Terry Rozier To Forfeit Most Of 2025/26 Salary
Former Heat guard Terry Rozier will be forced to forfeit most of the $26.6MM salary he was supposed to earn in 2025/26, per an arbitrator’s decision, as Mike Vorkunov writes for The Athletic.
Rozier was placed on unpaid leave by the NBA at the end of October, six days after he was arrested on federal charges related to a gambling investigation. The 31-year-old pleaded not guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering in December.
The players’ union challenged the league’s decision to withhold Rozier’s salary and won an arbitration case earlier in the year. At that time, an arbitrator ruled that the NBA was violating the rules of its Collective Bargaining Agreement by not allowing Rozier to be paid, determining that only players who are involved in cases of domestic or child abuse can be placed on unpaid leave.
However, that same arbitrator sided with the NBA this time around, as Vorkunov explains, upholding the league’s argument that the conditions of Rozier’s bond prevented him from fulfilling the terms of his contract. As part of his ongoing legal case, Rozier was prohibited from traveling across the country or being in contact with the Heat or his former team, the Hornets.
Rozier – who was charged last week with two new felonies, sports bribery and honest services fraud – has been accused of telling a friend he would remove himself early from a game in March 2023, when he was a member of the Hornets. That friend then sold the inside information to gamblers who were able to cash in by betting on several “under” props related to Rozier’s performance in that game. After recording five points, four rebounds and two assists in less than 10 minutes of action in the first quarter, Rozier exited the game during a timeout and didn’t return, citing a foot issue.
Rozier has pleaded not guilty to all charges and still hopes to return to the NBA after being waived by the Heat in April. According to Vorknov, his attorneys have asked the judge overseeing his case to remove the Hornets – and their current and former employees – from his no-contact list and to rule that the longtime guard is simply prohibited to discuss the case with them. Rozier’s attorneys are calling the current restrictions “unfairly punitive,” Vorkunov adds.
“With forced inactivity, Mr. Rozier is facing a potential second season of non-participation despite being entitled to a presumption of innocence,” his attorneys wrote in their argument. “With the NBA’s free agency process officially beginning June 30, maintaining the Hornets on the no-contact list would likely prevent him from having any opportunity to play in the NBA.
“Under the current ruling of the arbitrator, an inability to play for or against the Charlotte Hornets would constitute a ‘failure to perform services’ by Mr. Rozier and substantially diminish or eliminate any chance of being contracted by an NBA team.”
Regardless of whether or not the judge upholds his attorneys’ request, it’s pretty difficult to imagine Rozier signing another NBA contract unless he’s fully cleared and exonerated of all charges. If he’s found guilty, he’s likely facing a lifetime ban from the league like the one Jontay Porter received after disclosing confidential information to sports bettors.
And-Ones: Yessoufou, Free Agents, Blakeney, Automatic Calls
Viewed as a potential first-round pick after one season at Baylor, Tounde Yessoufou withdrew from the draft earlier this week and will transfer to St. John’s for his sophomore campaign. The 20-year-old wing secured a lucrative NIL payday from the Red Storm, according to basketball insider Adam Zagoria, who reports (via Twitter) that Yessoufou’s deal was worth “close to” $6MM.
A native of Benin, Yessoufou averaged 17.8 points, 5.9 rebounds, 2.0 steals and 1.6 assists per game in 34 appearances for the Bears in 2025/26. His shooting slash line was .465/.293/.746.
For what it’s worth, $6MM would be roughly the same first-year salary as the 11th overall pick in the 2026 draft, but rookie scale contracts are guaranteed for the first two years, with team options in years three and four.
Here are a few more odds and ends from around the basketball world:
- Eric Pincus of Bleacher Report has updated his ranked list of potential free agents, with Heat wing Norman Powell (No. 10), Sixers forward Kelly Oubre Jr. (No. 20) and Cavaliers forward Dean Wade (No. 30) among the 70 players listed.
- Marves Fairley, who claims he paid Terry Rozier as part of an illegal gambling scheme, also said he paid a Chinese Basketball Association player so he could win bets on a pair of CBA games in March 2023, per Mike Vorkunov of The Athletic. Fairley made the admission in a Brooklyn federal court on Thursday when he pleaded guilty to seven felony charges stemming from two separate cases. While Fairley didn’t name that player, prosecutors said Fairley paid Antonio Blakeney, a former NBA guard who was charged with wire fraud in January.
