As the NBA community continues to deal with the seismic Shockwaves of the latest betting scandal and FBI probe, many questions have been left unanswered.
How far down the rabbit hole does this thing go?
Who else is involved?
Is the NBA the only league mired in a gambling controversy?
These are all valid inquiries, but I wanted to attack this scandal from a different angle.
What would Tony Soprano’s role in all of this be if it took place in The Sopranos universe?
If you’re familiar with The Sopranos, I don’t need to give any sort of introduction. And if you’re not, I may have to ask you to hand over your man card, but I digress.
Allow me to speculate on what everyone’s favorite sociopathic family man would do if presented with these “unique opportunities.”
Terry Rozier Prop Bets/Point Shaving
If there’s one thing we know about Tony, it’s that he never misses an opportunity to make some money through illegal means.
The Sopranos and their crew are no strangers to point shaving, as Tony’s Uncle Junior states in the season 5 episode “Rat Pack,” that it was New York boss, Carmine Lupertazzi Sr., who came up with the idea for the real-life CCNY vs. Kentucky point shaving scandal in 1951.
“Nobody beat the spread,” Uncle June says longingly.
With this in mind, as soon as sports gambling became legal, Tony and his crew would have certainly gained a foothold in point shaving and prop bets, and with their presence in Miami throughout the show, it’s not a stretch to imagine them getting their hooks into Heat guard, Terry Rozier.
Paulie and Chris, along with Furio, probably would have had an entire plot line in an episode dedicated to “bumping into” Rozier at a club on South Beach and pitching the idea to him.
Then, when it all came crashing down, Soprano would have been mentioned in the FBI report with his name and mug plastered all over the news, which he would have referred to as “anti-Italian discrimination.”
Rigged Poker Game
As far as Chauncey Billups’ alleged rigged poker game, it wouldn’t have gone down like that with the Soprano crew.
Tony ran the “executive game,” which he inherited from his father and Uncle June, and there was way too much respect for the game to have turned it into a farce.
The Soprano crew barely tolerated distractions, like Richie Aprile interrupting his game to collect a debt, so this would’ve caused a massive uproar.
Sure, Tony and his crew probably would have invited high-stakes celebrities like Billups into their game, seeing as how they had guys like Frank Sinatra Jr., David Lee Roth, and even Lawrence Taylor show up at their tables, but if Billups dared try any funny business, he would have been banished for life.
And if Tony heard about Billups’ rigged poker games from outside his circle of influence, he probably would have looked down on it the same way he looked down on the kid wearing his hat in the nice restaurant in season one.
“It’s about respect.”
The Sopranos was a show that both captured the zeitgeist of the early to mid 2000s and was ahead of its time, and it’s days like today that we realize how perfect the series would have been at dealing with an NBA gambling scandal like this.
It’s a shame we will never know how David Chase would have adapted this into his brilliant mobster show, but we have plenty of source material from which to draw our own conclusions.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go on another Sopranos rewatch binge, so don’t bother me for the next few weekends.
Salud!
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