According to documents cited by author Brian Tuohy in Larceny Games: Sports Gambling, Game Fixing and the FBI, the Federal Bureau of Investigation had investigated widespread suspicions that three Knicks were shaving points. All three were described as “heavy users of cocaine” and were suspected of being in league with their coke supplier, cited as being “one of the largest dealers on the East Coast,” to unduly influence the outcome of certain games.
The dealer was a degenerate gambler who usually bet $300 a game, informants told the investigators, but in January 1982 he began laying $10,000 wagers on Knicks opponents—and winning. By March 25, the coke dealer had won six of his seven-figure bets against the Knicks—while continuing to make his normal $300 wagers on other NBA games.
One of the FBI’s informants told the feds that one of the Knicks owed a “large . . . gambling debt” to a Lucchese family bookie. At the same time, FBI agents began to suspect that in the latter part of the season the three Knicks had bet several games “against themselves.” Their suspicion was validated by an unnamed source who reported that in each game that the Knicks trio had bet on their opponents, “the Knicks did lose, or failed to cover the point spread.”
Richardson was the most obvious suspect. “Hell, no,” he said when Larceny Games was released in September 2013. “We never did anything like that.”
But without any physical evidence—and no confessions—the FBI closed the investigation in 1986 without making any arrests.
Even as the FBI’s investigation was in full swing, the FBI and the NBA initiated the Sports Presentation Program, sending agents to teams to warn the players of the dangers inherent in gambling.
“It was no coincidence,” said Tuohy.
Whether the three Knicks did or did not conspire to fix games, the NBA has a long history of players and referees turning tricks for gamblers.
Flash back to April 13, 1947, when the Basketball Association of America (which wouldn’t become the NBA until 1949) was completing its inaugural season. The Chicago Stags had just closed out the semifinal playoff series by upsetting the highly favored Washington Capitals in six games. Here’s the testimony of Johnny Norlander, one of the Caps’ starting guards: “There were several reasons why we lost. First off, we were fatigued. And secondly, because Red [Auerbach] never developed his bench players. But there was a third reason that was more important than the others. [In the sixth and final game] we were up by six points with only a couple of minutes to go, and we could taste the win. But from there until the end, the Stags made a parade to the foul line. In fact, they failed to notch a single field goal during that stretch. Just about all of the calls that sent them to the line were clearly ridiculous ones, and they were all made by the same ref: Nat Messenger. The other ref was Pat Kennedy, a guy I knew from the games he worked when I was in college. Pat was always a straight arrow, and the two of them had reffed every single game in the series, all six of them. As we walked off the court after the final buzzer, Kennedy nodded at Messenger and said to me, ‘Wasn’t that terrible?’ All I could do was to sadly agree.”
It was well known that Messenger habitually associated with notorious gamblers, but both the players and the league officials believed that his social life was his own business. However, that August several detectives hired by the league made a startling discovery. Here’s Norlander again: “That’s when we found out that Messenger had a substantial amount of money bet on Chicago to win the series. . . . We felt like the series, and the championship, were stolen from us by a crooked ref.”
It was too late to change the outcome, but Messenger never worked another Basketball Association of America or NBA game.
Salvatore Sollazzo was the gambler who was responsible for paying several key players at City College of New York, Long Island University (LIU), and New York University to shave points in the late 1940s and early 1950s. His point man was Eddie Gard, a talented player for the LIU Blackbirds who knew everybody who was anybody in the New York City basketball universe. Among Gard’s acquaintances was Sol Levy, who had been an assistant coach at LIU before World War II. In addition to working for an advertising agency in Brooklyn, Levy was also an NBA referee during the 1950–51 season. Since Levy’s NBA annual salary was a meager $3,000, he easily succumbed to a deal offered by Gard and Sollazzo—to control the point spreads in selected NBA games for $1,000 per game.
When Sollazzo and his ring of point shavers and game fixers were finally uncovered, he was quick to give up Levy. Eventually, Levy was convicted of altering the scores of three NBA games that were played in November of 1950. His conviction was overturned because of some arcane technicality, but Levy’s officiating career was defunct.
Gard served time in prison, while Sollazzo, who was not an American citizen, was deported to Italy.
