Thoughts on the Jontay Porter Saga
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Jontay Porter was banned for life from the NBA yesterday. Let’s discuss.
This is a way bigger deal than most will make it out to be. Jontay Porter isn't a big name. He isn't an all star. He doesn't have big numbers. He was undrafted and played very sparingly. But what he did is the exact same thing that Pete Rose did to get booted from the MLB. He bet on tons of games with tons of parlays and gave insider info to other gamblers. In fact, what Porter did may be worse than what Pete Rose did when you break it down. He placed an 80,000 dollar bet that, if it had cashed, he could have won 1.1 million dollars. He placed 13 separate bets with an associates online betting account. He also placed a prop bet, I guess based on minutes played, for a game in which he only played a few minutes. He checked himself out because he said that he "wasn't feeling well". I mean, how dumb do you have to be?
Seriously, how did it get this bad for Porter? Why did he have to gamble on these games? What was there to gain for him, basically shaving points? I get that he was a two way player. I understand that he was probably making whatever the league minimum is for NBA players. I'm sure he was making as much as the last few players on the bench. But he was still getting paid pretty well for a bench guy in the NBA. The league minimum for an NBA player is 1.1 million dollars. So, by just being a deep bench player, after getting called up to the Raptors in a down year for them, he was still a millionaire. He was still making six figures. His family was making money hand over fist. His brother, Michael Porter Jr, makes a ton of money playing for the Nuggets. So, I have to believe this was not about the money. There is something else at stake here.
I, if I had to guess, would say that Porter liked the thrill, and by playing in some of these games that were being bet on, he could control the outcome. I have to think that by putting 80 grand on a prop bet, he was excited by the thrill of making close to his base salary on one single bet. I would guess that he is a gambling addict, and I wonder how deep this goes for him. He had no reason to do it. He has more than enough money. So, to continually bet over and over again, that is the sign of a true addict. He couldn't get enough of it. And when he could control some of the bets a little bit, he got greedy. He took it too far. He went way over the line. This could have been stopped. He could have told the people he was placing bets with that he was done. His brother could have tried to stop him. But, like a true addict, he just had to bet. I wonder if the 80 grand bet was him thinking, this is the last one and then I'm out. But, I have to venture to think that it wasn't the last one. Not by a long shot. And now Jontay Porter is paying the price for his addiction. He is no longer allowed in the league that he worked so hard to make it to. He can't even play in the G League. He is going to have to settle for a professional league overseas, if any team will even sign him.
This is a bad look for Jontay Porter. He is done. His NBA days are officially over, and all for some stupid bets. There are many reasons not to gamble, and Porter may have found the main reason why not. His NBA career is over and he did it to himself. That is a bummer.
Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing, the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast, and the greatest basketball writer on the internet.
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