BOMBSHELL: Heat’s Terry Rozier ARRESTED in FBI Sting | $26 Million Contract Potentially VOIDED?

BOMBSHELL: Heat’s Terry Rozier ARRESTED in FBI Sting | $26 Million Contract Potentially VOIDED?

Jerry Razir was arrested early Thursday morning and his NBA career could be over. What’s next for Razir and for the Heat? We break it down today’s episode of Locked on Heat. [Music] You are Locked on Heat. Your daily Miami Heat podcast, part of the Locked On Network, your team every day. All right, welcome to Locked on Heat your daily podcast on the Miami Heat. Whether you’re tuning in on YouTube or on your favorite podcast app, thanks for making Locked on Heat your first listen every day. Today’s episode is brought to you by FanDuel. Right now, new customers can bet just $5. And if your bet wins, you’ll get $300 in bonus bets to use across the app. Head to fanduel.com today to get started. I’m Wes Goldberg, host of Locked on NBA Daily and Real GM radio. I’m here with David Rill. Both of us are credentialed Heat Media members who cover this team every day. Make sure if you haven’t checked it out yet, our postgame reactions to the Miami Heats season opening loss to the Orlando Magic. Some negatives, some also some positives to come out of that game. We’re going to look ahead to tonight’s game against the Memphis Grizzlies here or Friday night’s games against the Memphis Grizzlies here in a second, but we do have a lot to get to today. Breaking news, David, from this morning. The Department of Justice announced on Thursday that Tara Rosier, along with Johny Bilips, has been arrested as part of a pair of wide-ranging investigations related to illegal sports betting and a rigged poker game backed by the mafia. The NBA announced shortly after that Bilops and Rosier have been placed on leave from their teams. So, Ter Rosier will not be with the Heat for the foreseeable future, including Friday night’s game in Memphis, and is being charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money. David, authorities picked up Rosir at 6 am from the team hotel in Orlando just hours after the Heat lost to the Magic in their season opener. Uh we heard about the news shortly after that. What was your reaction? Absolutely shocked. We know about his involvement and they had been long discussed perhaps even as a factor for his performance last year that it was weighing heavily on him. There were a lot of different things that we had just not really gotten any kind of clarification from. Obviously, there was an injury and we didn’t know exactly what was going on with Terry, but it seemed like he was not the player he was supposed to have been when he had acquired him. And yet, you knew that there was some kind of link and yet also the league had absolved him of any kind of wrongdoing that it looked like he was going to be able to move forward, put that past him, and kind of lean into a bounceback year. So, I was really surprised to hear that not only was there no clearance whatsoever, but that the FBI was showing up at his hotel room early in the morning while he’s on the road to arrest him and uh again putting his career and his jeopardy and and you know affecting him greatly. So, this is as we continue to get into this and get more detail and right now obviously still very vague as far as we have some clarity regarding what’s going on. But, uh, I will ask that I think people should have some sort of empathy for a player like this isn’t like he committed some kind of significant physical violent crime or anything like that. And so, let’s not uh be quick to make jokes about somebody whose life is greatly impacted uh by this process here. So, I’m just putting that out there as a personal note. Okay. Yeah. And and Rosier’s attorney uh has already released a statement to the media u denying these allegations uh saying that they’re going to fight these allegations in court and they’re going to win. We’ll see obviously what comes of that. Um also worth noting that the reporting around the Terry Rosier stuff had been a little confusing, right? We’ve obviously known about this for about a year, a little bit more now. And I know Shamsani on ESPN had reported on the Pat McAfee show a few months ago that Ter Rosier had been cleared again, right? He was cleared of wrongdoing by the NBA initially and that uh and then Shams reported that it seemed like the investigation had been reopened but then was cleared again. Definitely a little bit of confusing language there, right? And maybe he was cleared by the NBA, but he was never fully cleared evidently by the FBI who just arrested him. So, I I think that’s the other surprising part of this is that there were some people who saw that initial headline a few months ago and thought, “Oh, I thought this was already done. Why is he being arrested?” That was a little confusing. Um, so