Did the Miami Heat get duped in the Terry Rozier trade? | Five on the Floor

Did the Miami Heat get duped in the Terry Rozier trade? | Five on the Floor

Welcome to the latest episode of Five on the Floor and the Five Reason Sports Network. Thanks for joining us on your favorite podcast app. On Apple, recommend Apple podcast. On Android, we recommend Spotify. Also check five reasons YouTube channel. It’s the place to find all your South Florida sports content. And check out Off the Floor. That’s our Discord server. It’s $2.99 per month. The place for the most heat anywhere, the most heat information and conversation. It’s Off the Floor. Finally, we’re sponsored here by our friends over at uh Real Estate Shop. That’s right, real estate FL.com. That’s two P’s and an E. Real estate shop FL.com is the place to go if you’re looking to buy or sell a house particularly in Broward County all the way east of Fort Lauderdale all the way west to Miramar Peendrick Pines. Amanda Javia they’ve got uh showings and open houses all weekend long. Check them out on Instagram as well. That’s Fort L the Fort Lauderdale realtor on Instagram or real estatefl.com. And now today’s episode. Uh-oh. Yeah, it’s mercy. Music by Mercy again. Keep nation the culture. Yo, I need you to call out radio traffic blanket open for the shot. Still five on the floor. Still ride for my dog on the court. Still survive in the wall. Keep your eye on the ball or get burned from the heat. This mic off the wall without turning the cheek. From night to day, no sleeping pad so allowed to mourn us. The nut is sleeping us. Never catch a storm alive from Miami. Report in the heat with five reason sports from the court to the streets. [Music] Hey, be patient. I’m so proud. [Applause] Welcome to Five on the Floor, a daily insider show on the Miami Heat and the NBA featuring Ethan Skolnick, Greg Sander, Alex Toledo, Brady Hawk, and others from the Five Reason Sports Network. Also, make sure to subscribe to Off the Floor for the most heat anywhere. All right, welcome back to Five on the Floor. A little bit of drama here on a weekend. Some good reporting done by Barry Jackson, Ara Winderman, Anthony Chang, and others. We’re talk about Terry Rosir. Terry Rosir not currently with the Miami Heat. He has been put on leave by the NBA, and of course, he was recently arrested as part of an investigation into gambling by the FBI. Uh, this case is probably going to be fairly slowmoving, so there’s not going to be a whole lot of details on that for a bit. And that leads into the fact that for hate fans who were hoping that there might be some kind of salary cap, luxury tax relief, that’s not sort of in the offing at the moment. And that’s kind of where uh some of these reporters have picked up the story. And this is one of those things that I think when this story came out, we actually I think I talked about this on one podcast that sort of a a a weird deal because this happened before the Heat or allegedly happened, I’m sorry. Be prior to the Heat acquiring Rosie. He was still a member of the Charlotte Hornets. This was late in the 2223 season. Uh he did not uh play a full game. uh played only a few minutes and came out uh supposedly with an ankle injury that he didn’t play the rest of the season. And there were a couple factors at play here. One was that Charlotte was kind of in tank mode at that stage, which is a whole other sort of issue. And so that was sort of perceived as the reason that he did he who was playing well actually for the team at the time. This is prior to the trade to Miami. Uh that’s why he didn’t play late in the season. Uh but also there were a whole bunch of uh prop bets that were made that were one on and like 30 out of 30 or something along those lines uh based on him not hitting his number, him going under his number. And again, the heat acquired him and it does not appear that they had knowledge of this investigation that was going on. No, but it appears that others did. Uh, I’m going to read this. And again, we kind of were throwing this out because we’re like there was too much smoke about this for the for for at least not to entertain the possibility that the Hornets might have known more than was let on. Uh, this is a story from the Miami Herald. 