Jack Molinas was a rookie with the 1953–54 Fort Wayne Pistons. Even though he routinely shaved points at Columbia University (and even in high school!), Molinas was an extraordinary player. During a game in Syracuse against the Nationals, three of the Pistons’ key players had played poorly, but Molinas’s heroics in the fourth quarter nearly salvaged a win for the visitors. Knowing the theory and practice of fixing ballgames, Molinas approached this trio after the game and said this: “Hey, guys. I know you’re dumping and I want in.” Indeed, Molinas had demonstrated that the Pistons games could not be fixed unless he was involved, so he was gladly accepted into the clique.
By no means, though, was this an isolated incident. In the late ’40s and early ’50s, George Mikan was the league’s highest-paid player, earning $12,000 annually from the Minneapolis Lakers. Bob Cousy and Dolph Schayes each made an estimated $7,500. “All the rest of us,” said an ex-NBAer who played from 1949 to 1953, “got paid about thirty-five hundred bucks plus seven bucks a day for meals on the road, and, believe me, it wasn’t easy to live on that kind of money, especially if you had a wife and kids. . . . A lot of good players couldn’t afford to play in the NBA. At the same time there were no other career options available to us. We had to make a living, you know? And that’s why so many NBA players when I was playing were doing business.”
Like who?
“Like almost all the players on the Baltimore Bullets,” says one veteran of that team. “There was another player, a big man, who occasionally played to lose. When his teammates figured out what he was doing they were pissed. Oh, shit. There he goes again. Instead of throwing him catchable passes, they’d throw passes at his ankles just to make him look clumsy. Who else? A bunch of guys on the Knicks, especially the players who came from New York.”
Whitey Von Nieda, who played for three seasons with the old Tri-Cities Blackhawks, recalled several teammates who studied the point spreads printed in the newspapers “like other guys studied the Bible.”
Another one-time pro said this: “Even after the college scandals broke, there were plenty of games dumped in the NBA. One of my teammates was a famous superstar who had an unstoppable pet move to the basket. Whenever he was doing business, he would take three dribbles away from the basket and throw up a wild hook shot. That was the signal that he was on board. We heard that he was making half his yearly salary every time he fixed a game.”
In 1954 the New York district attorney Frank Hogan came to NBA commissioner Maurice Podoloff with hard evidence that one superstar player was in league with gamblers. When Hogan demanded that the player be booted from the league, the owner of the team threatened to fold his franchise if Podoloff ever dared to even question his best player, and the star remained in orbit.
After the 1951 scandals, the NBA’s sleuths began eavesdropping on the telephone calls of virtually every player in the league. So it was that Jack Molinas was banned from the NBA in January 1954 for repeatedly betting on his own team to win—which wasn’t exactly the truth. But to reveal that Molinas was, in fact, betting against the Pistons would have done irreparable damage to the credibility of the NBA.
For the same reason, several other veteran players—many of them bona fide All-Stars—who were also turning tricks for gamblers got a pass. But Molinas was a mere rookie and from an Ivy League college to boot, so he was deemed to be expendable.
Here’s Molinas’s version of part of a conversation he had with Podoloff, whom he usually referred to as “Poodles.” Molinas’s purpose was to try to convince Podoloff to rescind the banishment.
“Mister Podoloff, surely you must know that there are players on the Fort Wayne team that were shaving points and dumping games.”
“I’m aware of that,” said Podoloff.
“Then how can you come down so hard on me just for betting on my team to win?”
“You’re a first-year player, Jack, and if I were to get anybody in trouble who’s been playing in the league for several years, it might hurt the structure of the league.”
“What if I held a press conference and exposed the names of all the players who were doing business with gamblers? What if I gave out specific names and dates? What if I brought a big-time gambler to the press conference to back up all of my charges? I’m telling you, Mister Podoloff, I’m fully prepared to do this unless I’m immediately readmitted.”
“I will not make any deals, Jack. Be certain about that. And, yes, you could hold your press conference and tell your dirty stories and even bring in your so-called witness. But it wouldn’t do you any good, Jack. First of all, it would put the absolute final seal on your dismissal from the league. Secondly, the league would certainly take a hit, but in the long run we would survive simply because the public likes our product. And thirdly, no one would believe you, Jack. You’d only be making a fool of yourself.”
Molinas had no choice but to agree with Podoloff. His dream of continuing his NBA career was over, but not his interest in fixing games.
Indeed, his banishment did not stop Molinas from betting on Piston games, nor did it discourage his former teammates from continuing to conspire with gamblers.