the uh the the the FBI holds a press conference at 10:00 a.m. on Thursday. They announced that um Terra Rosir alongside Chanty Bilips and former NBA player and coach Damen Jones have been arrested a part as a part of uh an a sting operation that have included more than 30 different arrests and included the mob uh and and the five New York families and all of this stuff. Like it it’s it’s go into detail on this. It’s worth the dive to figure out exactly what’s happening if you haven’t already done it, which I can’t imagine that you you haven’t. We’re going to focus on Terry Rosier and the Miami Heat part of this for our purposes here on Lockdown Heat. Here’s what’s being alleged by the Department of Justice. Uh it’s important, like you said before, to keep in mind everything that I’m about to say comes with the caveat allegedly. So, this is directly from So, what I’m about to read you comes straight from the uh the file that uh that was um from the Department of Justice um and everything that they found here in terms of their investigation. And if you’re watching on YouTube, we have a screenshot of of some of the the pieces here up there where Terry Rosier is named in this investigation. So, um, let’s start here. The charges against Terry Rosier allegedly, uh, stem from a game on March 23rd, 2023 when he was still a member of the Charlotte Hornets. They were playing the New Orleans Pelicans that night. Rosier provided information to a man named Dairo Ler who lived in Ohio and he went by the nickname Peso. Rosier told Ler that he was going to claim an injury and remove himself from the game early despite the fact that he wasn’t listed on the injury report that morning. Um Ler sold that information to at least six different people who all placed varying bets on the unders on Rosier for that game. Here’s what’s interesting, David. Interestingly enough, I at least found this part interesting. Five of those six placed bets that ranged from $800 to $17,000 that day were all placed at the same sports book. Five of the six betterers placed it all at the same sports book, which is part of the reason why this was flagged and investigated at the time by the NBA in the first place, which found no wrongdoing at that time. Yeah, I don’t know what possesses somebody to say, you know, I’m feeling $107,000 on Terry not getting 20 points tonight. And that makes that kind of a good choice there. So along with five of five people I don’t know, you know, just four, I’m sorry, four other strangers that I don’t know, and let’s all just decide simultaneously that this seems like a good amount to place on Terry Rosier not getting his numbers up tonight. So I I don’t know. That’s it. It seems very bizarre and obviously raises eyebrows, I would say. Right. Yes. So that’s what that’s what it’s just like Jonte Porter, right? I mean, it was the same thing. It was like all of a sudden like who puts this much money on this one particular for particular aspect of a player that I mean most people don’t really tend to parlay that money on. So it’s just a and by the way Dante Porter is part of this investigation. He’s also in this file that I’m reading from here like it’s all part of the same thing to your point. So yeah, raises eyebrows, especially when David, that night, Ter Roier leaves the game after playing just about nine minutes, a little bit more than nine minutes in that game, resulting immediately in the success of bets placed on the unders for his points, assists, and made three-pointers. He did have four rebounds in 9 minutes. That was pretty good. But everybody that placed bets on the unders on points, assists, and made three-pointers got that money. He played just nine minutes in that game after claiming a foot injury. again, not listed on the injury report with a foot injury. And according to these files, the Hornets had no idea that his foot was even bothering him. Now, he could say that, hey, I didn’t it wasn’t bothering me until the first nine minutes of that game. Something tweaked, whatever. But that’s essentially what happened there. Um, something perfectly normal, like we never assume that it’s tied to anything bigger than what it is. And it’s just a player gets hurt, something, they roll an ankle, they step something awkwardly, and next thing you know, they come out of the game and it’s going to be out for the rest of the game. and uh normal unless hundreds of thousands of dollars have been placed on your unders for this exact night. Um and so that’s that’s where we are. I also want to talk about two more people that are involved here because Ler seems to be according to this report sort of the ring leader here that’s that’s getting this information from Terry Rosier. Terry Rosier allegedly feeding him this information. By the way, I’m going to leave this game early. Time to bet the