Jontay Porter was banned for life by the NBA and has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, but he was back on the basketball court this week.
Porter recently signed with the Seattle SuperHawks of the United States Basketball League, where over the weekend, he played his first pro game since March 2024, when federal investigators caught wind of suspicious gambling activity on his performance with the Toronto Raptors.
InGame, a top outlet covering the sports betting industry, sent a reporter to cover the game. Apparently, it didn’t go so well.
In a dispatch published Monday, reporter Mike Seely claimed he was kicked out of the game by the team after it became clear he was there to cover Porter and the fallout from the scandal.
Seely wrote that he began to worry about his freedom to cover the game when he came in contact with team owner Pierre Cockrell before the game. Moments later, he received a phone call from the team’s PR representative (who was not at the game) telling him to leave.
The team, Seely wrote, would not even allow him to watch the game even if he agreed to skip the postgame press conference.
“I’m not sure what the SuperHawks’ passive-aggressive brass expected when they signed Porter. I wanted to ask them that,” Seely wrote.
“I wanted to ask if they were concerned that Porter would get heckled during road games. I wanted to ask several things, but was not permitted to by an operation that’s exactly as bush league as you’d presume it to be.”
Seely added that he also wanted to ask Porter about his mindset, specifically as he faces federal sentencing and works to get clean of his gambling addiction.
Porter was allegedly part of a gambling ring that paid him out when he faked injuries in order to win “under” prop bets. He has become the face of several, seemingly interconnected NBA betting scandals.
No date has been set for Porter’s sentencing. A co-defendant recently received 24 months in prison, according to ESPN.
The Porter story is the only piece listed in Seely’s history at InGame, suggesting he was a freelancer on assignment for the SuperHawks game. His byline has previously appeared in The Seattle Times, Seattle Weekly, The New York Times, Grantland, and elsewhere.
About Brendon Kleen
Brendon is a Media Commentary staff writer at Awful Announcing. He has also covered basketball and sports business at Front Office Sports, SB Nation, Uproxx and more.