LAS VEGAS — Jerry Colangelo held court Friday between the two courts at the Mendenhall Center as Team USA wrapped up its two-day mini-camp, never at a loss for someone looking to shake his hand, bend his ear or curry his favor.
A guy who once gambled on bringing an NBA team to Phoenix is now one of the most powerful people on the world basketball scene, so he knows of what he speaks when it comes to rolling the dice on an interesting proposition.
Team USA was a shambles before Colangelo arrived, but you would never know it from seeing roughly 1,000 people squeezed inside the gym on the UNLV campus to observe what the latest edition of the red, white and blue might look like.
Of the 38 players on the roster, only four — LeBron James, Stephen Curry, DeMar DeRozan and Kawhi Leonard — were conspicuously absent, and all four absences were excused.
The elephant in the room was the fact that very few of these players will be getting aboard a plane for China next summer, and then for Japan and the 2020 Olympics two summers from now.
Feelings are going to get hurt down the road, and Colangelo knows it. So he is telling everyone to manage their expectations.
When it comes to the free-for-all known as the wide-open U.S. sports gambling market, those expectations are measured, too.
And according to Jerry C., a verdict on what it will have done to professional and amateur sports and to American society in general is likely five years away.
“It’s hard to judge now what the impact is going to be. We’re going to have to let it play out and look back in a few years. It’s part of our culture, and it’s part of the worldwide culture. There’s just so much activity regarding gambling,” Colangelo told GetMoreSports. “And although personally I am somewhat ambivalent, I am anxious to see how it plays out. We’re legitimizing everything that was illegitimate before.”
Players on Team USA ducked gambling questions with such similarity, one could not help but wonder what kind of media relations coaching they are getting from the NBA and the NBPA.
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Take Gregg Popovich, for example.
He is a guy who usually loves a question on something related to geopolitics, societal norms and/or vineyard vintages.
Asked Friday for his thoughts, he deflected it like it was another temperature reading query regarding good ole’ Kawhi.
“You could ask me about thermonuclear arms in North Korea and the subject of drilling in Antarctica, and those would be legitimate questions, too,’ He said. “I’m just too tired to answer that question.”
Pop speaks for many people in America, even the ones who play the lottery, go to bingo parlors, take part in March Madness pools and tune in to watch one horse race per year, the Kentucky Derby.
Gambling is indeed ingrained in all of our lives, from deciding whether or not to take an umbrella to work on an overcast day to pushing the car a few more miles when the gas tank is down below 1/8th full.
When it comes to sports gambling, the dirty little secret at all levels of all competitions is that sometimes the fix is in.
Imagine you were a wide receiver on a lower-rung 4-6 Division I football team and someone offered you $1,000 to drop a few passes that you would normally catch. Maybe you are desperate for that money for food, for a new smartphone, for date money, whatever.
How hard would it be to say “no?”
Anecdotal evidence has been circulating that NBA teams and NBA players are being told to keep inside information extra-closely guarded in the upcoming season, because privileged information is more valuable than ever before.
If a teammate turns an ankle at a morning shootaround and the thing blows up like a grapefruit, there are legions of people around the world who know how to capitalize on that information.
“I don’t know if it’ll have a lot of impact on sports, and hopefully there won’t be interference,” said longtime coach and broadcaster P.J. Carlesimo. “Society-wide, it’s going to be interesting. There will be a lot more funny money out in public places.”
A sports book manager at Dover Downs in Delaware told me a very similar thing, because the folks who roll in the wagering economy are deathly afraid of Paco from the Cartel rubbing shoulders with Granny at the penny slots.
People who operate in the black economy now have multiple venues in which to throw around their ill-gotten cash, and many of those people also like to run with the “I will not get caught with this loaded handgun” crowds.
“One thing that is nice is that the sports gambling industry has always policed itself well,” Carlesimo said.
What remains to be seen is whether the major professional and amateur sports organizations can get a piece of the action. NBA commissioner Adam Silver has seen this coming for years, and he is fighting for a 1 percent share of every dollar wagered.
But state legislatures around the country are writing “no 1 percent” rules into the laws that are being enacted in a state-by-state basis, and there should be more than a dozen states where gambling is legal by the time the NFL season is at its midpoint.
Out here in Vegas, there are slot machines at gas stations and grocery stores, and hard luck cases living in boxes behind nice pizza places.
The human cost of life in Sin City is evident all over the place.
A national standard may or may not happen in the months and years ahead.
It would have to be approved by a U.S. Congress that is operating with something like a 9 percent approval rating amid a culture of political polarization that is tearing families and friends apart.
Moderates are an endangered species.
I’ll set the over/under on national legislation being voted on at August, 2023.
My advice is to take the over, fasten your seatbelts and brace yourself for the unexpected. Gambling is common, but it is not necessarily normal.
That is now changing, and as everyone should know: The “new normal” is rarely ever normal at all.