unders. Laster is then distributing this information. Two other people that we need to talk about, Marv Fairley and Shane Hennon, who both claim to be successful sports betterers on Instagram. They’re one of these like Instagram influencer sports betting type people. Fairley who goes by VZ is from Mississippi. Hennon, who goes by Sugar, lives in Pennsylvania. I love the nicknames in this and I love that the FBI is including all of these nicknames and then just drops the nicknames and then never references the nicknames again. Like that’s I would only if I was writing this report refer to them via the nickname, you know. So we’ve got Peso, Vz, and Sugar. Also, they they they they said that um they they they referenced Cary Terry in in terms of Terry Rosier’s nickname, too. Like they’re putting all of them in there. Um which shows me I’ve got to get better nicknames here. I I just I’m I don’t know. Calling you Sugar. No, please don’t. appreciate it. Sugar a mill. Um, so, uh, we’ve got VZ and we got Sugar here and they are among the people that last year sold this information to. So, Fairly, uh, Vez then provided this information to Hennon. Sugar, right? Fairly gave that information to Hennan and then Hennon arranged for multiple other bets to be placed and then would give Fairley a kickback on the profits. So now we’ve got even more stuff going on here. Yeah. Right. And we got a little bit of a ladder of kickbacks allegedly happening here now. So that’s all happening. Tay Rosier goes to the game, removes himself after 9 minutes. A bunch of the unders on those three props uh uh get triggered and and they pay out. Five days after the game, Terra Rosier helps arrange for Ler to go to Philadelphia where Sugar lives to collect from Sugar. Around then, Fairley/Sugar gave Ler what the FBI calls quote tens of thousands of dollars in cash in payment for that insider information. That insider information was obviously the information that Rosier was feeding Ler. Laster then drives from Philadelphia to Charlotte about a 9-hour drive. And in the early morning hours of April 1st at Rosier’s home, Rosier and Ler allegedly count the money from Fairly in Rosier’s home. And that’s the end of the FBI investigation into Terara Rosier. So, we’re going to put uh a pin in the kish on that for now. We’re going to come back. What happens now? The NBA has already announced that Terry Rosier has been placed on immediate leave uh for the foreseeable future. He will not be playing for the Miami Heat in quite for quite some time. Maybe not ever again. Potentially even his contract could get voided. What does that mean for Terry Rosier? What does it mean for the Miami Heat and their impact to the salary cap? We’ll talk about that next here on Locked on Heat. Today’s episode is brought to you by Robin Hood. Your ambition just met its match. With Robin Hood, you play for the win. Not just on game day, every day. Looking in on every opening, beating your PR, beating it again. Channel that drive into your money. Robin Hood puts you in control of your money. Trade stocks and EF ETFs, options, futures, and crypto all on one platform. You can now build and execute your own trades from a desktop with Robin Hood Legends advanced tools. or take advantage of the new Robin Hood strategies with a tailored portfolio managed by a team of experts. You expect more from yourself. Expect more from your money. Get started today at robinhood.com/youmoney. Again, that’s robinhood.com/youmoney. Your money, your move. Today’s episode is also brought to you by Door Dash. 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So, next time someone goes off for 50, use the promo code NBA50 the next day and you get 50% off on Door Dash with Dashpass, plus your shot at the backdrop. Dash Pass members only. 50% off up to $10 the day after a 50 point game with promo code terms to apply. No purchase necessary and it ends April 13th. Open a US residents 21 or older. Visit door-inyourbag.com for full details. Door Dash inyourbag all season long. We’ll be right back. [Music] Thanks again for making Lockdown Heat your first listen every day. So, a bunch more stuff to get to here. This is from a reporter who was in Orlando uh to see uh uh where Terry Rosier was arrested today uh for his trial this afternoon. Rosier was released uh today had to put up $6 million uh in Florida property as collateral for bond. So not released from his contract, but just released on bond. Uh he walked into court handcuffed and shackled at the ankles, was wearing a Hornets hoodie. defense attorney called uh the New York prosecutor’s behavior draconian. Um so that that was uh from Mike Valente who uh is a uh reporter over at um uh uh CBS affiliate in Orlando who was there reporter courtroom reporter. Yes, that’s right. So uh Ter Rosier that that was the arrangement this