CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The Charlotte Hornets have played hundreds of forgettable games over the past decade. But one of them — a game that was meaningless except for one enormous reason — has become heavily scrutinized in an FBI investigation.

On a random Thursday night in New Orleans — March 23, 2023 — the Hornets were playing at the New Orleans Pelicans. Charlotte was going nowhere fast. The Hornets’ record was 23-50 in another lost season. They lost that game in New Orleans, too, by 19 points.

But in that contest, Hornets guard Terry Rozier pulled himself out after 9 minutes and 34 seconds of playing time, citing a foot injury. He didn’t return and didn’t play in the final eight games of the season, either. Averaging a career-high 21.1 points per game at the time, Rozier scored only five points that night.

It was that night — and all that surrounds it — that was one of the key moments in a high-profile indictment made public by authorities in New York on Thursday. Rozier, now employed by the Miami Heat, was arrested Thursday. But he was with the Hornets and was one of their stars when the game in question happened. And so the Hornets — while not accused of any wrongdoing as a team — had their names splashed around in several places in the indictment.

In a news conference Thursday in New York, Kash Patel, the FBI director, said the operation that netted numerous arrests is “an insider trading saga for the NBA.”

Rozier is alleged to have told a friend, according to the indictment, that for that March 23, 2023 game he was going to “prematurely remove himself in the first quarter due to a supposed injury and not return to play further.” He provided this information about the injury, the document alleges, “for the purpose of enabling (the friend) to place wagers based on this information.”

All sorts of bets were then placed by all sorts of people on Rozier’s “unders” — that he would score under the number of points and have fewer assists and rebounds and other measurable stats than he usually did that season. Sports betting companies offer this sort of “prop” bet on basically every NBA player in every NBA game, and so any inside injury information is mightily significant to a sports bettor.

Let’s pause for a moment here and note that Rozier is innocent until proven guilty. Rozier’s lawyer, Jim Trusty, released a statement to multiple media outlets Thursday that said Rozier is “not a gambler” and that he “looks forward to winning this fight.”

Trusty also criticized the method of Rozier’s arrest in Orlando on Thursday, saying: “It is unfortunate that instead of allowing him to self-surrender they opted for a photo op. They wanted the misplaced glory of embarrassing a professional athlete with a perp walk. That tells you a lot about the motivations in this case.” (The NBA placed Rozier on “immediate leave” Thursday, and did the same thing for Portland head coach Chauncey Billups, who is accused of participating in a fixed, illegal series of poker games. The Hornets traded Rozier to the Miami Heat in January 2024).

But if the details in the indictment are true, they are very damning to Rozier. They allege that Rozier told defendant Deniro Laster — a childhood friend of Rozier’s — of his plan to pull himself out of the game early and that Laster then provided this information to a number of co-conspirators who then placed bets at sportsbooks.

One oddity: not every bet on Rozier’s “unders” won, according to the indictment.

In those 9 minutes and 34 seconds of the first quarter, Rozier had four rebounds, which is a lot of rebounds for a guard in a single quarter and was above the line set by oddsmakers for Rozier’s total rebounds in that game. But his points, assists and 3-pointers were all well under the oddsmakers’ set lines, so most of the bets made by the co-conspirators apparently paid off.

Also, the document alleges, Laster sold this non-public information about Rozier’s injury prior to the game to one co-conspirator for “tens of thousands of dollars” and later drove to a home in Philadelphia to collect the money after Rozier pulled himself out and the majority of the “under” bets worked. From Philadelphia, Laster drove to Rozier’s home in Charlotte. Then, the indictment says, “Laster and Rozier counted the money that Laster had obtained.”

The visual of Rozier and Laster counting a load of cash in Charlotte is a startling one, of course, as federal prosecutors meant it to be. Also of note: Rozier was in the middle of a four-year, $97-million contract with the Hornets at the time of these events, which means he was making an average of around $24 million a year. The player they called “Scary Terry,” for his fearlessness as a 6-foot-1 shooting guard and his tendency to go on amazing shooting streaks, was getting paid what averaged out at the time to a guaranteed $292,000 per game, whether he played in that game or not. Yes, $292,000 per game. So why “tens of thousands of dollars” would matter to him, if what is alleged is true: who knows?!

If you think it sounds like a movie, it does. The question, of course, is if the movie would be fiction or non-fiction.

Rozier is going to fight the charges against him, which include conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. The Hornets are undoubtedly going to stay as far away from it all as possible (they declined comment on Thursday’s news).

But whether or not Rozier is convicted, the sweeping set of allegations Monday does remind us all of this:

All that money that has been poured into sports from all these sports betting sites, which are now legal in the majority of U.S. states, including North Carolina?

That money isn’t free.

I saw one report on ESPN with breaking news about the sports betting scandal Thursday. In the bottom right corner of the screen, there stood the logo for ESPN’s own betting site. And of course some sportsbook is sponsoring your favorite sports league, in some way, right now. You may have a sports gambling app on your phone. Or several of them. In N.C., it’s totally legal to do so.

Sports and gambling used to be linked, but illicitly. Now the marriage is very much out in the open. For instance, like many other pro sports teams, the Hornets’ games are telecast regionally on the FanDuel Sports Network.

It’s also true that sports betting scandals have been around forever. The Black Sox World Series baseball scandal was way back in 1919. Yet it still seems shocking, because we are used to the idea that our sports are fair. That, despite their human flaws, they have integrity. If pro sports loses that, it loses everything.

All of this that happened Thursday, with Rozier and the dozens of others who got arrested? It was a huge story.

And here’s a sure bet — it won’t be the last time this story is told in professional sports.

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