Here’s the testimony of a one-time NBA player: “Jack took the brunt of the whole thing, and the other Fort Wayne players had to make sure that he wouldn’t rat on them so they kept him informed whenever they were doing business. Anyway, shortly after he was barred from the league, the Pistons were playing the Knicks, and me and Jack were sitting in the balcony and watching the game. New York was favored by two and a half points, and Jack’s ex-teammates had informed him to bet on the Knicks. Which we both did.
“Anyway, there’s about two minutes left in the game, Fort Wayne was neck-and-neck with the Knicks, and I was shitting in my BVDs. ‘Jack,’ I said. ‘We’re losing.’ And he said, ‘Don’t worry.’ But nothing happened. The Pistons were still playing like they wanted to win the game. ‘Jack,’ I said, ‘there’s only one minute to go and we’re going to lose.’ ‘Don’t worry,’ he repeated. Now there’s only thirty seconds on the clock, the score is tied, and I was going crazy. I’d bet the rent money, the money to pay for my car payments, the money for my electric bill. ‘Jack!’ I said. But he was still calm as could be. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said.
“Then all of a sudden, one of the Pistons was dribbling the ball in the backcourt all by himself. I mean his defender was about fifteen feet away and the guy just kicked the ball out of bounds. It almost looked like a football player drop-kicking the ball. Now the Knicks had the ball and another one of the Pistons made a clumsy effort to steal the ball and instead committed an obvious foul. The Knicks made both free throws, they’re up by two, the Pistons had the ball, and there seemed to be no way New York’s going to cover the two and a half. The clock was ticking down . . . ten . . . nine . . . eight. If the Pistons scored a basket, I was a loser. If the Pistons didn’t score, I still lost. ‘Jack! I’m dying!’ ‘Don’t worry.’
“There’s five seconds to go when we heard somebody on the Pistons’ bench shout out loud, ‘You motherfucking referee!’ Bang! The ref called a technical foul, the Knicks made the shot and won the game by three points! And Jack turned to me with a shit-eating grin on his face. ‘I told you not to worry,’ he said.”
Early in the 1957–58 season, the NBA secretly informed every team that their surveillance of several players had continued. Phones were tapped. Hotel rooms were bugged. The league knew that certain players had been, and still were, doing business with gamblers. The NBA suggested that if the players in question (who were not specifically named) would quietly retire at the end of the season they would not face public charges. At the end of that 1957–58 season, several players who had plenty of game left retired prematurely. Among them were three of Molinas’s ex-teammates, Mel Hutchins, Don Meineke, and future Hall of Famer Andy Phillip.
NBA action was apparently honest and above board for several years thereafter. Then on January 7, 1973, the Philadelphia 76ers visited the Seattle SuperSonics. The 76ers were a pitiful crew and coached by Roy Rubin, absolutely the worst coach in the history of the NBA. At the time, Philadelphia’s record was 3-38, on their way to an infamous season’s mark of 9-73. Not that the host team was much better.
The Sonics had a record of 13-31, and coach Tom Nissalke was a notorious martinet, always demanding absolute perfection and verbally abusing his players when they failed to measure up to his often unobtainable standards. There was a gross mismatch between the nit-picking Nissalke and the Sonics roster that was top heavy with immature, malcontented, and even belligerent players: the likes of John Brisker, Spencer Haywood, Jim McDaniels, and Dontonio Winfield. At various times, Nissalke had tried benching them, fining them, lecturing them, threatening them, and cajoling them, but chronic lateness to and/or missed practices and extremely selfish and/or lackadaisical play continued. As much as Nissalke disliked many of his players, the feeling was mutual.
According to Nissalke, the media on hand, and the visiting team, the Sonics saw the game against the hapless 76ers as an opportunity to embarrass their coach and get him fired by deliberately tanking the game. Against the worst defensive team in the league, Brisker (who averaged 12.8 points for the season) scored a solitary bucket; Haywood tallied 18, over 11 points below his seasonal average. And the Sixers won.
Three days later, Nissalke was indeed fired.
Before and after that game, there have always been widespread rumors that certain teams had tanked entire seasons in order to be awarded a number-one draft pick (or, in some seasons, to be one of the two teams with the worst records to engage in a coin toss for this coveted pick). Indeed, this is precisely why the NBA brain trust instituted the lottery system in 1985.