- Appearing on the Pat McAfee Show (Twitter video link via ESPN), commissioner Adam Silver said the NBA plans to implement an automated AI system to quickly review out-of-bounds calls in the future, rather than leaving it up to the officials. Silver suggested all “so-called objective calls” would eventually fall under that review system.
Terry Rozier Charged With Two New Federal Felonies
Former Heat guard Terry Rozier was charged with two new felony counts after being indicted by a grand jury in Brooklyn federal court on Thursday, reports Mike Vorkunov of The Athletic.
Rozier, who pleaded not guilty after being arrested on two wire fraud charges this past October related to the same case, has been charged with sports bribery and honest services fraud, according to Vorkunov.
As Vorkunov details, federal prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York allege that Rozier accepted a payment worth approximately $100,000 to take himself out of a game early when he was a member of the Hornets.
The indictment says Rozier conspired with a group of gamblers — including Marves Fairley, who claims he paid a player to alter his game performance — to share non-public information to help them win. As Vorkunov writes in another story, while Fairley didn’t identify anyone by name on Thursday when he pleaded guilty to seven felony charges, including two related to this case, a prosecutor later clarified that Rozier was the player.
Jim Trusty, an attorney who represents Rozier, denied the allegations.
“There are some desperate men in this case with terrible criminal records and tons of exposure, and they know what to say to please these prosecutors,” Trusty said. “The new indictment confirms that our motion to dismiss was a good one — it’s just new charges and new theories trotted out in the hope that something sticks.”
The incident took place on March 23, 2023. Rozier allegedly told his friend and co-conspirator Deniro Laster that he would pull himself out of a game early, citing a foot injury, so that Laster and two other gamblers — Fairley and Shane Hennen — could bet on it. The indictment says Laster then told Fairley and Hennen, who exchanged texts about the plan. Laster and Hennen have pleaded not guilty, Vorkunov notes.
Rozier, who was averaging more than 21 points and 35 minutes per game at the time, only played nine minutes and 34 seconds in that Hornets game at New Orleans. He was inactive for the final eight games of the ’22/23 season because of the same foot injury.
Fairley is the second person to plead guilty in the case after former NBA guard and assistant coach Damon Jones did the same last month, Vorkunov adds.
And-Ones: McGrady, First-Rounders, Combine, Rozier
Former NBA guard Tracy McGrady, a seven-time All-Star who earned a spot in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, has accepted a role at Wagner College, the school announced in a press release. McGrady has been named the strategic advisor for the men’s basketball program.
In his new role, McGrady will assist with NIL deals, marketing, player development, and “expanding Wagner’s reach beyond its traditional areas of engagement on and off the court,” according to today’s announcement.
McGrady will forgo a salary and will serve in a volunteer capacity — his son, Laymen, will be a freshman at Wagner this season after spending a year at Oral Roberts as a redshirt in 2025/26.
Here are a few more odds and ends from around the basketball world:
- Based on his conversations with NBA executives at this week’s draft combine in Chicago, Jake Fischer of The Stein Line (Substack link) expects fewer first-round picks to change hands in trades beginning this offseason. As Fischer explains, teams are wary about how valuable a late-lottery pick could become under the NBA’s new lottery reform plan, which will likely make them more reluctant to surrender those selections.
- Also reporting from the combine, Jonathan Wasserman of Bleacher Report takes a look at the winners and losers so far among this year’s draft-eligible prospects. While some of Wasserman’s choices overlap with ESPN’s picks that we passed along on Tuesday, Bleacher Report’s draft guru also identifies Arkansas’ Darius Acuff and Houston’s Kingston Flemings as winners, noting that Acuff’s measurements compared favorably to Damian Lillard‘s, while Flemings showed off an impressive three-pointer during shooting drills. Vanderbilt’s Tyler Tanner, whose height was determined to be below 5’11”, and Alabama’s Amari Allen, who came in at just over 6’5″, are among Wasserman’s combine losers so far due to their official measurements.
