With a simple tweet, NBA insider Shams Charania and his partner at FanDuel sent the NBA Draft betting market into a frenzy.
Now, the sportsbook is trying to remove some of the conflict of interest charges.
Charania, also an employee of The Athletic and Stadium, swung wildly at the odds on who would be the second pick in the draft. when he tweeted That G-League Ignite’s Scoot Henderson was “gaining serious momentum going into second place with the Charlotte Hornets” early Thursday afternoon.
Bets should be flocking to put their money behind second-place Henderson after he was a heavy underdog to reach that height just moments earlier.
Within several minutes, the odds had flipped, with Henderson at -900 and Alabama’s Brandon Miller at +480 finishing second at one point.
Thursday morning, before Charania tweeted, Alabama’s Brandon Miller was the -650 favorite, or semi-lockout, to be named second.
After criticism from the sports betting world, FanDuel spoke with Action Network and claimed it had no inside knowledge of the insider reports.
“FanDuel is not privy to any news published by Shams on their platforms,” a spokesperson for FanDuel said on Action Network on Friday.
As the NBA world will soon find out, Miller went second to the Hornets — much as the betting market had predicted before Charania’s tweet — and Henderson went third to the Portland Trail Blazers.
And maybe there weren’t any doubts about this all along, According to ESPN’s Adrian WojnarowskiLatest NBA news.
“This entire time, Brandon Miller’s entire Charlotte Hornets organization — ownership, front office, scouts, coaches,” Wojnarowski tweeted.
“They see him as a future perennial All-Star.”