10 months before the Heat acquired Terry Rosier from the Charlotte Hornets, the NBA was alerted to unusual betting activity involving the veteran guard in the hours before the Hornets game against the New Orleans Pelicans. But following its own protocol, the NBA did not inform the Heat or other teams of that red flag in the months that followed. nor did it inform the Heat prior to the league approving the January 2024 trade that sent Rosier to the Heat for Kyle Lowry in a first round pick. Multiple sources told the Miami Herald this week. The Hornets also did not inform the Heat. Sources said the Hornets are refusing to say if they were even aware of the matter at the time of the trade. Well, again, allegedly, I don’t I don’t want to, you know, we got to be careful here. uh journalism. Mike Cristaldi, the Hornets chief communications officer, said the team would not say if the Hornets knew of the NBA’s investigation at the time of the trade, whether it had any knowledge of sports books flagging bets involving Rosier and why it did not inform the Heat if it didn’t know. The Heat, in fact, were unaware that Rosier was the subject of a separate NBA and a separate NBA and FBI investigations until the Wall Street Journal broke the story this past January. All of that has left the Heat seeking answers and they immediate aftermath of Rosir’s Thursday arrest stemming from his alleged involvement in a sports betting scheme. And as Sean Rogers I talked to, there’s really a couple of elements to this. There’s the prop betting side and then there’s this sort of seemingly bigger broader indictment related to part of the indictment related to poker games. These uh poker games that were essentially allegedly rigged. uh the Chanty Bilips might have been used as an attraction for uh among others and and there’s more to come on that. But Greg, I mean, let’s go to this. I mean, the heat the heat trade for Terry Rosier has been a disaster in all ways. Uh it’s probably the one trade in their history that they’d like to take back more than any other. Uh he has not performed at the level that they expected when they traded what had value, which was Lowry’s expiring contract in addition to a first round pick. It’s put them in a hole. uh he was acquired essentially to provide scoring uh in addition to Jimmy Butler who’s no longer here. They had horrible net ratings, especially offensive ratings uh when he played last season. And nobody behind the scenes says anything about Rosier as a person that’s negative. We you don’t hear that. Uh so you know that that’s not the issue. I mean what what happened in this case, what his involvement was. Again, the government is alleging something. His lawyer is alleging something different. We’ll see how it plays out. But I guess the overall point here is this this was a horrible trade to begin with. Um it’s something else sort of that’s happening here where now was there some slight of hand from the Hornets that not only did they sort of get over on the heat in a trade which that happens. I mean sometimes one team makes a bad trade whatever and I I can say I mean I I can’t say but I can assume that Rosier this hanging over Rosier’s head over the past year probably has not improved his performance in any way. It’s hard to know for sure. Um, but there’s another thing to say that a team knew about a trade and was trying to say, “Oh, well, we’re going to get rid of this problem without them finding out about it.” Um, if that’s the case, that’s pretty egregious. We just don’t know that that’s the case, right? No. And and but well, we don’t know that that’s the case and that they said to themselves, “We want to rid ourselves of this problem.” You know, like I’m using air quotes, uh, when they made the trade. It’s more of that if anyone was aware of anything and not only did Brian Winhorse discuss the way Terry Rosier didn’t complete that season after that game and he um it appeared to be that he was speaking from a sourced perspective but I mean y’all can go try to confirm with Wendy if you want. Um he he said something to the degree of the NBA kind of pulled him at that moment. And Adam Silver in a separate press conference was also quoted as talking about we’ve been monitoring this since 2023 is what what he said or two years ago or something like that is what his words were. I’m paraphrasing. So, we’re we we’ve arrived at a space where there’s a couple people and now Barry Jackson and Anthony Chang with the Herald have multiple sources that say the NBA was aware, the Hornets were aware. Obviously, I think both of those organizations um like the NBA, uh even the players association, there’s probably a part of them that when this kind of stuff pops off and it’s kind of quiet, they just hope that it dies and goes away. And I think that that’s probably what it was more likely was taking place. And then they, you know, the Heat came knocking with a trade offer. I don’t think the Hornets were like trying to deal him to get rid of this situation. Exactly. But I think also had the Heat known that this was even in the realm of possibility, it would have created another moment to give pause and then what has been an awful basketball trade wouldn’t be compounded by all of this other stuff that’s happening which probably won’t even result in any salary relief, Ethan. So, the last thing the Heat really have in terms of what can we make out of this situation that can be any level of positive, can you get a a comp like a right a compensatory pick if I’m saying that correctly? Um, where they kind of give you back a first round pick maybe at the end of the round or I don’t know where they’d put it. This