- The NBA and former Heat guard Terry Rozier met with an arbitrator last month for a second time to renew their battle over whether or not Rozier is entitled to receive his full $26.6MM salary for 2025/26 as he faces federal charges following his arrest last fall. Rozier won an initial arbitration case earlier this year, but the league is still arguing that his salary should be reduced. Mike Vorkunov of The Athletic has the details on the latest arbitration session.
Federal Prosecutors To Bring Bribery Charges Against Terry Rozier
Before being waived by the Heat earlier this month, veteran guard Terry Rozier spent most of the 2025/26 season on leave after being one of several individuals connected with the NBA arrested in October in relation to a federal gambling probe.
It now appears his efforts to clear his name and return to the NBA will face another hurdle, as The Athletic’s Mike Vorkunov reports that federal prosecutors intend to bring new charges against the former Heat guard, alleging that he solicited and accepted a bribe. This could create a superseding indictment that adds the two new federal charges – sports bribery and honest services fraud – to the two he is already facing, as Vorkunov explains.
Prosecutors claim that the NBA and the Hornets, with whom Rozier played during the time period in question, are victims of the guard, who “deprived” them of his “honest services,” Vorkunov adds (Twitter link). A grand jury will hear the new charges, which were revealed on Monday before a federal judge.
Rozier’s attorney, Jim Trusty, who wants the court to dismiss the case, said that he was informed of those new charges just two hours prior to Monday’s hearing, Vorkunov writes.
Word broke back in January 2025 that federal prosecutors in New York were investigating Rozier as part of a probe into illegal sports betting. Investigators were specifically looking at a game that took place on March 23, 2023.
Ahead of that game, one bettor reportedly placed 30 wagers in 46 minutes on the “unders” on Rozier-related prop bets at a casino in Biloxi, Mississippi, raising alarms about potential suspicious activity. At the same time, there was a rush on multiple sportsbooks in New Orleans of under bets on Rozier props. Sportsbooks and the NBA were alerted, and some books stopped taking bets related to Rozier’s performance that day.
After recording five points, four rebounds and two assists in 9:34 of action in the first quarter, Rozier exited the game during a timeout and didn’t return, citing a foot issue. All 30 of those “under” prop bets won as a result of the abbreviated outing, and Rozier didn’t play the final eight games of the 2022/23 season due to the injury.
Heat Place Terry Rozier On Waivers
12:32 pm: The Heat have officially waived Rozier, tweets Ira Winderman of The South Florida Sun Sentinel.
9:01 am: As expected, the Heat will waive guard Terry Rozier on Friday, before the end of the regular season, confirms ESPN’s Shams Charania (Twitter link).
The move has long been anticipated, with reports in March indicating that Miami still planned to move on from Rozier at some point before the postseason began. The 32-year-old has been on leave for nearly the entire 2025/26 season after being arrested in October in connection with a federal investigation into illegal gambling. He pleaded not guilty in December to charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
The Heat kept Rozier on their 15-man roster through the trade deadline due to the possibility that they might be able to use his expiring $26.6MM contract in a deal for matching purposes. However, no appealing trade opportunities arose.
Presumably, the Heat would also still like to recoup some of Rozier’s $26.6MM salary — they may be able to do so, depending on how his case plays out in the courts. But with the guard’s contract set to expire and no chance that he’ll contribute to the Heat in the play-in tournament, it didn’t make sense to keep him on the roster any longer.
Typically, the deadline to waive a player on an expiring contract would have been Thursday, but because none of Sunday’s games are starting before 6:00 pm Eastern time, a player waived before 5:00 pm ET on Friday will clear waivers in time to give all 30 teams a shot at him before their final game of the season (though, of course, no team will be signing Rozier).
The Heat will have an open roster spot after waiving Rozier and local beat writers have suggested as of late that elevating a two-way player to a standard contract is a real possibility. None of Miami’s three players on two-way deals have played significant roles this season, with Jahmir Young appearing in 12 games, Vladislav Goldin playing in seven, and Trevor Keels seeing action in six, but the club may like the idea of locking up one of them to a favorable multiyear contract.
The Heat will have until Sunday to sign a 15th man.