afternoon. He’s obviously now walking uh free I suppose on bond but uh won’t be playing for the Miami Heat anytime soon. The NBA has already placed Rosier on leave. has not yet commented as of 5:30 on Thursday evening has not yet commented on whether it will void Tay Rosier’s contract or not. Rosier is on the books uh this season for $26.6 million uh in an expiring contract. They do however have the ability to void Tay Rosier’s contract immediately regardless of what happens here on out as a result of this FBI investigation. um they have they can do so under two provisions in the CBA that have to do with sports gambling as it relates to players. So there’s section 12, there’s section 19 in the CBA. I don’t have to get into the nitty-gritty. Section 12 uh deals with a player dismissed and disqualified for gambling violations. Those players are immediately banned for at least one year and their contracts become null and void, no pay, roster spot becomes open, and there’s no appeal process for those players. Reinstatement requires approval from both the NBA and the players association. Section 19 covers uh involvement in betting and sport and fantasy sports companies. Uh Rosier’s case could fall under either one of those provisions, but there are provisions in the CBA that deal directly with this, which is really the point there. And underscoring that under these provisions, the the league, the NBA itself, the front office can automatically terminate his deal with the Heat. They can come in and just say, “Nope, you do not have a contract anymore.” and that would end his contract on the spot right away. And once the contract is voided, once that happens, David, it is removed completely from the team’s salary cap. So that $26.6 million, the Heat would no longer owe Rosier that money. It would no longer count against the cap. It wouldn’t count against the luxury tax. It wouldn’t count against the aprons. It would just come off the books. Poof, gone. So, if that were the case, the Heat would not have cap space, right? They would still not we they wouldn’t be operating as a cap space team, but they would uh have access to the full mid-level exception at $14 million. They’d also be able to use their trade exception that they created in the in the Duncan Robinson trade, $16.8 million. They have access to it now, but if they used it, it would take them way over the apron. If Rosier’s $27 million just came off, $26.6 $6 million just came off the books. They could use either the mid-level exception or that trade exception. That trade exception is really interesting because at $16.8 million, that’s a lot of money. You could just absorb a player into that trade exception from another team and not have to send in any salary back. And they could potentially do that and still stay under the luxury tax if Rosier’s contract was voided. They could do that in order to fill Rosier’s roster spot uh with somebody that isn’t just a minimum a veteran minimum signing off of free agency. So there’s a lot of interesting things here that could potentially happen if Terra Rosier’s contract is voided. I think a lot of Heat fans would be very interested in something like that happening for obvious reasons. Rosier, even when he was healthy and available, it was just him and Kashad Johnson were the only guys who didn’t play on opening night. Everybody else played and that seems to be what the plan is going to be going forward for Terry Rosier if this didn’t obviously had this not happened here where he was arrested. But um getting a useful player at that spot would be beneficial for the basketball product. Um but again, nothing has been decided yet, right? Um there’s always the possibility the NBA does nothing and I think that bears noting. I think yes, that is always a possibility and so I think a lot of he fans have already projected that a major move will be coming etc. And I just caution against that because I don’t know what’s going to happen. Having said that, my personal thought process is that the NBA will act quickly. uh they don’t want this kind of public blemish. They tend to make moves that are about saving face and appearing to be an organization that is proactive in dealing with this. They’re already kind of caught with their hand in the alleged cookie jar for having absolved Terry and perhaps not even knowing about Bip’s involvement at all. And so they’re already saying, “Well, we made a mistake. Clearly the FBI found something we did not.” And so we let him off the hook. This is me theorizing what could happen. And as such, that’s the interesting part because they already said that Terier did nothing wrong. And then the FBI is coming in and say, “No, he did.” He did. Does the NBA say, “Ah, yeah, you’re right. Actually, he definitely did something right. We were wrong.” Like they could, and I think Adam Silver