Rozier and Billups will not receive NBA salaries while on leave in gambling cases, AP sources say

By TIM REYNOLDS Associated Press Embattled NBA guard Terry Rozier will not receive his salary from the Miami Heat while on leave because of his arrest on federal charges related to a gambling scheme two people with knowledge of the matter described The Associated Press on Wednesday Rozier s salary about million this season paid in installments the first for this season having been due later this week will be held pending resolution of the legal occurrence declared the people who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because the details were not published publicly The Heat will not receive any immediate salary cap relief by the NBA s decision one of the sources disclosed If Rozier is cleared and allowed to return to the NBA which placed him on leave hours after his Oct arrest he could receive the held payments in full one of the sources declared There are provisions in the NBA s collective bargaining agreement that allow the league in certain situations to place salary withheld from a athlete in an interest-bearing account Portland coach Chauncey Billups who has also been placed on leave by the league after his arrest on gambling-related charges last week is having his salary held by the Trail Blazers as well one of the sources stated Billups is under contract into at least the - season the company declared that he agreed to a multiyear extension in April Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups leaves a federal court after his appearance on Thursday Oct in Portland Ore AP Photo Jenny Kane There was no immediate comment from either the Heat or the Trail Blazers Meanwhile Rozier s attorney stated Wednesday that a federal lien filed with regard to the player s tax bill in was satisfied The Internal Revenue Operation filed that lien against Rozier in November showing an unpaid balance of assessment of for the tax year But Rozier s attorney Jim Trusty mentioned in an email to the AP that the actual amount owed to the IRS at that time was a sliver of that total There was never a debt of million Trusty wrote Out of his total taxes owed in m he certainly owed That was paid but the now-defunct lien still requirements to be pulled from the local courthouse ESPN first revealed the lien s existence The lien is a inhabitants record and there is no publicly available document showing it has been removed Authorities in Broward County Florida where the lien was filed did not directly 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 miles from where the Heat play their home games Rozier was playing for the Charlotte Hornets during that 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 Billups attorney Chris Heywood has denied the accusations against his client Related Articles Character AI is banning minors from interacting with its chatbots Democratic congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh indicted over role in ICE protests Review finds EVs fleetly overcome their energy-intensive build to be cleaner than gas cars Lawyers for British political commentator Sami Hamdi are challenging his U S detention in court Microsoft deploys a fix to Azure cloud system that s hit with outage Federal administrators alleged that Rozier conspired with associates to help them win bets based on his statistical performance in a match when he was with the Hornets on March more than seven months before the lien was prepared and nearly eight months before it was formally filed Rozier played sparingly in that event 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 competitor Jontay Porter faced before he was banned from the league by Commissioner Adam Silver in Rozier did not play in the final eight games of that - 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 atypical patterns of wagers on the Charlotte event in question prop bets involving Rozier were flagged and without delay 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 Trusty has explained Rozier is not a gambler and looks forward to winning the event The NBA announced earlier this week that it is reviewing how sensitive information like injury reports which are constituents and updated hourly should be handled going forward Members of the House and Senate have both urged the NBA for more information Sen Ted Cruz the Republican chairman of the Commerce Committee and Sen Maria Cantwell the top Democrat on that panel wrote Silver this week seeking detail about how the NBA investigated and handled these statements and why the NBA allowed Rozier to continue playing