Heat Still Expected To Waive Rozier Before Postseason
Veteran guard Terry Rozier has remained on the Heat‘s roster all season long despite being placed on leave back in October after he was arrested on federal charges related to illegal gambling. However, Rozier’s time under contract with the team is nearing an end, writes Anthony Chiang of The Miami Herald.
Rozier isn’t expected to be on the Heat’s postseason roster, according to Chiang, who hears from a source that the club will likely waive the veteran guard in the coming weeks in order to add a new 15th man.
While the Heat kept Rozier on their roster through the trade deadline in case an opportunity arose to use his expiring $26.6MM for salary-matching purposes in a deal, there has been little reason to hang onto him since then. Miami has more than enough breathing room below the luxury tax line to waive Rozier, eat his remaining salary, and sign a replacement to a rest-of-season, minimum-salary contract.
Still, as Chiang explains, the Heat have felt little urgency to make a move involving Rozier’s roster spot since they’ve had no depth-related challenges during the second half of the season. Despite some injuries, the team hasn’t had much playing time available for several youngsters already under contract, including Keshad Johnson and two-way players Trevor Keels, Jahmir Young, and Vladislav Goldin.
Holding off on making a move with that 15th roster spot will also give the club some flexibility to pivot in case health problems impact a specific spot on the depth chart late in the season, Chiang observes. For instance, if a couple guards suffer injuries in the coming weeks, Miami could focus on adding another piece to its backcourt ahead of the postseason.
While there are no shortage of veterans available in free agency, promoting one of their two-way players in order to lock him up to a multiyear deal and make him playoff-eligible would also be an option for the Heat if there are no vets they’re especially high on, Chiang adds.
Because Rozier is on an expiring contract, he’ll have to be waived on or before April 9 to ensure he clears waivers before the last day of the regular season, as our list of key in-season dates shows.
Heat To Receive Second-Rounder From Hornets To Resolve Rozier Dispute
The Heat will receive a 2026 second-round pick from the Hornets as additional compensation for the Terry Rozier trade made in January 2024, ESPN’s Shams Charania tweets.
The pick will be the most favorable of the Warriors’ and the Nuggets’ second-rounders this June, Ira Winderman of the Sun Sentinel tweets. Given that Denver is 6.5 games ahead of Golden State in the standings, Miami will almost certainly receive the Warriors’ selection.
A dispute between the Southeast Division clubs arose due to Rozier’s alleged involvement in an illegal betting scheme. Rozier has been on indefinite leave all season after being arrested in October on federal charges related to illegal gambling.
The Heat were reportedly unaware of the unusual betting activity — or the NBA’s investigation — tied to Rozier (he was a member of the Hornets at the time) when they traded for him in January 2024, several months after the incident took place.
This past December, NBA commissioner Adam Silver said he was “sympathetic” to Miami’s plight and was seeking a resolution.
“This is an unprecedented situation,” Silver said. “And I think I’m incredibly sympathetic to the Heat and to their fans. But I think we’re going to try to work something through, work this out with them. … But this is an unfortunate circumstance. But sometimes there’s these unique events and maybe sometimes they require unique solutions. So we’ll be looking at this with the Heat and the other teams in the league and see if there’s any satisfactory relief.”
Miami still owes Charlotte a future first-round pick from that deal — it will be top-14 protected in 2027, and if it does not convey, the Heat will send the Hornets an unprotected first-rounder in 2028.
Rozier was originally placed on unpaid leave shortly after the federal charges were lodged. He later won an arbitration case, allowing him to collect his full $26.6MM salary. While Rozier remains on Miami’s roster, there’s still a possibility he could be waived before the end of the regular season.
Southeast Notes: Heat, Suggs, Magic, Vukcevic, L. Black
The Heat remain likely to waive Terry Rozier at some point before the end of the regular season, but they’re in no rush to do so right away, according to Barry Jackson of The Miami Herald.
With Rozier still on leave after being arrested on federal gambling charges back in the fall, he’s not expected to play again this season. That means there’s probably no need for Miami to cut him by March 1 to ensure he retains his playoff eligibility for another team.
