Jontay Porter, Shohei Ohtani caught in toxic mix of gambling, sports

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Jontay Porter has played parts of 26 games for the Raptors, 37 NBA games in all.

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He may never play another one.

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If found guilty or even involved at all regarding his possibility of prop bet manipulation, he shouldn’t just be suspended from the NBA.

He should be expelled.

This is the built-in problem that now exists in numerous layers between legalized gambling, professional sports and the involvement of television. Everybody is looking to see where they can make their money. Everybody is looking to see what part of the golden goose they can cash in on.

That there are scandals now is absolutely expected — and there will he more. Also expected: That there will be damage to athletes, to the sports themselves, and to television networks that have tried to find a way to broadcast sports while, at the same time, advocating gambling on sports and trying to maintain some kind of uncomfortable distance.

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The business of gambling is fine. The juxtaposition between gambling, professional athletes, team sports and the Big 4 major leagues is not fine. It may never be fine.

The Jontay Porter story, if true, is more than troubling. It features how easily one can cheat, if necessary, and at the same time how easily someone can get caught.

Prop bets — betting on portions of games, while the game is going on, who will score, when will they score, how many rebounds or assists any player will get in a quarter or a half or a period — are all part of the daily obsession of legalized gambling.

The NBA is fortunate that if this is its largest scandal to date, it features a player next to no one has heard of.

This isn’t the story in Major League Baseball right now where commissioner Rob Manfred is covering his eyes and ears and hoping the messy Shohei Ohtani story will just go away.

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Ohtani is the largest name in the sport, its highest-paid player, the greatest baseball player, really, since Babe Ruth.

But trying to understand exactly what happened with Ohtani, with his fired translator, with millions of dollars disappearing from his bank account, with lies being told, with questions not being answered, with bets being lost, is still in need of context and greater accuracy.

Whatever the truth happens to be in the Ohtani case, we don’t know it. We know that, somehow, $4.5 million has gone missing, or stolen, or deposited out of Ohtani’s bank account.

How does that much money disappear, in nine separate withdrawals, without anyone noticing?

This is professional sports. There’s no shortage of pro athletes who have been taken for millions of dollars over the years. Many are not sophisticated, from an economic point of view. Many go broke or bankrupt or get taken by greedy agents and investment dealers or anyone with a pitch to sell.

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But the built-in naivete of pro athletes — likely part of the case of Ohtani — is quite different than whatever might have happened with Porter the basketball player.

In both cases, what’s missing is truth that makes any sense — and can be accepted by anyone with an ability to reason.

Years ago, I was talking with a professional athlete about their lives and how so much of their daily activities are controlled by the team they play for. When is the game, when is the practice, when is the bus to the airport, when is the flight, where is the hotel? It’s not their decision. It’s all made for them and controlled around them.

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“No athlete,” this one told me, “should make any decision more complicated than window or aisle.”

That was a flight joke. It remains relevant today.

On that same team, a young athlete in his third professional season asked me a question one day: “Do you know what a mortgage is?”

I explained that I did. I explained that I had one. I explained that I’d probably have one for years.

“Everyone I know bought their house for cash,” the pro athlete told me. “We don’t know about mortgages.”

And that was years before the multi-million dollar deals invaded pro sports.

Ohtani is paid more money than anyone in baseball to play for the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Jontay Porter is on a two-way deal with the Raptors and would be one of the lowest-paid players in the NBA.

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If there was a chance to allegedly make money on the side, by taking a dive, by missing out on a prop bet, then perhaps there is some motivation for that, especially not knowing what kind of future you might have in the NBA.

No doubt, the NBA will complete its investigation into the prop-bet challenge involving Porter and come up with a decision of some kind.

And the possibility exists that this kind of thing can happen all the time — there has already been point shaving in basketball, referee score manipulation, tennis players tanking matches, football players betting on games, hockey players caught gambling.

This is just the beginning.

A beginning now in need of clarification from all who are profiting from illegal and legalized sports gambling.

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X: @simmonssteve

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