Over the weekend, the NBA fined Minnesota Timberwolves big man Rudy Gobert $100,000 for making an inappropriate gesture and criticizing officials after the Wolvesā overtime loss to Cleveland on Friday night. Gobert was hit with a technical in the final minute of the fourth quarter, which allowed Cleveland to tie the game when down one. Why the technical? After a pretty obvious foul was called on Gobert, he started rubbing his fingers together on each hand. Either he was celebrating Giants quarterback Tommy DeVito (š¤), making sure he still had feeling in his fingers, or Gobert was implying the referees were on the take for this game due to gambling reasons. But it couldnāt be that, right? Hereās what Gobert had to say after the game:
āMy reaction, which I think is truth ā itās what I truly believe ā even if itās the truth, it wasnāt the time for me to react that way. I should have not done that. I cost my team the game, and obviously, they couldnāt wait to give me a tech. That was bad. That was an immature reaction.ā
Uh ā¦ what? Rudy probably didnāt mean to imply that his gesture was ātruth.ā He continued when asked to clarify what he was alluding to:
āI think itās hurting our game. I know the betting and all that is becoming bigger and bigger, but it shouldnāt feel that way.ā
Oh. All right. Um ā¦ thatās uncomfortable. Iām curious how many players around the league believe gambling is truly infiltrating how the game is called, because that is a wildly serious accusation for someone to imply, then double and triple down on in postgame interviews. And Gobert is kind of the wrong messenger, mostly because heās on the record complaining/whining about small-market bias and that he thinks the league is outright helping bigger markets win against smaller markets.
Regardless of the messenger though, Adam Silver and the league office must be furious about this being said aloud. The league has embraced sports gambling. Itās everywhere in sports coverage, conversations and on league broadcasts. Silverās next comments on this will be intriguing.
D__Luxxx
Yeah I read this. Shams is a fucking joke.
train345643
Shocking coming from shams who appears on fan duels programming regularly. Definitely not a conflict of interest.
605_
These takes from the media are wild. Ā āWhy would Rudy Gobert ever think like that?ā Uhh probably because gambling has been prevalent in professional sports for decades and up until a couple years ago, it used to be under the table. Ā Now prime time ad spots are dedicated to draft kings? And then the media tries to spin it like weāre some conspiracy theorists. Scott Foster has been linked to illegal gambling and calling games one sided since I was fucking 10. Ā Just look up how he calls Chris Paul games, the stats donāt lie. Ā In no mother fucking world was Jarrett Allen fouled 15 god damn times and got to shot 20 free throws in a game. Ā Itās taking some of these teams the refs and the Twolves missing 25% of their team to eek out wins at home and the media doesnāt talk about us nor do they run segments on us. Ā Just go back and look at the tweet the NBA gave OKC when they were the #1 seed for 8 hours compared to when the Wolves took it back. Ā I donāt know what the Norse gods did to LA/New York media but Iāve been watching all Minnesota teams get absolutely shit on by media and shit calls my entire life and itās pretty fucking old.
bobbyshawarma_
Shams is so cringe
TakedaMauro
Charania works with FanDuel.
If this article isn’t making it evident that there’s an obscure connection between the league, sports media and gambling that the parties don’t want to acknowledge or be talked about, then I don’t know how it can be made more clear.
7 Comments
From the article:
Over the weekend, the NBA fined Minnesota Timberwolves big man Rudy Gobert $100,000 for making an inappropriate gesture and criticizing officials after the Wolvesā overtime loss to Cleveland on Friday night. Gobert was hit with a technical in the final minute of the fourth quarter, which allowed Cleveland to tie the game when down one. Why the technical? After a pretty obvious foul was called on Gobert, he started rubbing his fingers together on each hand. Either he was celebrating Giants quarterback Tommy DeVito (š¤), making sure he still had feeling in his fingers, or Gobert was implying the referees were on the take for this game due to gambling reasons. But it couldnāt be that, right? Hereās what Gobert had to say after the game:
āMy reaction, which I think is truth ā itās what I truly believe ā even if itās the truth, it wasnāt the time for me to react that way. I should have not done that. I cost my team the game, and obviously, they couldnāt wait to give me a tech. That was bad. That was an immature reaction.ā
Uh ā¦ what? Rudy probably didnāt mean to imply that his gesture was ātruth.ā He continued when asked to clarify what he was alluding to:
āI think itās hurting our game. I know the betting and all that is becoming bigger and bigger, but it shouldnāt feel that way.ā
Oh. All right. Um ā¦ thatās uncomfortable. Iām curious how many players around the league believe gambling is truly infiltrating how the game is called, because that is a wildly serious accusation for someone to imply, then double and triple down on in postgame interviews. And Gobert is kind of the wrong messenger, mostly because heās on the record complaining/whining about small-market bias and that he thinks the league is outright helping bigger markets win against smaller markets.
Regardless of the messenger though, Adam Silver and the league office must be furious about this being said aloud. The league has embraced sports gambling. Itās everywhere in sports coverage, conversations and on league broadcasts. Silverās next comments on this will be intriguing.
Yeah I read this. Shams is a fucking joke.
Shocking coming from shams who appears on fan duels programming regularly. Definitely not a conflict of interest.
These takes from the media are wild. Ā āWhy would Rudy Gobert ever think like that?ā Uhh probably because gambling has been prevalent in professional sports for decades and up until a couple years ago, it used to be under the table. Ā Now prime time ad spots are dedicated to draft kings? And then the media tries to spin it like weāre some conspiracy theorists. Scott Foster has been linked to illegal gambling and calling games one sided since I was fucking 10. Ā Just look up how he calls Chris Paul games, the stats donāt lie. Ā In no mother fucking world was Jarrett Allen fouled 15 god damn times and got to shot 20 free throws in a game. Ā Itās taking some of these teams the refs and the Twolves missing 25% of their team to eek out wins at home and the media doesnāt talk about us nor do they run segments on us. Ā Just go back and look at the tweet the NBA gave OKC when they were the #1 seed for 8 hours compared to when the Wolves took it back. Ā I donāt know what the Norse gods did to LA/New York media but Iāve been watching all Minnesota teams get absolutely shit on by media and shit calls my entire life and itās pretty fucking old.
Shams is so cringe
Charania works with FanDuel.
If this article isn’t making it evident that there’s an obscure connection between the league, sports media and gambling that the parties don’t want to acknowledge or be talked about, then I don’t know how it can be made more clear.
Hope Shams got a big check for this one