Additionally, as Jackson explains, the Heat don’t have their eye on any specific players on the buyout market and would be reluctant to bring in a veteran free agent who is comparable to what the team already has on its roster. Miami wants to make sure there are plenty of minutes available for its young players down the stretch and may ultimately use Rozier’s roster spot to sign a developmental prospect to a multiyear deal late in the season, Jackson continues.
Putting off that decision until the season’s final weeks would also give the Heat the roster flexibility to see if a new hole opens up on their depth chart due to injuries (or any other factors), which could necessitate signing a veteran at a specific position ahead of the postseason, Jackson concludes.
We have more from around the Southeast:
- Magic guard Jalen Suggs, who has missed the past three games with a back strain, has been upgraded to questionable to play on Thursday vs. Houston, notes Jason Beede of The Orlando Sentinel (Twitter link). Suggs has appeared in just 34 of the team’s 57 games this season due to various health issues.
- Yossi Gozlan of The Third Apron (Substack link) takes a look at the Magic‘s challenging cap situation going forward, speculating that Goga Bitadze and Jonathan Isaac will be trade candidates this summer and noting that Paolo Banchero‘s up-and-down year is something of a double-edged sword. Banchero won’t increase the value of his maximum-salary rookie scale extension from 25% of the cap to 30% by making an All-NBA team, but Orlando would probably prefer him to be performing closer to an All-NBA level. We also covered the Magic’s upcoming roster decisions in a story last week for Front Office subscribers.
- The Wizards gave Tristan Vukcevic a rest-of-season salary of $2,857,143 using their non-taxpayer mid-level exception when they promoted the big man to their standard roster over the weekend, Hoops Rumors has confirmed. Vukcevic’s three-year deal also includes a guaranteed $3MM salary for 2026/27, with a team option worth $3MM for ’27/28.
- Meanwhile, Leaky Black‘s new two-way contract with the Wizards covers two seasons, as Keith Smith of Spotrac tweets. That means if the 26-year-old forward sticks with the team for the full deal, he wouldn’t be eligible for restricted free agency until the 2027 offseason.
Heat Notes: Adebayo, Ware, Rozier, Herro
The Heat‘s double big lineup featuring Bam Adebayo and Kel’el Ware was showing signs of success just before the All-Star break, writes Anthony Chiang of The Miami Herald (subscription required). Over the past three games, Miami outscored its opponents by 68 points in the 42 minutes that Adebayo and Ware played together. The games were against three of the league’s worst teams, but it’s still an encouraging sign.
“I think they’re both in a different place than where they were six, eight weeks ago, three months ago for different reasons,” coach Erik Spoelstra said. “But that gives us a different look and the versatility of being able to play the two of them together and pound the glass on both ends is a weapon for us. They both want to make it work. And they both know where we have to improve to make it work for it to be really effective for us. And I appreciate that.”
It’s a welcome change from earlier in the season when the two big men struggled so badly together than Spoelstra abandoned the concept for a while. Chiang notes that Adebayo and Ware weren’t on the court at the same time for 16 straight games until injuries forced Spoelstra to play them together again in the three games prior to the break.
Adebayo believes the combination can work if both players take the right approach.
“We just got to be active,” he said. “It’s not necessarily about the boards. Everybody is going to point to that. But if we’re active on offense and defense, it looks great and it can help this team.”
There’s more from Miami:
- Ware has been the target of frequent public criticism from Spoelstra, but he says his relationship with his coach is fine in an interview with Mark Medina of Essentially Sports. “It pushes me to want to get better even more,” Ware said. “I’m able to show up every day even through everything that is going on.”
- In a story on Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, which investigates many of the NBA’s biggest scandals, Joe Vardon and Mike Vorkunov of The Athletic shed light on the gambling-related probe of Terry Rozier when he was still with Charlotte. Multiple sources tell them the firm’s lawyers discovered that Rozier texted someone to inform them he would be coming out of a game early. However, the attorneys couldn’t convince anyone outside the NBA to take part in the investigation.
- In a mailbag column, Ira Winderman of The Sun Sentinel (subscription required) addresses the Heat’s chances of earning a top-six spot in the East and takes issue with critics who accuse Tyler Herro of milking his injury absences.