With a simple tweet, NBA insider and FanDuel partner Shams Charania sent the NBA Draft betting market into a frenzy.
Now, the sportsbook is trying to clean up some conflict of interest charges.
Charania, who is also an employee of The Athletic and Stadium, wildly swung the odds on who would be the No. 2 pick in the draft when he tweeted that the G-League Ignite’s Scoot Henderson was “gaining serious momentum at No. 2 with the Charlotte Hornets” early Thursday afternoon.
Bettors presumably flocked to put their money behind Henderson at No. 2 after he had been a heavy underdog to go that high just moments before.
Within several minutes, the odds flipped, with Henderson at -900 and Alabama’s Brandon Miller at +480 to go second at one point.
Thursday morning, before Charania’s tweet, Alabama’s Brandon Miller was a -650 favorite, or a near-lock, to get picked second.
After criticism from the sports betting world, FanDuel spoke with Action Network and claimed that it has no inside knowledge about the insider’s reporting.
“FanDuel is not privy to any news that Shams breaks on his platforms,” a FanDuel spokesman said Friday, per Action Network.
As the NBA world would soon find out, Miller went No. 2 to the Hornets — like the betting market had predicted before Charania’s tweet — and Henderson went No. 3 to the Portland Trail Blazers.
And there might not have been any doubts about it all along, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, the NBA’s other big-time news breaker.
“All along, the entire Charlotte Hornets organization has been all-in on Brandon Miller — ownership, front office, scouts, coaches,” Wojnarowski tweeted.
“They see him as a perennial future All-Star player.”