Celtics guard Anfernee Simons played four seasons for Chauncey Billups in Portland. He was stunned by his former head coach’s arrest.
Celtics guard Anfernee Simons was stunned Thursday to learn that his former head coach had been arrested as part of a wide-ranging federal gambling investigation.
Chauncey Billups, Simons’ coach in Portland for the last four seasons, was one of more than 30 individuals charged in connection with an alleged Mafia-backed scheme to rig poker games. Billups was charged with wire fraud conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy.
“It hit me pretty tough, for sure,” Simons, who was traded to Boston this offseason, said after Friday’s morning shootaround at Madison Square Garden. “Just in shock. And obviously, I’ve got a great relationship with Chauncey. Even after the trade, he’s checking in on me and I’m checking in on him. So we had a great relationship, and I think it’s an unfortunate situation for him to be in, especially for him and his family, all the media attention that’s coming in, the scrutiny. It’s just an unfortunate situation.”
Billups was not named in a separate investigation targeting illegal sports betting, but an unidentified co-conspirator in that case matched his description — a former NBA player from 1997-2014 who has been an NBA coach since at least 2021 (the year Billups was hired by the Trail Blazers) and resides in Oregon.
The federal indictment alleges that, before a game on March 24, 2023, the co-conspirator informed one of the defendants in the case, Eric Earnest, “that the Trail Blazers were going to be tanking” and sitting several of their best players “to increase their odds of getting a better pick in the upcoming NBA draft.
