NBA Commissioner Adam Silver acknowledged the Miami Heat’s unprecedented bind with Terry Rozier and publicly signaled that the league is willing to collaborate on a possible resolution, even as the investigation surrounding Rozier remains active.
Silver addressed the matter in Las Vegas ahead of the NBA Cup, noting both the complications and the sympathy he has for the franchise.
“This is an unprecedented situation,” Silver said Tuesday. “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 there’s no obvious solution here. I would just say that there’s no doubt at the moment they have a player that can’t perform services for them. And as to the draft pick they conveyed — obviously he hasn’t been convicted of anything yet, either, but this is an unfortunate circumstance. But sometimes there’s unique events and maybe sometimes they require unique solutions.”
Rozier remains on unpaid leave after federal prosecutors accused him of tipping a friend about an early exit so wagers could be placed against his statistics.
The alleged events occurred in March 2023 during his Charlotte tenure, but the resulting fallout has landed squarely on Miami, a team that parted with a valuable future draft pick and now carries a $26.6 million cap hit for a player who cannot take the court.
Silver made clear that the Heat must receive league approval to move Rozier and admitted that identifying a trade partner is difficult under current conditions.
“We’ll be looking at this with the Heat and the other teams in the league and see if there’s any satisfactory relief, but at the moment there is none,” he said.
The commissioner also confirmed investigators are monitoring developments related to federal indictments involving Rozier, Chauncey Billups and Damon Jones, while noting the NBA’s limitations during its original inquiry.
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