could probably say like, “Yeah, the FBI found stuff that we couldn’t find. They’re the FBI. We’re the NBA.” And I think you can almost stay that way. Absolutely. Absolutely. the the league is not set up to conduct investigations on their players, nor should they be. Like you wouldn’t want any company that you work for to be capable of digging into that sort of past or anything like or your involvement in anything like that because that opens up Yeah. Yeah. That opens up a whole hell of a lot of possibilities that most people do not want, including NBA players. And so, uh, having said that, again, I think the league does act quickly. I think they will terminate Terry’s contract. They just that’s what they did with Jonte Porter. A far lesser player that was far more under the radar than this latest investigation here. And that being the case, I think they they moved, didn’t they enact a lifetime ban? They did. Like this was a player who was not even going to play and was already out of the league and they were like, “Nope, we don’t want to have anything to do with you ever again.” Really easy to put a lifetime ban on a guy who wasn’t going to be in the NBA for very much longer in Jonte Porter. Maybe more like either way. But either way, I think with Terry, I think they still have to go that route like they just this is me guessing again. I think they will make that move because they just cannot as an organization seem like they are okay with this and and given the leak example of him, right? Like I think that’s part of this. Um, and if you again Jonte Porter is in this exact file. He’s in this file and the NBA put a lifetime ban on him. Yeah. So you like Don’t It almost feels like if you did it for him, don’t you kind of have to do it to Terry Rosier? It it sucks, right? Every I even talking about it. It seems so punitive. It just seems but you know I think I’ve talked about this story before a long aside here but kind of shows like there was a player named Fred Carter back in the day who used to smoke cigarettes and he was a smoker as many players were at the time and so even at the time they uh players would smoke during halftime and things of that sort and there was a new coach there. He was kind of an interim coach. He was kind of wishy-washy but he wanted to enact this kind of healthy new policy. He’s like you know guys we’re not going to smoke in the locker room anymore. was passing one of their rules and Carter who was a star of the team was like, “But coach, I was smoking cigarette during halftime.” And then he was like, “Well, all right, Fred. If you want to do it, you can do it.” And and so everybody knew right away that this coach couldn’t be taken seriously. I know that was kind of a long-winded way of saying if they make an exception for Terry Porter, then what the hell is going to they’re going to show the rest of the players in the league. So, they cannot afford to make an exception. They won’t. They just won’t. This is I agree with you. Adam Siller is too aware of the sensitivity of this and I’m sure they’ll work together with the players union and everything else like that to figure it out. But this is clearly baked into the CBA just for this occasion and the CBA didn’t make much of a stink over Porter. I don’t think they will over and the Porter case is slightly different than the Rosier case in that Porter was allegedly placing bets on himself, right? If I have that right. Um I think it was associates again like not him placing money but telling Yeah. But in that sense, it’s almost similar. Like if No, it is. Yeah. I’m I’m not going to make my 20 points tonight if you want to put money on it. I’m only gonna play nine minutes. Not time to bang the unders on it. So, um yeah, I look it it’s going to be interesting to see what what happens here. I agree with you. If the NBA does something, it feels like they should probably and will probably do something quickly. At the very least, this is an issue for the NBA. It’s an issue for Adam Silver. Adam Silver has been open about talking about how sports gambling is an issue. We obviously saw how how he responded with Deontay Porter. So there’s a precedent here. Um so it wouldn’t shock me. What is is it an issue? I was talking with maybe we talk about that on the other side of the break. We got to talk about um whether or not sports gambling is an issue in the NBA and then maybe we’ll have a couple minutes here for a quick preview of Miami. We have we have to talk about what Miami does next too because I think there’s if this if we believe and we do that this contract will be voided soon. We talked about the options. What does Miami do with those options now available to them? You surprised me going to break there. Today’s episode is going Today’s episode brought to you by Rouette. Let’s be real. Making excuses doesn’t solve