"He has already demonstrated that there isn't any basketball-related thing he can't do, but now he must prove that he can ease the league through the hellscape to come. Nobody else can do it. Not LeBron James, not Stephen Curry, not Shai-Gilgeous Alexander, not Nikola Jokic, and not even John Tesh. Bad times require a bad man. And these are not good times."
"You read and heard all about the Bad Times part yesterday. Hall of Famer and Portland Trail Blazers coach (for the moment) Chauncey Billups and Miami Heat wing (again, for the moment) Terry Rozier were arrested on Thursday as part of two parallel and long-running gambling probes being investigated by the FBI. All of it is part of the sports industry's consensual immolation on behalf of a new sports gambling industry that it does not fully understand and absolutely cannot control."
"If you are in charge of the NBA, that is a crisis in itself. But it's also just the start. There is also and already the league's ongoing and, we suspect, superficial investigation of Los Angeles Clippers owner Steve Ballmer and his relationship with a defunct and possibly shady sustainability (pun very much intended) carbon-credit company called Aspiration, all of which looks like an attempt to skirt the league's salary cap rules to benefit their pursuit of Kawhi Leonard."
Victor Wembanyama opened the season with a 40-point, 15-rebound performance and now faces expectation to guide the NBA through severe turmoil. Two high-profile arrests — Chauncey Billups and Terry Rozier — occurred as part of parallel, long-running FBI gambling probes. Legalized sports betting has expanded prop markets into smartphones, exposing players to bets on individual actions and undermining competitive integrity. The league also confronts an investigation of Clippers owner Steve Ballmer over ties to a defunct carbon-credit company, Aspiration, amid concerns this could be used to evade salary-cap rules in pursuit of Kawhi Leonard. Multiple overlapping scandals threaten league stability.
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