Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier and Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups will not be paid while on leaves of absence from their teams because of federal charges related to gambling, sources told ESPN’s Shams Charania.
Both of their paychecks are expected to be withheld and placed in escrow, pending outcome of FBI cases, per sources.
Rozier’s salary is about $26.6 million this season, paid in installments.
If Rozier is cleared and allowed to return to the NBA, which placed him on leave hours after his Oct. 23 arrest, he would receive the held payments in full, per sources.
Rozier’s attorney said Wednesday that a federal lien filed with regard to the player’s tax bill in 2021 was satisfied.
The Internal Revenue Service filed that lien against Rozier in November 2023, showing an “unpaid balance of assessment” of $8,218,211.70 for the 2021 tax year. But Rozier’s attorney, Jim Trusty, said in an email to The Associated Press that the actual amount owed to the IRS at that time was a sliver of that total.
“There was never a debt of $8 million,” Trusty wrote. “Out of his total taxes owed in 2021 ($8m) he actually owed $9000. That was paid but the now-defunct lien still needs to be pulled from the local courthouse.”
ESPN first reported the lien’s existence. The lien is a public record, and there is no publicly available document showing it has been removed.
Officials in Broward County, Florida — where the lien was filed — did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A call seeking information from an IRS revenue officer was unanswered. Revenue officers work for the IRS to collect delinquent taxes.
Rozier owns a home in Broward County and records show his property taxes have been paid in full each year. That property is about 30 miles from where the Heat play their home games.
Rozier was playing for the Charlotte Hornets during that 2021 tax year and is now on the Heat roster. He, Billups and nearly three dozen other individuals were arrested last week on gambling-related charges detailed in two separate indictments.
Federal officials alleged that Rozier conspired with associates to help them win bets based on his statistical performance in a game when he was with the Hornets on March 23, 2023 — more than seven months before the lien was prepared and nearly eight months before it was formally filed. Rozier played sparingly in that game and gamblers who wagered that he would finish “under” certain statistical totals won those bets.
The charges against Rozier are similar to what former Toronto player Jontay Porter faced before he was banned from the league by Silver in 2024.
Rozier did not play in the final eight games of that 2022-23 season, with he and the Hornets citing a foot injury. The Hornets had several players injured at that time and were already eliminated from playoff contention.
Sportsbooks detected unusual patterns of wagers on the Charlotte game in question — prop bets involving Rozier were flagged and immediately brought to the NBA’s attention — and the league probed the matter but did not find enough evidence to conclude that Rozier broke any rules. The NBA, unlike federal law enforcement, does not have subpoena power.
The NBA said earlier this week that it is reviewing how sensitive information like injury reports — which are public and updated hourly — should be handled going forward. Members of the House and Senate have both asked the NBA for more information as well.
Sen. Ted Cruz, the Republican chairman of the Commerce Committee, and Sen. Maria Cantwell, the top Democrat on that panel, wrote NBA Commissioner Adam Silver this week seeking detail “about how the NBA investigated and handled these allegations” and why the NBA allowed Rozier to continue playing.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.