anything. We’ve all heard them before. It’s just stress. I’m tired. Well, it happens to everyone sometimes. But when it comes to performance, sometimes your body just needs a little extra support. And that’s where Rouette comes in. Rouiette.com offers fast acting doctor prescribed treatments for ED designed to help you stop making excuses and start making moves. Rouette makes it easy to get started. You just connect with a boardcertified doctor 100% online. No awkward waiting rooms, no inperson appointments. If prescribed, your treatment ships discreetly and straight to your door. The process is fast, simple, and private. And it’s all handled by real doctors. It’s about confidence, connection, and getting back to the moments that matter. Visit rug gi.comlockdownba. 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[Music] Um, maybe we don’t have time to dive into the uh existential is sports gambling a problem with the NBA, but Adam Silver is talking about, hey, we try to we want to eliminate prop bets uh on some of these lesserk known players. We got to work with sports gambling companies to do that. And it kind of feels like maybe that should have been done before the full embrace of sports gambling into the NBA. But that’s fair. That’s fair. I I just I also don’t want people kind of uh screaming chicken little style that the sky is falling or that we have to start questioning whether or not anything I’ve seen people already and I know it’s social media, so take it for what it’s worth. And yet everybody’s already kind of saying, “Huh, what the NBA rigged? No way.” As if like people act under the impression already that the NBA is rigged. I mean, between this and the Kawhi Leonard stuff where you have owners paying players under the table and it’s very similar kind of response where it’s like, yeah, obviously they’re doing this and it’s like that really should not be that that to me is a problem for the NBA that that’s even that’s fair. I think that the two are different though. I just I I don’t want I’m trying to say this in a way so that fans don’t act alarmist needlessly to to think that their best players are purposely crapping the bed. When you and I talk to these guys regularly and know how competitive they are, they would give their left arm for a championship and that’s how they view this thing, not I’m going to take the random Tuesday off so my boy Peso can make a couple hundred,000. Don’t forget about Sugar. Um, Sugar you wanted to know about what comes next. What specifically were you thinking? No, I just I think again you talked about having this trade exception available to them. You had the mid-level exception. What is Miami gonna do with it? Like again, you’re gonna trade for a player. I think everybody’s thinking Terry’s gone. Immediate roster improvement. I just don’t see it happening. That’s not It’s going to take a little while for a team to completely fall apart in one way and then that’s when players start getting moved. Like at this as of this moment right now, teams like their rosters. They’re fine with it. Right now, everybody’s 0 and one or one and0 and it’s okay. And so not until I think closer to the trade deadline do we see a player who has to get moved or that a team is looking to move that might fit into that space available by Terry’s contract being voided. They could add a center right away. They could bring back pressure to chew right away which means maybe that unlocks the KL wear BAM stuff a little bit more. Maybe that’s I don’t know that this is a fact, but it could be a reason why we haven’t seen Bam and wear together very much is because they’re just like we can’t really afford to do that uh in case one of these guys gets injured or whatever because we just don’t have another big available. But um it would go ahead. Would would you rather have Precious Aua or DeAndre Jordan at this point? Precious Aua. Okay, there. Yeah, I’d rather talk to DeAndre Jordan. Nothing against Jordan is like one of the one of the goat locker room guys, but um it I it would open up an immediate avenue for Miami to be a major player before the trade deadline, which I’m not sure they are right now. A major player, not necessarily going to get a superstar or whatever like, but hey, you guys got to get off a contract and we’re here. and they could potentially do the thing where, yeah, send us your player, send us a draft pick, too, to take care of this problem for you because you’re going to have teams like the Boston Celtics who are still over the second apron or the first apron. You’re going to have teams that are over the aprons that by, to your point, January, February, maybe not right now, but by mid-season, before the deadline, are saying, you know what, maybe not our year. Let’s start to save some money here. It wouldn’t be an immediate thing for the Heat