Woke to a family group chat.

Had to close my jaw and rub my eyes after what I read next.

Chauncey Billups, the greatest basketball player our state has ever known, was charged Thursday morning with participating in a series of rigged poker games organized by Mafia families that cheated victims out of at least $7.15 million.

Read that last sentence again. Billups arrested, gambling, cheating — almost a year to the day he was enshrined into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame .

There are few surprises anymore. This news left me stunned.

Billups was always a great player, dating back to when I covered him winning the state championship for George Washington High School as a sophomore in 1993. But he was also one of the good guys, someone easy to talk with about hoops or his favori

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