Amid the steady rise of betting in the NBA, Cleveland Cavaliers coach J.B. Bickerstaff issued a warning about the dark side of sports gambling on Wednesday.
Bickerstaff, who is in his fourth season with the Cavaliers, noted that sports betting brings “added pressure” to the game and makes his job—and that of everyone on the court—more difficult.
“It brings added pressure,” Bickerstaff said in a Wednesday press conference before the Cavaliers—Heat game. “It brings a distraction to the game… A lot of times the people who are gambling, like, this money pays their light bill or pays their rent, and then the emotions that come from that. So I do think we’re walking a very fine line and we have to be extremely careful in protecting everybody who’s involved.”