probably, but it would be a thing in the middle of the year where you’re potentially looking at a roster upgrade. A name like Sam Hower comes to mind right away, right? Boston could shop Hower. There’s a number of teams with the trade exception that could fit his $10 million into Miami would become one of them. And I think he has an obvious like he could just come in and help shoot threes and pick up the pace and all these things too. And you would be taking him from the Celtics, which is an added bonus. You think about maybe a guy like Mike Connley in Minnesota. Maybe they’re trying to get off of his $10 million. I don’t know how excited I am about my Connley at this stage of his career, but the Timberwolves could be ready to move on. They’re playing Bones Highland a lot. Rob Dillingham is there. Um Robert Williams III, if he’s can can stay healthy in Portland. Portland’s weirdly expensive. Would they try to ship him off or somebody like uh Matis Stybball or something like that? These aren’t to your point, David, probably like all inspiring names, but they are names that could help you at least in the short term. And I also looked at contracts that wouldn’t be on the books long term, right? They’re not infringing on the 2027 offseason plan or anything like that. Right. Right. Um, so, okay, that that gives a little clarity, I think, to our listeners who are kind of wondering it one clearing Terry’s salary off the books doesn’t mean that you immediately have $30 million to go acquire Ed, right? There’s no cap space. like they’re still an over the cap team, but they would be so under the tax that they could do all of this stuff without going over the tax, triggering the repeater tax, all that stuff. It would give them enough and and and so for all intents and purposes, that’s what Heat fans care about. Are you above the tax? Are you above the first apron? Are you above the second apron? Nobody the salary cap itself is almost fake. So they would be over the cap team. So you couldn’t just sign a free agent to $26 million that you just had voided. Like that doesn’t work. But you could potentially use these avenues to go acquire a player. You And by the way, if Rosier’s contract got voided, so is his roster spot. So Miami would go from 14 players under contract to 13 players, which would mean they would have to assign somebody right away. And that would pro I would I would guess it’s Precious Achua at that point. Maybe it’s somebody else that they’re looking at, but they would add somebody to the roster probably at a veteran minimum right away and then decide what to do with these other mid-level exceptions or trade exceptions that they’d have available to them. Okay. Quickly now, the Heat will be in Memphis uh Friday night to try to get their first win of the season. We’re going to call this keys to credit cookies. David, how did the Heat get some credit cookies for this thing? I’m looking at three things. The first thing I’m looking at, you got to contain John Marant. He goes off for 35 points in the Grizzlies opener. Looks great. Like did all of his work in the paint. Looked like prime peak jaw. I’m looking at the matchup. Da’Von Mitchell versus Jarant. It’s gonna be a tough one from DaVon Mitchell. Absolutely. uh just has a speed but uh you know Morant is quick and uh very slippery and can just score in a number of ways. So it’s going to be tough. Uh you hope that DaVon doesn’t get into poul trouble because then after that a lot of Drew Smith minutes perhaps you know we could see if maybe he can step up and handle that responsibility as well. So I’m going to see we’re going to see a lot of Mitchell Smith kind of having the their their work cut out for them trying to handle John Morant. Um, another point I’m looking at obviously I think how how they handle the size issue because uh, you know, they’ve got Edy there, they’ve got Junior. Oh, Ed’s out. That’s right. They’ve got Jiren Jackson Jr. You saw him a couple days ago in the preseason. Um, that matchup Bam seems to take a little bit more personally. So, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that Bam’s probably going to have a much better game than he did in the season opener. I mean, have much of a worse one. Yeah. Yeah. So, I think he’s I think he’s going to take that match up seriously because he he does like to prove a point against Aaron Jackson Jr., one of those guys that he sees alongside Miles Turner as a a potential peer, I guess, or something along those lines. So, I Jar Jackson Jr. fouling problems again in Memphis’s opening game. That’s just that comes with the Jiren Jackson Jr. experience at this point. Um, you’re right. Bam takes that match up personally. That’s the other big matchup. It’s John Morant and against Miami’s defense, specifically DaVon Mitchell, Andrew Smith. That’s a good call out. Um, and