A new report from The Athletic found abuse and vitriol towards NBA players remains an emerging trend in the wake of sports betting legalization and its widespread growth. Similar to findings from other major leagues like the NHL and MLB, the report outlines players facing death threats, and racial slurs, among other vulgar notes anonymous fans and sports bettors sent across social media.
“There has been some really disrespectful s— said. It’s a lot of people who don’t have profile pictures,” detailed New York Knicks' star guard Jalen Brunson. “There is part of me that has thought about airing them out, but s— always comes back around.”
The NBA continues to grapple with the fallout of sports betting legalization, with former players such as Jontay Porter facing lifetime suspensions for betting on games, or more recently Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier under federal investigation for alleged performance manipulation.
Meanwhile, players also find themselves in the crosshairs of the rapid growth of sports betting markets in the U.S. and beyond, with other NBA athletes divulging the anonymous hatred they’ve found themselves subjected to.
“I’ve been told, ‘Go kill yourself,'” Knicks' rookie Tyler Kolek said. “I’ve gotten worse than that, but that’s a common one.”
“They’ve said a lot of crazy things like from bringing up family, to commenting on my wife, my son", said noted Detroit Pistons' big man Isaiah Stewart, who expressed he often found humor in the outlandish messages, until users inevitably crossed the line.
That sentiment seems to be a common refrain among players, who undoubtedly are left biting their tongues as faceless bettors without a name or picture to their profile repeatedly lash out.
“I don’t really read the messages,” Milwaukee Bucks' forward Kyle Kuzma told The Athletic. “It might be on Twitter. I think it’s really funny, honestly, because, yeah, you can win money, but you’re also wasting money, too, at the same time.
He added, “It’s funny because I said something the other day, and it’s like we get threats and we get called names, and people never think about like maybe they’re bad at picking the parlays?”
Happening across sports
The NBA is far from the only league with this issue, though given pro basketball's size and global reach, it appears things may be more acute on the hardwood than on the ice or the diamond.
Just last spring, late in the NBA season, current Detroit Pistons' coach and then Cleveland Cavaliers' bench boss J.B. Bickerstaff expressed what seems to be a growing sentiment around sports that player abuse had to be reigned in.
“The amount of times where I'm standing up there and we may have a 10-point lead and the spread is 11 and people are yelling at me to leave the guys in so that we can cover the spread, it's ridiculous,” Bickerstaff said last March. “But again, I understand the business side of it and the nature of the business of it. But I mean, it is something that I believe has gone too far.”
A survey from The Athletic back in November attempted to quantify the abuse the world’s top hockey players faced -- with a staggering one-third of athletes surveyed saying fan harassment was on the rise in the wake of sports betting legalization.
“Like it’s getting crazy. You’re up 2-0 and lose, you get messages, like, ‘You f----ing asshole, I’m gonna f----ing kill you,’” an anonymous NHL player explained.
An MLB survey by USA Today last summer explained a similar phenomenon in baseball as well, with former MLB reliever Logan Allen -- then of the Arizona Diamondbacks -- revealing a particularly troubling story.
“I had a really bad game, and this guy follows me home and starts cussing at me, telling me I cost him all of this money,” Allen shared. “It’s scary.”
