this thing,” Horford said. “So I just had to wait it out.”

Dunleavy had to make semi-frequent calls to reassure him of the sequencing of the plan, but Horford, team sources said, was their “absolute 1A” target and no other free agent was in his vicinity. They also held a level of interest in Luke Kornet, sources said, but he signed with San Antonio out of their price range.

To get Horford, they gave him a two-year, $11.6 million contract with a player option on the second season and a 15% trade kicker, delivering those sweeteners to close the deal. The second season lines him up with Curry’s, Butler’s and Green’s contracts, setting up a final chapter of contention for the foursome.

Atop the Warriors’ organization, there is still one eye plotting the future beyond this era. That’ll inevitably present another existential question the next time a costly trade option is available to them.

But four of the sport’s most important names of the past two decades — Curry, Butler, Green and Horford — are bought in on the belief that they’ve been given a realistic crack at a two-year run together.

“For me, it’s a privilege to have this opportunity and to be here,” Horford said. “They’re so accomplished. I do understand that there’s a lot that comes with it. There’s a lot of challenges. But I’m pretty excited.”

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