There is a perverse irony in Jontay Porter's situation. I'll explain more about that later. But before I do that, I hope you enjoy it, and here's a sort of eulogy for you.
From an early age, Jontay shaped his game in the shadow of his eldest brother Michael, who was one of the most captivating scorers I've ever seen at the high school level. Although he was not even 18 months younger, he was the perfect complement. While Michael was a brash, athletic scoring machine, Jontay was a floor-bound passer. His game was very mature, intelligent, and nuanced. He has been a pick-and-pop threat since his junior year, a very smart communicator on defense, and a logistics hub as a big man. On the court, Jontay was his brother's keeper. Both have been bitten in their own ways, with Michael having had three spinal surgeries and Jontay having two major knee surgeries. But while Michael would eventually find his footing with the defending champion Denver Nuggets, Jontay had been largely aimless in the wilderness until this season.
Porter, who signed a two-way contract with the Toronto Raptors in December, was fully healthy for the first time in his pro career and showed signs of being the player he was meant to be at the highest level. The skill and spatial awareness he displayed in setting screens, coupled with exemplary pass vision, made him an immediate threat in dribble handoff situations. (In some group chats, I may or may not have made irresponsible comparisons to Marc Gasol.) In the final game of his NBA career, Porter had eight assists in 21 minutes. did. Only 24 other centers in NBA history have achieved this feat. A comparable feat. In his 37 games played and will continue to play in the NBA, Jontay's career assist-to-turnover ratio was his 2-to-1.
That's ironic. On the floor, he has always been a good decision maker.
But a series of questionable choices off the court led him to this landmark moment in modern sports disgrace. On Wednesday, less than a month after the NBA launched an investigation into “gambling fraud” related to Porter, he was sentenced to a lifetime ban from the league for a series of violations. Porter is the first lifetime suspension for an unrelated violation of the NBA's substance abuse rules since 1966, when Roger Brown and Connie Hawkins were suspended in connection with the 1961 NCAA point-shaving scandal. He will be the first player to do so. An investigation into Porter revealed that between January and March of this year, he placed at least 13 bets through his friend's account (none of which involved games he played). ). Stakes ranged from $15 to $22,000. He bet on his team in three multi-game parlays, each time betting on the Raptors to lose, but none of those parlays paid off. It is unclear whether this is a result of victory or not. (There weren't that many during his three-month period.) Porter's wagers totaled $54,094. He was paid $76,059, and his net profit was less than the highest bet he made.
The most egregious violation occurred on March 20, before that night's Raptors-Kings game, when Porter “disclosed confidential information regarding his health to an individual known to be an NBA bettor.” Another of Porter's colleagues had placed an $80,000 parlay on Porter's signature prop bet on that match, promising a $1.1 million payout if he hit. Such high stakes placed on mid-level role players were immediately flagged as suspicious by licensed sports betting operators and reported to the league. (Therefore, the wager was frozen and no payout was made.) Jontay played a total of 2 minutes and 43 seconds that night against the Kings, then missed the remainder of the game citing illness.
Porter's gambling tendencies didn't come out of nowhere. He started investing in cryptocurrencies during his college days. he, social media accounts He has been sharing stock and cryptocurrency trading tips since September 2020 and claims to be the co-founder of a swing trading advice service and community. get rich quick Discord's echo chamber has been around $10 since the beginning of the pandemic, and exploded in popularity after the famous short sale of GameStop stock. (Porter once tweeted about the following services) his main accounttwo days after the first GameStop short squeeze occurred on January 22, 2021).
But for someone whose main hobby and side hustle was promoting ideas about economic freedom and literacy, his recent actions (and those of his colleagues) are hardly an accurate reflection of the latter. It wasn't. There may be different mechanisms at work between sports betting and stock trading, but ultimately both are heavily influenced by market volume. Considering liquidity risk is one of the very basic elements of understanding how these work. Knowing that, you would never try to walk away with an $80,000 parlay bet on a fringe player coming off the bench for a struggling Raptors team in an understandably barren market.by league reportPorter clearly knew where his numbers were trending, logging at least 20 minutes per game in each of his previous four contests, but he intentionally manipulated the game and his place in it. It was all for the chance to earn $1.1 million in 2021, less than he made in 11 games with the Grizzlies. It's literally a bet against yourself. It is human nature to trivialize one's own values. It's quite another thing for him to treat himself like a fucking coin.
