Last night in Cleveland, Rudy Gobert didn’t finish the game. He was sent off for six fouls in the final minute of the game. Worse, he picked up a technical foul after the “money sign”, thus allowing the Cavaliers to forfeit overtime. The French pivot questioned the referee’s integrity during and after the match.
30 seconds left in the Cleveland – Minnesota game. Wolves lead 97-96 and Anthony Edwards has the ball. Ant-Man tries a mid-range shot to put the wolves at +3 but misses his attempt. Rudy Gobert then battles Jarrett Allen for the rebound, then manages to recover the ball. Except referee Scott Foster calls it a foul, Rudy’s sixth.
Frustrated with this arbitration decision (and no doubt with his performance as well), Gobert snaps his fingers, suggesting that the referees were paid to favor the Cavaliers. The result? A logical technical foul, a free throw for Cleveland and the game goes into overtime. The Wolves would lose 113-104 in overtime.
Following the loss, Rudy Gobert admitted that the timing of his technical foul was disastrous, which according to Wolves assistant coach Micah Norrie was a completely “unacceptable” mistake. But that doesn’t mean Rudy regrets his actions. He went further by referring to sports betting in his post-match statement.
“I’m looking like a bad guy again, I’m going to get fined, but I think it’s affecting our game. I know sports betting and all that is booming, but it shouldn’t feel like that.
It wasn’t just a whistle. Everyone makes mistakes, but when they happen often, it’s frustrating.
Rudy Gobert can already prepare his wallet, because he will receive a huge fine from the NBA. The league bans players and coaches who criticize referees, especially when their integrity is questioned.
Rudy Gobert already knew it was going to end. So he went on to say that sports betting influences how NBA referees operate, w/ @JonKrawczynski
@TheAthleticNBA https://t.co/gU8Y6rr1J2— Joe Warden (@JoeWarden) March 9, 2024
In 2018, the Supreme Court of the United States paved the way for the legalization of sports betting, which today depends on various American states. 38 of them have legalized betting in the last six years. Since then, major American sports leagues have taken the opportunity to form partnerships with many bookies. The NBA, for example, has teamed up with DraftKings and FanDuel, two partners that represent a new source of revenue for the league and that allow fans to be more involved.
The risk associated with all this is obviously that some of the key players in the game (referees, players, managers, agents, etc.) find themselves involved in a sports betting scandal, which would obviously call into question integrity. of competition. Remember the Tim Donaghy episode from 15 years ago? To prevent this from happening again, the sanctions can be very heavy for any member of the NBA who bets on NBA games: these range from fines to suspensions, and in more extreme cases can even be synonymous with breach of contract.
If memory serves, Rudy Gobert is the first NBA player to publicly express a possible link between sports betting and referee integrity. Adam Silver would not like this…
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Text sources: ESPN, Forbes
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