Chauncey Billups played 17 seasons in the NBA, earning one of the coldest nicknames of his generation.
A five-time All-Star and three-time All-NBA selection, Billups laced so many clutch baskets in his day that people took to calling him "Mr. Big Shot." In 2021, he became the head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers, overseeing a team that had started to show modest improvement in recent seasons.
So how would a person like Billups — an NBA champion and Hall of Famer whose career earnings exceeded $105 million — become implicated in an illegal poker scandal? And at that, a scheme with ties to the mafia, one that swindled at least $7.15 million from unsuspecting victims?
According to prosecutors and experts in organized crime, it all starts with influence and recruitment.
Yet, despite the explosive revelation that the Bonanno, Gambino and Genovese crime families allegedly offered protection at rigged poker games in New York, a close reading of the indictment and detention letter shows it’s unclear whether Billups was aware of any alleged connection whatsoever to the mafia.