But that's a byproduct of making sports betting more accessible than ever, which stimulates the urge and generates more bets. You can confirm your bet faster than it takes to process the results. From your phone's parlay builder interface, you can't see the analytics mainframe that monitors every transaction in the country. Only the numbers you want to see will be displayed. It's not difficult to understand how people become addicted. But it wasn't that long ago that the NBA fought against legalized gambling. Back in 2012, America's four major sports leagues and the NCAA sued New Jersey over a bill that would have legalized sports betting in the state. The leagues argued that legalizing sports betting would “undermine public trust and confidence in the character of amateur and professional team sports.”
But then something changed. In the same year, 2014, the NBA signed a strategic partnership agreement with FanDuel that included equity rights. At the time, FanDuel was purely a daily fantasy sports business, which granted it exemption from the Illegal Internet Gambling Control Act of 2006. Special permission was given to fantasy sports. Days after FanDuel's announcement, Silver, then in his first year as NBA commissioner, said: new york times An editorial titled “Legalization and Regulation of Sports Betting.” The writing is on the wall, and the NBA will be the first to enter the first floor. Over the next decade, the cognitive dissonance that resulted from his exposure to legalized gambling and professional sports broadcasts had such pervasive effects that it manifested as white noise. (By the way: this story is ringer, a FanDuel partner. )
Porter's decision is exactly what the NBA feared…and That was when we started doing business with sports betting entities. The legalization of sports betting was seen as a way to monitor market turnover on a global scale and to implement and maintain measures that could address apparent differences while exposing conduct to the light of day. From that perspective, the NBA can conveniently view this situation as a proof of concept to preserve the integrity of the game and the legal gambling industry as a whole. The lifetime ban on gambling and undermining the integrity of the game is firm and clear. The fact that a definitive sentence could be imposed on an aspiring player like Porter rather than an established star means that this decision is made with little resentment from fans. meant. That was natural. The question remains how other, more morally heinous crimes have been treated with relative leniency, but the answer remains the same. The NBA is a business, and its clear duty is first and foremost to advance and protect its business interests. The lack of ambiguity on this point speaks for itself.
Porter will forever remain as an example and a punchline. I'm sure there are others out there, whether in the NBA or other major leagues, who look at the half-step that Jontay took and apply modifications more deftly. Attraction exists forever. And for players who are at the bottom of the standings and are aiming to move up, even if it is possible, it must be difficult to suppress the feeling of despair to keep on dreaming. I couldn't help but wonder about the man behind the news cycle and the decisions he made that culminated in it. this. He was considering quitting the game in his 2022 year. sports net The profile was published in early January. During his brief stint with the Memphis Grizzlies from 2020 to 2022, he took “a few shots of ibuprofen” before games to deal with knee pain. This is a disease his family is familiar with. In addition to Michael's surgery, both of Michael's sisters were forced to medically retire from playing basketball at Mizzou University at some point due to knee problems. His older sister, Bri, suffered five anterior cruciate ligament tears in high school and was unable to attend college.
My mind goes back to March 2019 and the story I read that night. Jontay was at the Denver Nuggets practice facility watching his younger brother Michael play one-on-one with his friend. He was itching to play, less than five months after tearing his anterior cruciate ligament and anterior cruciate ligament on an uneven landing during a scrimmage. He could have been a first-round pick in the 2018 NBA Draft, but chose to remain at Mizzou to improve his stock, but suffered a setback. Although his knee surgery was disappointing, Jontay was on track to be able to play by draft night in 2019. In fact, he was scheduled to be tested a few days before March to get permission to run and jump, but he had no choice but to take the test. canceled his appointment as a bomb cyclone snowstorm brought nearly a foot of snow to Denver. At that moment, he felt better. And he was going to be acquitted anyway. “I think the competitive spirit got the better of me,” Porter said. of kansas city star. “I didn't really think about my knee. I just went for it. I felt invincible.”
As the intensity of his one-on-one with Michael increased, Jontay felt his knees give out. “Why are you playing?” Michael reportedly shouted at him. Star article. By the end of March, Jontai will undergo his second knee surgery within six months. An irrational impulse changed the trajectory of his career forever. Five years later, the date for his second surgery approaches and another surgery will completely ruin his career.
“I have one year left,” Porter said. Star Fast forward to 2019. “I have a lot of time to invest in other things. At the end of the day, I don't get upset if a year is taken away from me.”
What about life?