is unprecedented. like that that’s the thing that now the Heat have to navigate like how do they push back on these people who apparently knew that Terry could have something going on and you don’t make that clear and now you know they’re out of draft pick right and the other part of this is that we don’t even know if Rosir is going to end up getting it’s one thing to say there was a swirl going on in the background in investigation there’s another thing if Rosier actually did it and Charlotte somehow had knowledge of it I don’t think anybody’s accusing them of that. It’s a knowledge of the investigation uh that’s going on and whether or not he ends up uh you know being convicted of this uh is not really relevant. The idea is there there was a there was an investigation at the time. I mean I guess it’s relevant in the sense of the Heat would lose his services for a period of time and then it plays into all the rest, you know, the the league decisions, but as far as what Charlotte knew, that’s not really relevant. It’s not really relevant whether or not Rosier ends up getting, you know, you know, paying the price for this from a legal perspective. It’s just that there was an investigation going on. There was a toxic cloud over a player. And getting back to that, this is one of the reasons why the Heat could not move him this off seasonason. It’s not like they didn’t try to. Now, by then, everybody knew that there was an investigation, right? I mean, there so the Heat would not have been doing anything wrong to try to move him for something else. It’s just that no team was going to touch him in light of this. And that that was an availability question and a reputation question and all of that. Uh but they did they did make an attempt and then people saying well they should have just bought him out. They should have done this. He wasn’t going to take a buyout because he wasn’t ever going to recoup the money from anywhere else. So any money that he gave back to the Heat, it didn’t make sense. It’s just like collect your money and then deal with what’s kind of going on in your life. It it was look it it was a terrible trade. Um which we’ve all sort of coped to that we were we understood this uh why they made the trade at the time and we were mostly in favor of the trade. they lost a trade. They don’t lose a lot of trades. They lost this one. In this particular case, though, you know, I just think this is going to be really slowmoving. Like the case itself is going to be slowmoving and I don’t see the NBA acting on the Heat’s concerns in any with any, you know, sort of fast timet. Like you said, a lot of this is unprecedented. It’s hard to really The other thing is the NBA doesn’t really do compensatory picks the way the NFL does. I mean, the NFL has them all the time. So, this is we’re getting into a new area here. The the level of proof that’s going to be required to show that Charlotte knew what was going on and specifically the person who made the trade for Charlotte knew what was going on. It’s tough. Um I I think it’s it’s it’s good reporting that was done here by by the guys at the Herald and the Sentinel to kind of advance the story and and show that the Heat, you know, don’t want to feel like they’ve been stepped on. Uh and I get that completely. And you know, some of these things play out like even last year, remember that all the fines with Jimmy Butler making such a big deal about those and then quietly and I know Ira had the story first. The Heat and Jimmy, you know, agreed to just cut the fines in half and typically that’s the kind of thing that ends up being negotiated. A lot of these things take a long time to play out. I mean, the Jimmy fines were months and months and months ago. So again, we we’re in a position where this is sort of unprecedented. Terry Roser is not going to play for the Heat again. We know that. Uh I I know he fans have sort of you know put it out there well could we get a 14th player uh and say under the the the luxury tax and all that which I know is a he concern. It does not appear that that’s going to happen right now. Um he are going to have to avoid injuries and lean into their two-ways uh because they’re not going to have a full roster here for a little bit at least until they can add a player in December without going over the tax. And and something that was brought up by uh Brian Goen, shout out to him, of Heatbeat, was that had they acted faster and say Rosier’s contract could be removed from the Heat’s books right now, it wouldn’t uh basic it wouldn’t they wouldn’t get cap space, but they would get the ability to use trade exceptions, which they have several of, but one being, you know, almost $17 million worth. Uh but also their mid-level exception can now be used to like take on a player from another team that fits in that salary slot. So they would have they would have had that kind of extra roster flexibility. But back to the initial um kind of the point