The federal case against NBA guard Terry Rozier — accused of faking an injury during a game to tip off bettors — has exposed what sports medicine experts say is an unforeseen blind spot.
Do teams have any other choice but to trust players to tell the truth about how they feel?
“If the player says he can’t go in the first quarter, he doesn’t go,” former Dallas Mavericks team physician Tarek Souryal told NBC News last week. “We can’t see pain. You can see swelling. You can see bruising. You can see a cut. But you can’t see pain.”
Rozier, 31, was charged Thursday with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering.
Federal prosecutors allege he feigned a right foot injury while playing for the Charlotte Hornets during a March 23, 2023, game in New Orleans, after telling a friend beforehand he planned to bench himself early.
The friend then sold that “non-public information” to bettors, according to the indictment.
Rozier, now with the Miami Heat, has denied any wrongdoing. His attorney, Jim Trusty, said his client “is not a gambler” and “looks forward to winning this fight.”
The case has renewed scrutiny on how the NBA verifies injuries and whether the rise of legalized sports betting has made players’ health status the newest vehicle of inside information.
A fateful night in New Orleans
Rozier logged 35.3 minutes per game in 2022-23 for Charlotte but, on that late-March evening in New Orleans, he lasted for just 9½ minutes of action.
After hitting a jumper from the free-throw line with about 6 ½ minutes left in the first period, Rozier hobbled and grabbed at his right foot in distress.
Rozier did not appear to land awkwardly when he hit that jumper or show any other discomfort in the moment ahead of the shot.
Federal prosecutors claimed that Rozier was actually feigning that injury in front of an arena full of paying, unsuspecting fans. Behind the scenes, Rozier’s friend had raked in tens of thousands of dollars from selling the information, according to the indictment.
About a week later, the friend drove to Rozier’s Charlotte home so they could count the money, prosecutors said.
In an internal memo sent Monday to all 30 NBA teams, the league said it was reviewing policies on injury reporting and how personnel are trained. It was also looking into ways to enhance “internal and external integrity monitoring programs,” the memo, obtained by NBC News, read.
The NBA previously said it investigated unusual activity around the Hornets-Pelicans game but “did not find a violation of NBA rules.” The league said it is cooperating with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York.
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said Friday he was “deeply disturbed” by the allegations.
“There’s nothing more important to the league and its fans than the integrity of the competition,” Silver said. “And so I had a pit in my stomach. It was very upsetting.”
The NBA insists, though, that there was documentation of Rozier’s injury 2½ years ago.
“Any assertion that the NBA had anything to do with Terry Rozier not playing games following his departure from the game on March 23, 2023, is categorically false,” according to a league statement. “Per team doctors, Rozier had a real foot injury confirmed with an MRI.”
Rozier’s indictment was part of a broader probe that also charged Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups and former player and coach Damon Jones in a separate mob-linked poker cheating scheme.
How are injuries assessed?
The NBA says that teams “must report information concerning player injuries, illnesses, other medical conditions, or rest for all games [by] 5 p.m. local time the day before a game.”
In addition, the policy says, teams must “designate a participation status and identify a specific injury, illness, other medical condition, or other reason for any player whose participation in the game may be affected for any reason.”
But Souryal said there is “no league-wide rule on how injuries are assessed.”
“Each team does it different. Every doctor does it different,” he said.
Trainers are the first to evaluate a player, but the athlete has the “ultimate last say” on whether he plays, Souryal added.
Art Caplan, who heads the division of medical ethics at New York University, said team doctors have no way to independently verify claims of pain during a game.
“‘Pete’ comes off the court and says my heel hurts or my knee is killing me, you take that seriously on the spot as something that he’s telling the truth,” Caplan said. “In that setting of sports, the athlete’s complaint literally drives what happens.”
Who has the ‘ultimate last say’?
Souryal said athletic trainers are typically the first to evaluate an injured player.
Depending on the severity of the injury, the team physician will be notified to do another evaluation and order any necessary testing, Souryal said.
“If it happens on the court, then you evaluate him on the court, you get him to the locker room, you evaluate him again in the locker room,” he said. “But if it’s one of those things where ‘Player X’ is complaining of hamstring pain, that’s something that can be assessed during halftime or after the game. There is no protocol.”
Souryal said that most teams follow the same “chain of command,” except when a player says he’s injured to the point where he cannot play in a game.
Even if an X-ray shows no signs of a serious injury, Souryal said the player “has the ultimate last say” on whether he hits the court.
While the allegations against Rozier have led to speculation about his injury, Souryal said he does not think the Hornets could have done anything differently.
“We always have to take the player’s word as medical staff, and given the time and the setting and the situation, I don’t know that anything differently could have been done by the team or the staff,” he said.
Rozier was placed on immediate leave from the Miami Heat following his arrest.
‘Injuries’ play role in gamesmanship
Faking an injury isn’t completely foreign to big-time sports, though it’s usually done for competitive edge and not to throw a game or prop wager.
Modern offenses in pro and major college football often run high-tempo attacks, prompting some defenders to feign injury just to slow down an opponent’s pace.
In late 2022, the NFL went as far as to threaten teams with heavy fines and lost draft picks to stop the practice.
In college football last month, the Atlantic Coast Conference fined Syracuse $25,000 for feigning injuries in a victory over Clemson.
The role of gambling in NBA
Rozier’s case isn’t the first time an NBA player has been accused of consorting with gamblers since a landmark 2018 Supreme Court ruling opened the floodgates to legalized sports wagering.
In 2024, the league banned Toronto Raptors forward Jontay Porter alleging that he bet on games, passed on information to gamblers and claimed illness to influence a wager.
The NBA said its investigation found that Porter had engaged in widespread gambling, against league rules.
It alleged that he “disclosed confidential information” about his own health status to an individual he knew to be an NBA bettor” before a March 20, 2024, game.
Porter claimed to suffer from an illness during the game and played only three minutes, the league said.
“When sports gambling first came into sports … I always thought that how injuries are handled was going to be a potential problem,” Souryal, the former Mavs team doctor, said.
An $80,000 online bet that he would underperform was placed ahead of that game, which would have paid out $1.1 million. The conspicuously large amount led to the wager’s being “frozen” and “not paid out,” the NBA said.
Rozier’s attorney, Trusty, insists his client has done nothing wrong and accused federal authorities of grandstanding.
“We got a trophy hunt, so we’re going to fight it,” Trusty said.