The NBA's Time Bomb is Done Ticking

After years of hyping up gambling, the league now must sleep in the bed it made.

It’s generally believed that those who do bad things will inevitably be found out; it’s just a question of when they do. Equally true is the fact that the more you fill up a balloon with helium, the greater the risk that it’s going to burst. The NBA is about to learn both of those lessons in one fell swoop, it seems.

On Thursday, it was announced that 30 total individuals were arrested in two schemes, both of which have at least some partial overlap. The first involves those, such as Blazers head coach and former NBA star Chauncey Billups, who took part in or were in some way connected to the Mafia (capital M Mafia) and its rigged/illegal poker games. The other is based on the actions of players like Jontay Porter and the now-arrested Terry Rozier, who played in 64 games for the Miami Heat last season.

And others seem to cross both lines, with Damon Jones, friend of LeBron James and former NBA player (and former assistant with the Cavs), leaked info to bettors about LeBron not being available for an upcoming game while also being involved with the poker scheme.

We still don’t know exactly how wide-ranging this investigation is, but we know there are other key players and coaches involved. Everyone seems to have the same conclusion, though:

This was bound to happen for quite a while, and the science tends to agree.