then Bam versus Jiren Jackson. Bam has to outplay Jiren Jackson. It just feels like he needs this bounceback game after a really tough game in Orlando and then giving up that offensive rebound at the end to Wendell Carter Jr. and all these things. The other part to your point, control the boards, match their size easier without Zack Edi and Brandon Clark, but Jiren Jackson Jr. is there. Memphis does crash the board. They have a lot of size on the wing that they used to crash the boards with. Um they have Jay Huff there now. Uh so there’s guys that can provide that size. And we saw Eric Spolstra admit, yeah, he probably didn’t match up size enough with Orlando uh down the stretch, which cost them those those key offensive rebounds. Do we see a little bit of a tweak there with Spose lineups, especially in the fourth quarter? And and that brings me to my my last kind of matchup here that I’m looking at. Cedric Howard looks great for Memphis. He looked great in the preseason. He looked awesome in their season opener with 14 points. I love Cedric Howard. We did our blue notebook on him. I was like, “This guy might be top five for me in this draft. I love this guy.” Uh, five is this is a really good draft. Top 10. Um, how do they match up with Coward and how does Coward match up with Miami’s young guys? Are we getting another big aggressive Himeme Hawkeye’s junior game? Um, does Nik Yoic step up and be that young guy from Miami? Is it a Pella Larson game who he comes in, plays two minutes, and basically fouled himself off the court um in in the season opener? I just want to see somebody go headto-head with Cedric Howard and GG Jackson and Vince Williams and all these sort of young energetic wings that this Memphis team has that just tend to c you overlook them in the preview and then they cause problems for you the game on the night of the game. Yeah. Um and Spo too. I I think a lot of people I mean he he admitted that he made a mistake. So how does he handle this? How does he make those in-game adjustments and respond after what was probably not his best job and where maybe if he had changed something in the rotation might have helped Miami uh at least be in a position to win rather than in the position to lose. So I think uh I’m curious to see how he handles his rotation and and you know what how he handles the whole Rosier issue. Um, we know how these things, you know, can affect a locker room. Terry, a guy that’s wellliked there. And so, you know, that it’s going to be a little bit of a cloud for a team that just experienced a seasonl long hangover and trying to deal with a lot of different emotional things. This is not the way you want to start off a season. And so, how spoke gets them ready and has him put that stuff behind them. I don’t think anybody in that locker room is going to hold any resentment towards Terry in the same way that maybe they did hold resentment towards Jimmy Butler. So, it probably is going to feel a little bit different, but you also have to be able to provide some leadership and say, “Just put it past it. We don’t know what’s going to happen with Terry. We don’t know what’s going to happen with his career. Focus on yourselves. Focus on trying to get the season going and get yourself a dub.” They’ll be asked about it, too, as we know, right? And rightfully so. So, um, let us know what you think in the comments section about the Terzero situation. Let us know what you think about tonight’s game against the Memphis Grizzlies. For now, thank you for making Lockdown Heat your first listen every day.

Breaking news: Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier was arrested Thursday morning in connection with an FBI investigation into illegal sports betting and money laundering tied to a Mafia-backed poker ring.

In this urgent episode of Locked On Heat, hosts Wes Goldberg and David Ramil break down the shocking details of the arrest, what’s alleged in the Department of Justice’s report, and how it could end Rozier’s NBA career. They also explain how the Miami Heat’s salary cap and roster flexibility could change if the league voids Rozier’s $26.6 million contract. Later, they discuss what the Heat can do next — from trade exception options to potential replacements like Precious Achiuwa — and preview the matchup against Ja Morant and the Memphis Grizzlies. Get the full legal, financial, and basketball breakdown from two credentialed Heat reporters covering every angle of this developing story.

00:00 – Intro
01:00 – Full Details of Rozier’s Involvement and Timeline
12:00 – Rozier Released – Latest Courtroom Update
14:00 – Can the NBA Void Rozier’s Contract? Salary Cap Implications
27:00 – What the Heat Can Do Next (Potential Moves & Targets)
30:00 – Memphis Game Preview: Ja Morant vs Davion Mitchell

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