The LA Clippers and Portland Trail Blazers faced off Sunday evening for the first of four matchups this season. What was supposed to be a battle between best friends Tyronn Lue and Chauncey Billups quickly turned somber following the news this past week.
Billups, who just started his fifth season as head coach of the Blazers, was among more than 30 people arrested by the FBI on Thursday morning in a coordinated takedown across 11 states as part of a wide-ranging federal investigation into illegal sports betting and rigged poker games.
The news sent shockwaves throughout the world, with questions about the allegations continuing to pour in.
LA Clippers head coach Tyronn Lue, who considers Chauncey Billups one of his best friends, was asked about the last couple of days.
“Just sad that Chauncey, my best friend, had to go through something like this,” Lue said Sunday. “The allegations, his family, my goddaughters. So, it was a tough day and you never want to see your friends go through anything like that.
“It's hard to process. Chauncey is my brother, since we were 17 years old. You hate to see him go through something like this, along with his three girls who are my goddaughters, his wife Piper. Like I've said, I believe in Chauncey's character, I know who he is as a person. I've been with him since I was 17 years old. It's just hard to see something like this happen. He has my love and support always.”
Billups is on an indefinite leave from the Blazers pending the federal investigation and is not permitted to have any contact with members of the team.
Jrue Holiday casually walks up and swishes a lefty 3-pointer from the corner on his first try. pic.twitter.com/b6yeZwRyYl
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Tyronn Lue, who shares an agent with Billups, said he's still able to communicate with the organization.
“I can talk to him,” Lue added. “Yeah, I talked to him. You know somebody for so long, you can just tell by their voice. Just listen to his voice if he's okay. He's confident in what's going on. The toughest part is just his family going through it, his daughters, but other than that, he's really confident about the situation so just hearing his voice, I could just see that he's okay so that was just good to hear.”
Over the last couple of days, players like Jaylen Brown and Al Horford have been vocal about their experiences
involving sports gambling.
“That whole world was introduced to it a couple years ago, and I don't think they took players into consideration,” Jaylen Brown said in the days after the arrests were made. “Especially with the energy, the behavior that goes around gambling and how that directly correlates with players,” Brown said.
“We don't benefit from any of the profits, but we've got to deal with a lot of the extra negativity and scrutiny behind all the gambling stuff. On top of that, it creates more integrity issues.”
The NBA responded to Brown's comments with a strong statement of their own, reaffirming the league's priorities and player safety.
“Protecting the safety of players and coaches has always been of critical importance,” NBA spokesperson Mike Bass told ClutchPoints. [League security] works with team officials and law enforcement to respond to any type of fan behavior that violates our code of conduct – whether that’s in our arenas or online. We have put safeguards in place, including social media monitoring, to track and mitigate any potential threats or safety risks. And we have increased communications to fans attending games to reinforce our code of conduct and emphasize that disrespectful and abusive behavior will not be tolerated.”
The Blazers are still getting used to life without Billups, especially after the organization named Tiago Splitter as their interim head coach.
