Every NBA Draft comes with its share of conspiracy theories. On Thursday night, the focus was less on who was picked than it was on what was reported as a tweet from Shams Charania brought up questions of ethics in reporting and sports betting.
Charania reported that the Charlotte Hornets were going to use the number two pick to take Scoot Henderson. That report swung the betting odds considerably.
Darren Rovell noted that PointsBet had Henderson at +135 odds to be the number 2 pick prior to Charania’s tweet. After it went up, the odds changed, making Henderson a -600 favorite.
There was one problem though. The Hornets were not using the number two pick on Henderson. Instead, the team selected Brandon Miller out of Alabama. Miller had been the favorite to go at that spot all along before Charania tweeted.
This raised a lot of questions and concerns. Namely, Shams Charania works for a number of different outlets. One of them happens to be FanDuel, the most popular online sportsbook in the US. Plenty objected to an employee of a book being able to put out false information that swings the odds so wildly.
Joe Fortenbaugh saw it differently though. The ESPN gambling expert does not think anything nefarious happened at all. Instead, he chalked it up to disinformation the team was using to make others act.
“The concerns raised are understandable. A sportsbook employs a reporter who has the ability to significantly influence markets like the NBA Draft through his reports,” Fortenbaugh said on Twitter. “However, I think the more likely scenario here was Charlotte leaking Scoot info to Shams in the hopes of inducing a trade. We see this all the time in the NFL as well. Team with a high pick is linked to multiple prospects, hoping one of those reports brings a bounty via trade.”
It should be noted that Brandon Miller also fit Charlotte’s needs better than Henderson did.
While a number of gamblers may disagree with Fortenbaugh’s assessment, he says there is reason to believe it, and it comes from information Shams Charania’s rival in the NBA breaking news world reported.
“Charlotte knew the market for Brandon Miller because of the Woj report earlier in the week. So they tried to dangle Scoot in the 24th hour to see what that could bring. When it amounted to little, they stuck with Miller.”