of why we’re talking about this today is that we don’t want Heat fans to get their expectations up because if this is going to take a really long time and they’re going to want to cross every tea and dot every eye to make sure that it’s uh like really proven, it it’s more like from the Heat’s perspective, they’re more likely what they should target is the 2027 draft to try to get something back that maybe is in that time frame. frame cuz anything sooner than that, I don’t think they’re going to have clarity enough for the for the NBA to make like such an unprecedented move to like give them draft compensation or provide them salary relief. So, it’s more about aiming for a little bit further out uh because then maybe there’ll be more of a resolution from him from a legal perspective. Yeah. And again, that that’s something that uh you know, we talked about the the Heat sort of targeting 2027 in a bunch of different ways. Uh free agency as well. So, you see how things align at that point. All right, we’ll talk a little bit more about this, but I want to get back into the team here for a second. Uh, before we do though, I want to mention a great sponsor of the Five Reason Sports Network, another local sponsor, our friends over at 305800 PIN. That’s right, 305800 PIN. If you make a trade for Terry Rose here, might need to call them, but also give them give them a call if you have a car accident, slip and fall, anything along those lines. Based in Dell, they can service 247, get you to the right attorney to take care of your case and make sure you get your money. again. Car accident slip and fall. It’s 305800 pain. Bilingual based in Dorado Service South Florida. The right people to reach and the number is the branding and it’s 305800 pain. All right. Uh real quick here. They’re playing the Knicks tomorrow. Uh coming off a huge offensive showing. Should be fun. Home opener uh 6:00 game. And so we’ll see how this uh this plays out uh for them there against a Knicks team that’s had some injuries early in the season but is projected to be top three in the conference. What do you want to see against this team on Sunday after we saw that offensive explosion in Memphis? The pace continue to keep up. The fact that they’re um able to score, you know, 120 or more in both games. I don’t know that I want to necessarily start to um expect those high of scoring numbers, but just them being um in this new fast-paced uh offense where, you know, Bam said after the Memphis game that they he didn’t think they ran a single play in the first half. Like, I just want to see more of that. It’s fun to watch and I I said that on our postgame show. Um, and so against New York, who is a team that I I actually picked them to come out of the East, I think like this is probably the year where um they could probably figure that out. Uh, who knows? The East is wide open and so the Heat should defend home court. I think that they’re the season is new and a lot of crazy has already happened. A lot of really highscoring games and individual scoring games from people you don’t expect. Aaron Gordon dropping 50. So, let’s see more surprises. Spo talked to Eternal about surprises in Memphis. I’m I’m looking for that kind of stuff to kind of continue to see what we have here with this team because I don’t think we know just yet. Yeah, I think they’re still figuring some things out in terms of what the rotation’s going to look like. We’ve seen the starting lineup change. Uh now it looks like Spo was leaning on going to wear, which is not something I thought. So, uh it turns out I was right on that by accident because he was originally, I guess, going to go with wear. Uh again, Spo full of surprises. Uh, but the pace is the biggest surprise. Can they keep it up? Can they keep it up against a good defensive team that’s motivated? Um, now the Knicks are going to be a little bit different this year because Mike Brown focuses more on offense than defense. Tibido is kind of the other direction. Uh, but there are some there are some good defensive players on that team though. and and so I’m curious to see how that plays out. If the ball’s still going to pop, if they can stay with it when they’re not making shots, and then if they can continue to as they did in Memphis, but not necessarily in Orlando, build that into their defense as well. But I’ll be on hand on Sunday night. Again, thanks to our sponsors, 305800P, also real estatefl.com. Have a good one. Thank you for listening to the five on the floor on the five reason sports network. After all, someone needs to listen to my dad.

What did the Charlotte Hornets and NBA know, and when they know it, related to the 2024 trade of Terry Rozier to the Miami Heat, after the alleged events that led to Rozier’s inclusion in an FBI gambling investigation? The South Florida newspapers did some reporting on that — so Ethan Skolnick and Greg Sylvander discuss it.

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