As recently as November 2013, the possibility resurfaced of NBA teams low gearing their way through a season in order to increase the odds of their drafting blue-chip college players. This discussion came after star-spangled performances by Andrew Wiggens, Jabari Parker, and Julius Randle in a Kansas-Duke matchup. All three were projected as being perennial NBA All-Stars and franchise players. Yet, even as the idea of tanking was proposed, it was universally condemned.
However, just the mere mention of such a practice demonstrated the viability of its being exercised.
In the spring of 1991, ESPN presented the blackened profile and voice-altered testimony of a player who had been part of a recent NCAA championship team. The anonymous player swore that several of his teammates who were currently playing in the NBA had been periodically shaving points during their college careers. No denials were ever forthcoming.
Shortly thereafter, and on the heels of a tragic murder, the rumor of the possibility of the NBA’s best player fixing games gained enormous traction: Michael Jordan never made any excuses for his lust for gambling. That’s why he never denied running up a debt of $1.25 million to a San Diego businessman named Richard Esquinas during a ten-day gambling-golfing marathon. Even though Esquinas was later convicted of dealing cocaine, the NBA never seriously investigated this situation.
In any event, the rumor proposed that Jordan had lost several million dollars over the course of his frequent visits to the casino in Atlantic City. Since MJ was reluctant to settle his debts over the summer of 1993, the Atlantic City mafia allegedly offered him three choices: pay the money immediately, conspire with them to fix the outcome of Bulls games . . . and the third option was “or else.”
Jordan turned down the first pair of options, and in the following October, Jordan’s beloved father was gunned down while driving on a back road. The official investigation claimed that “two thugs” were the killers, but conspiracy buffs deemed the investigation to be only superficial.
Only Jordan and several underworld characters know if this scenario is true or false.
Given all the facts and rumors of payoffs from gamblers to players, the NBA seemed to change its definition of what exactly constituted sufficient grounds for the banishment of a player either suspected, or even proven, to have been engaged with “doing business.”
Ralph Beard and Alex Groza led the University of Kentucky to NCAA championships in 1948 and 1949. Moreover, Beard and Groza were also instrumental in leading the U.S. squad to a gold medal in the 1948 Olympic Games. Both turned pro in 1949, signing with the Indianapolis Olympians, the first and only NBA team that was owned and operated by its players. And both had tremendous success: Beard was a point guard who, over the course of his only two NBA seasons, averaged 15.9 points and 4.4 assists. Groza played center, and over the same period his numbers were even more impressive—22.5 points and 10.7 rebounds per game. No wonder both were deemed to be among the league’s best players, with Groza an NBA All-Star in 1950 and 1951, and Beard joining him in 1951.
Then, before the start of the 1951–52 season, Beard and Groza were arrested and charged with accepting money from gamblers to fix games while playing at Kentucky. Subsequently, Podoloff banned both of them from the NBA.
Groza never refuted the charge, but Beard did. He swore to several writers (including me) that while he had indeed accepted money from gamblers, he had never done anything to alter the outcome of any game. Given that Beard was such a ferocious competitor and grew up in dire poverty, it’s easy to believe his story. In fact, there was never any proof that Beard was either an actual fixer or dumper.
So, the fact that he pocketed the money was enough for him to be banished from the NBA.
Fast forward to March 27, 1985, when John “Hot Rod” Williams, an All-American forward at Tulane, was arrested on suspicion of point shaving. Williams readily admitted that he had received at least $8,500 from a well-known gambler named Gary Kranz in return for influencing point spreads in games against Southern Mississippi, Memphis State, and Virginia Tech. Williams was charged with sports bribery and conspiracy. His first appearance in court resulted in a mistrial. During a subsequent trial, Williams testified that, although he did accept and keep the money, he never played less than his best during those games.
So, whereas Williams went on to have a long (1986–99) and successful NBA career, Ralph Beard’s professional career was aborted for committing the same “crime.”
And, of course, any discussion of real, suspected, and chimerical point shaving in the NBA must include the testimony of Tim Donaghy—a one-time NBA referee who admitted to betting on games he worked but denied altering any outcomes thereof. Rare is the NBA watcher who is so naive as to believe that Donaghy never called invisible fouls on star players and made spurious determinations of other infractions to insure that his bets would be fruitful.
So then, if Micheal Ray Richardson did not fix any games during that 1981–82 season, then the FBI spokesman misspoke. But if Sugar Ray did, then he was part of a long, dishonored NBA tradition.