Before being banned by the NBA for violating the league’s gambling policies, Jontay Porter was not on the road to stardom.
The former Toronto Raptors center/power forward wasn’t highly drafted. He wasn’t drafted at all.
Porter didn’t command a high salary or signing bonus. He wasn’t up for a huge contract any time soon.
He was a role player who saw action in 37 regular-season games between two league teams since 2019 and had multiple stints in the NBA’s developmental G League.
When the Raptors added Porter for the 2023-24 season, he was awarded a two-way contract worth $411,697. The average salary for a center in the NBA was $9.4 million this season.
Did that contribute to Porter’s sports betting transgressions? No one may fully ever know, but it’s likely the most high-profile betting scandal involving a single player since PASPA was overturned in 2018.
What happened?
Porter received the severest of punishments from the NBA for betting on at least 13 NBA games, including Raptors contests in parlays, through someone else’s legal sports betting account. He also gave health information to a known sports bettor and, according to the NBA’s investigation, manipulated playing time to help out an $80,000 prop wager placed by a known associate.
The NBA caught Porter’s misdeeds thanks to watchdog firm U.S. Integrity flagging suspicious activity and a regulated U.S. online sportsbook adhering to regulations.
Porter became the first player banned by the NBA since Ron Tarpley was kicked out of the league for drug abuse in 1995.
“There is nothing more important than protecting the integrity of NBA competition for our fans, our teams, and everyone associated with the sport, which is why Jontay Porter’s blatant violations of our gaming rules are being met with the most severe punishment,” NBA commissioner Adam Silver said in a statement from the league.
How did we get here?
The gambling violations came from a fringe NBA player. Porter didn’t have as much to lose as a starter on a huge deal, like his brother Michael Porter Jr., who signed a 5-year, $179 million contract with the Denver Nuggets in 2021.
Jontay Porter was on pace to end this season with career earnings of around $2.8 million.
Coming out of the University of Missouri, where he was a five-star prospect who averaged 9.9 points per game in just one collegiate season, and coming off two major knee injuries, Porter wasn’t selected in the 2019 NBA Draft.
He wasn’t picked up by the Memphis Grizzlies until March 8, 2020. He played in 11 games for the Grizzles, averaging two points per game before being released after the 2020-21 season.
Porter made $2.4 million from his time with the Grizzlies and played less than five minutes per game.
Porter resurfaced the next season with the Wisconsin Herd, the Milwaukee Bucks’ G League affiliate, but that didn’t lead to a stint with the higher-level team.
Beginning of the end
In 2023, he landed with the Detroit Pistons, but Porter was released 19 days later and sent to the G League’s Motor City Cruise.
Two months later, Porter found a home with the Toronto Raptors, first spending time with the G League squad Raptor 905 before landing on the NBA roster.
That was short-lived as the NBA began investigating sports betting irregularities, ESPN first reported on March 25, 26 games into his Raptor career.
Porter last participated in a game on March 22, and the March 20 contest against the Sacramento Kings was the one the NBA pointed to for manipulating the prop bet.
Porter averaged 4.4 points and 3.2 rebounds per game while playing 13.8 minutes per contest in 2023-24.
Betting scandals
The league handed down the ban on Wednesday, ending his tenure with any team affiliated with the NBA. This marked the biggest sports betting scandal in the league since referee Tim Donaghy admitted to wagering on games from 2003-07.
Porter’s ban joins recent high-profile post-PASPA betting scandals that include Los Angeles Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter stealing more than $16 million from his friend to pay gambling debts, former Alabama baseball coach Brad Bohannon getting fired for providing personnel information on the phone to a bettor located in a sportsbook, and several NFL suspensions.
