The Whiteboard: Was the fix in on Kevin Durant’s NBA2K Players Tournament loss?
By Ian Levy
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ESPN’s NBA2K Players Tournament has been about the only thing going right now for “live” basketball but the tourney (which resumes with the quarterfinals on Thursday) is already mired in controversy. Marketing for the tournament was built, in large part, around the star power of No.1 seed Kevin Durant. Unfortunately, he crashed and burned — losing to No. 16 seed Derrick Jones Jr., 78-62, in the tournament’s first game.
The matchup, like the rest of the tournament, was broadcast on ESPN channels and several sportsbooks were placing odds and taking bets on the games. With everyone starved for sports, plenty of effort went into figuring out how to turn this into a meaningful betting experience. But now it sounds like the Durant-Jones Jr. was pre-taped instead of played live like the rest of the first-round games. This means someone, or possibly many someones, knew the outcome ahead of time and was able to place bets. That’s what was alleged in a press release by Cool Media PR (h/t NBC Sports):
"The NBA 2K Players Only Tournament over the weekend caused a headache for sportsbooks because it was pre-taped, and information was ultimately leaked.“We initially made Durant the favorite to win the tournament, but he was taking very little action over the course of the first 24 hours,” Robert Cooper, Odds Manager at SportsBetting.ag, said. “When we posted the first-round matchup lines and the bets were completely one-sided toward Jones Jr., it became obvious that someone knew the outcome of the game.”"
Given how many other, more serious, issues are unfolding right now it’s hard to say how much attention this will actually get — especially since the tournament doesn’t exactly appear to be smashing it in the ratings or breaking through with mainstream appeal. Still, both the NBA and the NBA Player’s Association were involved in planning the event and with the integration of legalized gambling on the horizon it’s not a great look that the league stumbled into a gambling scenario without actual games even being played.
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