{"id":333135,"date":"2025-10-26T05:22:24","date_gmt":"2025-10-26T05:22:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/333135\/"},"modified":"2025-10-26T05:22:24","modified_gmt":"2025-10-26T05:22:24","slug":"stephen-a-smith-drags-donald-trump-into-nba-betting-scandal-as-wnba-warning-issued","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/333135\/","title":{"rendered":"Stephen A. Smith drags Donald Trump into NBA betting scandal as WNBA warning issued"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stephen A. Smith drags Donald Trump into the NBA betting scandal and issued a warning to the WNBA, with the sports pundit believing the league is in the crosshairs of the president<\/p>\n

23:37 ET, 23 Oct 2025Updated 01:04 ET, 24 Oct 2025<\/p>\n

\"StephenStephen A. Smith dragged the President of the United States into the NBA’s betting scandal before issuing a warning to the WNBA(Image: Photo by Paras Griffin\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Stephen A. Smith believes that Donald Trump might have influenced the explosive arrests of Chauncey Billups, Terry Rozier, and Damon Jones in a scandal that rocked the NBA’s season opener.<\/a><\/p>\n

On Thursday, it was reported that the three aforementioned current and former NBA stars had been among more than 30 people arrested as part of a years-long investigation by the FBI on illegal gambling and sports betting. At the time of the arrests, Billups was coaching the Portland Trail Blazers, Rozier was with the Miami Heat, <\/a>and Jones was most recently a coach.<\/p>\n

On Thursday’s ‘First Take,’ Smith shockingly surmised \u2014 without providing any evidence \u2014 that FBI Director Kash Patel directed the arrests of the three men due to Trump’s desire to punish those who oppose him. Trump is not known to have any connection to the FBI’s probe and the betting scandal itself.<\/p>\n

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“We know what world that I live in, in terms of politics. How many times, for one incident after another, have I said, ‘Trump is coming?’ He’s coming,” Smith began to his cohosts<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“I’m going to say it on national television again … Big night for the NBA, when Beyonc\u00e9 put on a show. That has now been smeared because we’re talking about this story, OK?<\/p>\n

After suggesting that Trump might have fueled the investigation that resulted in the arrests of Billups, Rozier, and Jones, Smith claimed that the WNBA could be next, considering how politically active the league and its players are, especially in opposing the president and his policies.<\/p>\n

\"FBIFBI Director Kash Patel responded to Smith’s claim(Image: FOX News)<\/p>\n

“Don’t be surprised that the WNBA is next on his list,” he continued. “Because when you’ve got all of these protests that have been going out there and people that have been protesting against him and what have you, this man is coming. He’s coming. And I’ve been saying it for a long time. And to me, this is the latest nugget of evidence that we’re talking about right here.<\/p>\n

“That’s not to question the legitimacy of the case, we don’t know. … But anybody that has been around him, anybody that has talked to him and seen his reactions, from the sports leagues … they are not surprised at what’s going on today.”<\/p>\n

He also noted that Patel’s announcement of the arrests in a press conference is a “statement” and a “warning that more is coming.”<\/p>\n

“In his eyes, folks tried to throw him in jail. In his eyes, he’s innocent \u2014 ‘They tried to put me behind bars. I’m getting everybody.’ He’s not playing,” Smith added. “And so this, in a lot of people’s eyes, talk to people in the NBA. Talk to people in the NFL. Talk to people in the world of sports. They think this is like the tip of the iceberg. These are the kind of words that are coming out of people’s mouths. It’s not a surprise.<\/p>\n

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“It’s very disheartening. It’s very concerning. We don’t know where this is going to go. But this is just the tip of the iceberg. Everybody better brace themselves, because he’s coming.”<\/p>\n

Mirror U.S. Sports <\/strong>has reached out to the White House for comment.<\/p>\n

In response, Patel, the FBI director, spoke with Laura Ingraham and vehemently denied the sports pundit’s allegations that the president is using his powers to crack down on the NBA because of the players’ left-leaning bias.<\/p>\n

“I’m the FBI director,” Patel explained to Ingraham<\/a>, the conservative pundit. “I decide which arrests to conduct and which not to conduct. That may be the single dumbest thing I’ve ever heard out of anyone in modern history, and I live most of my time in Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n

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“It’s right up there with Adam Schiff. We arrest people for crimes.”<\/p>\n

Later on Thursday, Billups’ attorney, Chris Heywood, issued a statement to ESPN in which he insisted that the Blazers head coach was innocent. Heywood also said that Billups “will fight these allegations with the same tenacity that marked his 28-year career.”<\/p>\n

“We look forward to our day in court,” the statement concluded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stephen A. Smith drags Donald Trump into the NBA betting scandal and issued a warning to the WNBA,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":333136,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[69,1260,62,2233,67,132,68,232],"class_list":{"0":"post-333135","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-donald-trump","9":"tag-nba","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-stephen-a-smith","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us","15":"tag-wnba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115438797199569493","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=333135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333135\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/333136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=333135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=333135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=333135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}